Today’s story is actually based on a true incident. It all went down in this three-story multi-unit house made of red bricks, right in an alley next to the traditional market in Eungam-dong, Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul. 

Now, after the construction of this building, things took a really dark turn. Out of the fourteen tenants and employees who had spent time in the basement over the past ten years, six of them ended up meeting their untimely death one after another. It’s an age-old tale, filled with countless rumors and whispered conversations about the sinister events that unfolded within the walls of this building since the early 1990s. 

Yet, even after all these years, this bone-chilling story continues to echo through the town,haunting residents and causing many sleepless nights. 

So what happened in this building?

Why did people just die one after another?

Originally, before all the strange things started, the house used to be a simple one-story building, home to a humble stationery shop. But in 1992, they decided to give it a makeover and turned it into a three-story house. The basement was used for a small factory or a general store, while the upper floors became regular living spaces. 

The first person to set up shop in that basement area was a man named Jeong Dong-han. He was 56 years old when he moved in there back in May 1992. Jeong had big dreams and started his very own suit tailoring factory called “J Lisa.” Unfortunately, in 1994, things took a turn for the worse. His business faced a major setback, and he ended up going bankrupt because he had guaranteed a hefty 100 million won debt for a friend. Well, poor Jeong couldn’t bear the weight of it all. He decided to leave the factory in June 1994 and sought solace and some peace of mind at a prayer hall in Daejeon. But tragically, just three months later, he couldn’t find a way out of his despair and ended up taking his own life. 

Back in those days, little did anyone realize that the death of Jeong would set off a chain of tragic events. Jeong’s employee, Kim Moon-ho, found himself in charge of the factory while Jeong went off to the prayer hall. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, the business continued to struggle, leaving Kim with no choice but to find a new tenant and abandon the premises. Eventually, two years later, after Kim Moon-ho, new tenant Lee Seong-ja moved into the basement and operated a yarn factory for sweaters. However, after two years, the business didn’t go well, so she gave up and handed over the store to a man surnamed Han, who ran a clothing store. Han used the basement as a storage room for clothes but he eventually had to leave the place as well. It seemed that no matter who occupied the space, the shadow of misfortune loomed over them, making their businesses impossible to thrive. And things get worse when an individual by the name of Kim Do-kyung, the next tenant enters the scene. 

Kim Do-kyung, a 48-year-old woman, operated a sweater factory with a team of nine employees, and they set up shop in the basement. But here’s where it gets eerie. Within just a year and two months of the factory opening, three out of the nine employees die, each from different causes—traffic accident, liver cancer, and lung cancer. As if that wasn’t chilling enough, even Choi, a friend and senior manager of the factory, died from diabetes. 

What a coincidence..? 

The neighborhood was left in shock as people working in the building continued to passaway, one after another. 

According to testimonies from people who had to work there no matter what, while working they heard strange sounds—a woman’s laughter, the cry of a baby. And when they fell asleep or during night shift, they experienced horrifying sensations. Some said they were unable to move during repeated nightmares where haunting images of a young woman appeared as if she had something to say. Before long, rumors surrounding these supernatural occurrences spread like wildfire. People started reporting the presence of ghosts in the house to broadcasting stations and newspapers. When Kim Do-kyung moved into the basement, she weighed 93kg. But her weight dropped to 62kg due to insomnia caused by this female spirit appearing in his dreams, choking her every night. Determined to find relief, she performed a Korean shamanistic ritual called “goot” to rid the building of the evil presence. According to the shaman who conducted the ritual, the place harbored a vengeful spirit of a young woman, haunting not only the basement room but also the entire factory building. Kim’s belief in this claim was solidified when she caught sight of a long-haired young woman staring back at her from the mirror one day. In the end, even Kim Do-kyung, the last tenant, couldn’t bear the unnerving atmosphere any longer and made the decision to leave. 

From that point onward, the space became a breeding ground for eerie rumors. People claimed to have seen ghosts and experienced unexplained fainting spells. It got to a point where no one, not even if it was offered for free, dared to step foot

inside. The place was completely abandoned. Until one man surnamed Jang bought this place in 2000. Despite his best efforts to gather tenants for small-scale factories by sprucing up the place, it had gained quite the notorious reputation. 

I mean, who would want to set up their businesses in a place cursed by some vengeful woman spirit..? 

