Former Gi Gets Life For Murder Already Charged With Other Crimes, Man Eluded Lax Army Security To Rape, Kill

A former U.S. Army soldier has been sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a Korean woman while he supposedly was under arrest for other violent crimes.

Spc. Derrick Anderson, 31, originally of Tampa, Fla., was convicted of murder and rape by a three-judge panel in Berlin State Court on Wednesday, and sentenced immediately to life.

Presiding Judge Ralph Ehestaedt criticized the U.S. military for the lax conditions in which Anderson had been held on his base under little more than house arrest. “Without this, the crime would have been prevented,” he said.

The body of Kyung-Lim Lee, 32, a music student from South Korea, was found on Oct. 16, 1991, in a park in the Zehlendorf district of former West Berlin. She had been raped and badly beaten, and died the next day.

Anderson appeared to have an alibi. He was under arrest awaiting court-martial for two attempted rapes of girls under 16, two attempted assaults of children and two counts of battery.

But suspicion fell on him because some of those crimes took place in the same district. Witnesses said Anderson had been held under such loose restrictions that he was in effect guarding himself, and that he couldn’t be reached by telephone at his post at the time of the fatal attack.

Though he maintained his innocence, Anderson was convicted on the basis of blood and DNA testing of samples taken from the victim.