It’s been said for the last two years running that the infamous Burger King murder case in Itaewon would be re-opened, but it now appears that it may actually be progressing.

The chief suspect in the Itaewon hamburger shop murder case, still not concluded 14 years later, has been arrested in the United States, re-focusing attention on the case.

The case occurred on April 3, 1997, in the bathroom of a hamburger restaurant in Itaewon. 23-year-old Cho Jung-pil, a student at Hongik University, was brutally stabbed to death.

Korean-American Edward Lee and mixed-race Arthur Patterson, the son of a US soldier, were the chief suspects. At the time both were 18.

Prosecutors indicted Lee for murder and Patterson for possession of an illegal weapon, and the trial court sentenced Lee to life in prison and Patterson to 18 months in prison.

In January 1998 the appeals court sentenced Lee to 20 years and Patterson to 1 year.

However, in April of 1998 the Supreme Court ordered Lee acquitted for lack of evidence, and in September of 1999 a Supreme Court trial denied the prosecutor’s appeals and affirmed the acquittal.

After that Patterson was focused on as the culprit, and prosecutors reopened their investigation, but their appeal was denied and, having been pardoned on August 15, 1998, Patterson went to the United States in August 1999 without even being forbidden to return.

The Supreme Court ordered the government to pay 34 million won to Mr. Cho’s family for depriving them of the opportunity to learn the true facts of the case.

The case has been a major focus of demands for revision of the Status of Forces Agreement, and there was also a movie called “The Case of the Itaewon Homicide”.

The Ministry of Justice asked the United States to extradite Patterson in 2009. Patterson was recently arrested in the United States and the California courts are considering his extradition.

However, it is impossible to know how long it might take for the court to reach a decision on his extradition. It remains a forlorn hope that the true story of the Itaewon murder case may someday be known.