South Korea Sunken Ferry: Yoo Dae-gyun, Son Of Sewol Owner, Detained By Police

The oldest son of the owner of the company that operated the South Korean ferry that sunk in April was detained by South Korean authorities after two months on the lam, the Associated Press reported Friday.

Yoo Dae-gyun, the son of late Chonghaejin Marine Co. owner Yoo Byung-eun, was apprehended by South Korean police at an office near Seoul. His apprehension came three days after Yoo Byung-eun was found dead. While his father owned the company that operated the Sewol, the South Korean ferry that sunk off the country’s southeastern coast, Yoo Dae-gyun was a major shareholder in the company. The family has been accused of corruption, which South Korean authorities say may have been a factor in the sinking of the Sewol that killed 302 people, many of them students.

Yoo Dae-gyun’s detention came the same day South Korea’s state forensic agency said it couldn't determine Yoo Byung-eun’s cause of death because his body was badly decomposed, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported. The body was discovered in a remote area of South Korea following a nationwide manhunt.

"It was impossible to conclude the cause of death since Yoo's body was in a very advanced stage of decomposition," Seo Joong-seok, director of South Korea’s National Forensic Service, said Friday, adding that it was unclear whether he died of natural causes or foul play. But forensics experts were able to rule out that Yoo Byung-eun died “from drugs or had been killed by a poisonous animal.”