Everyone in the neighborhood knew this place was a magnet for bad luck, making it a tough sell for any business venture. No one was willing to take the risk and set up shop there, casting a dark cloud over his plans. So after he failed doing that, on August 17, 2002, he decided to renovate the basement and transform it into a cozy one-room studio apartment, hoping to attract tenants of a different kind. So the construction began. The landlord decided to convert the storage space under the stairs into a bathroom. However, there was something that disturbed him—a mysterious concrete block tucked away in one corner of the already cramped warehouse. It measured about 60cm in height, 40cm in length, and 1m in width.Intrigued and unsettled, he decided it was time to investigate further. Summoning temporary laborers, he instructed them to break the protruding concrete structure under the stairs using a hammer drill. But the moment the stone broke, a swarm of flies buzzed in, accompanied by a horrible stench that filled the air. The workers were completely baffled by the unfamiliar odor, a smell unlike anything they had ever experienced before. They brought in a fan to disperse the smell but of course it didn’t help.As the concrete block crumbled, a bone-chilling sight came into view, sending shivers down everyone’s spines. There, wrapped in layers of vinyl, was the preserved body of a woman in her 50s, dressed in a winter jacket. One side of her face was severely distorted, unable to withstand the weight of the thick concrete. For years, she had been trapped in that dim basement, hidden from the outside world. The basement of Eungam-dong, marked with a police line, became a scene of a real incident rather than a ghost story and received a lot of attention. Police found that, in addition to Jeong Dong-han, Kim Do-kyung’s four employees, just before the discovery of the body, the second tenant, Kim Moon-ho, also passed away from cancer the previous year. In the end, a staggering total of seven people connected to this building lost their lives, prompting even the police to acknowledge that something peculiar was going on. The woman’s discovery was nothing short of eerie – dried up like a mummy. By analyzing her dental records, the police approximated her age to be around 54 years old. To ascertain her identity, they extracted fingerprints from the body and cross-referenced them with the database of missing women in a similar age range. Additionally, they conducted thorough interrogations of prior tenants of the building to piece together the puzzle. After an intense month-long investigation since the discovery of the body, the culprit responsible for the heinous act was finally apprehended. Surprisingly, it was a man named Ji who turned out to be a business partner with Kim Do-kyung,

who was the last tenant to use the basement of the multi-unit building. 

In March 1997, Ji borrowed 12 million won from the victim, who needed the money for a credit card business. However, as the months rolled by and Ji found himself unable to repay the borrowed sum in May of the same year, a sinister plan took shape in his mind. He lured the victim to his factory, where he mercilessly struck her with a roughly 30cm metal pipe, delivering a fatal blow that tragically ended the victim’s life. At the time, the victim, who was 56 years old, died on the spot, and Ji decided to conceal the crime by putting the body into the concrete wall. Ji utilized the victim’s lifeless body as a makeshift support for a refrigerator base in the confined space beneath the basement stairs. He then surrounded the body with cement bricks stolen from nearby construction sites. The terrifying rumors that started with unexplained deaths of people in the area of Eungam-dong came to an end when Ji was arrested for robbery, murder, and corpse disposal. Of course, the police did not have any substantial evidence to link the discovered body to the deaths and accidents of the residents, but they couldn’t ignore the fact that too many people had died in a short period of time in one place. 

The series of unfortunate events seemed too peculiar, and many couldn’t help but believe that the mysterious woman who appeared in the dreams of the numerous tenants of the building for years, asking for her revenge, was the woman found under the concrete wall. In response to the escalating fear and paranormal speculations, shamanic practitioners insisted that a ritual known as “jin-hon-je” must be performed to appease the lingering spirit. And the rituals were carried out. And Jang, the old man who happened to be the landlord of the ill-fated building at the time of the discovery, also played his part in seeking closure for the departed spirit. He conducted a solemn memorial ceremony, offering prayers for her soul to find peace and solace. 

Interestingly, the Eungam-dong neighborhood found itself undergoing a wave of reconstruction. In the exact spot where the haunting building once stood, a gleaming new apartment complex emerged. It is known that Jang was able to build substanial wealth after selling the building at a high price to the apartment constructor. Some saw this as a curious twist of fate, wondering if it could be seen as a gesture of acknowledgment or even a gift for the man who had discovered the hidden body. With this haunting chapter finally brought to a close, the community breathed a collective sigh of relief. While the events would forever stay engraved in their memories, they could now move forward, knowing that the spirit had, hopefully, laid to rest.