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SEOUL— An elderly man suffering from dementia apparently fell to his death inside Hannam Village while climbing the fence around the housing complex for U.S. military families, South Korean police said Tuesday.

Yongsan police officials said the man, who was in his 80s, lived just outside the complex in a dense residential area in Seoul. They would not release his name due to privacy concerns for his family.

The chief of the station’s Criminal Affairs Division said the man is believed to have climbed the fence because he thought he lived at Hannam Village, home to about 500 units that house military families affiliated with nearby U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan.

The man had no previous connection with the U.S. military, police said. They did not know why his body was not found by the complex’s security guards or how he was able to scale the fence without being detected. The man may have been dead for as long as 24 hours before his body was found by a group of children on the morning of Sept. 3.

Alcohol was not involved in the accident, police said.

The garrison referred questions about the incident to the Criminal Investigation Command, which did not immediately respond to a query from Stars and Stripes.

rowlanda@pstripes.osd.milchang.yookyong@pstripes.osd.mil

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Yoo Kyong Chang is a reporter/translator covering the U.S. military from Camp Humphreys, South Korea. She graduated from Korea University and also studied at the University of Akron in Ohio.

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