Wilberger suspect has airtight alibi, his lawyer says

PORTLAND, Ore. — "Significant evidence" links a Tigard man to the disappearance of a 19-year-old college student, and his alibi is far from "iron-clad," prosecutors said in a court affidavit filed Thursday.

The affidavit came in response to earlier court papers filed by a lawyer for Sung Koo Kim, a suspect in Brooke Wilberger's disappearance. In those papers, attorney Janet Lee Hoffman said her client was at his Tigard home when Wilberger vanished from a Corvallis apartment complex.

Hoffman said Kim, 30, spent the morning making online stock trades via Ameritrade, then went shopping with his father at a local Circuit City.

In her court memorandum, Hoffman also said Kim's alibi is backed up by his family and Ameritrade records — as well as a surveillance video and receipt detailing the Circuit City trip.

But Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk argued that the alibi is a weak one.

In his affidavit, Schrunk said the drive to Corvallis to Tigard is only about an hour and 20 minutes.

He also said that the stock trades were done on the computer of Kim's sister, Jung Kim, and that she has refused to take a polygraph test.

Schrunk said the first confirmed appearance of Kim at Circuit City was at 12:42 p.m. — nearly three hours after Wilberger disappeared.

The district attorney said that there is "significant evidence tending to connect" Kim with Wilberger's disappearance. "The defendant does not have an iron-clad alibi," he said.

Kim has been charged with stealing thousands of pairs of women's underwear from college dormitories in three Oregon counties but has pleaded innocent. He is being held in Multnomah County on $10 million bail.

Schrunk said Kim stole women's underwear in late April or early May from the laundry room of the apartment complex where Wilberger was last seen. Dryer lint from that apartment complex was found at Kim's home.

According to the affidavit, that lint was labeled with the name of Lynsey Foree, a student at nearby Oregon State University who frequented the apartments and was scheduled to move into the complex in late May.

Schrunk said Kim had a copy of Foree's picture and biographical information in his computer, adding that she bears a resemblance to the missing Brigham Young University student.