Woo Bum-kon was born in 1955 in Daegu, the son of a policeman, and followed his father into the force. His marksmanship earned him a posting as a guard at the Blue House, South Korea's presidential residence, in 1981. But his drinking was heavy and his behavior while intoxicated drew complaints. He was demoted and transferred to Kungyu Village in Uiryeong County, a rural posting that felt like exile. His girlfriend, Chun Mal-soon, later told investigators that Woo nursed an inferiority complex and resented the villagers' gossip about his living arrangements. Whether the demotion was cause or catalyst, something in Woo had broken by the spring of 1982.

After killing the post office operators and severing the phone lines, Woo moved to the marketplace at Torongni, where he threw a grenade into a crowd and opened fire on passersby, killing six people. Chun Mal-soon, hearing the shots, came to investigate and was wounded. Woo continued shooting through the marketplace, killing 18 people in that village alone. He then moved toward Pyongchon-Ni, and the pattern repeated across multiple villages as the night wore on. With the phone lines cut, news of the rampage traveled slowly. By the time police organized a response, Woo had covered kilometers of rural roads and left dozens of people dead or dying. Three different hospitals received victims, and the geographic spread of the attack led to confusion in the early casualty counts.

Sometime in the early morning hours, Woo took refuge in a farmhouse belonging to 68-year-old Suh In-Su. He told the family he was pursuing a Communist infiltrator and ordered them to gather in the main room so he could protect them. They complied. When police finally closed in, Woo strapped two grenades to his chest and detonated them, killing himself and three of his hostages. Suh survived, though he was severely injured. Officers recovered four rounds of ammunition and one hand grenade from inside the house. The initial confirmed death toll was 57, including Woo himself, though some South Korean sources suggest the number eventually climbed to 75 as injured victims died in the following weeks.

The political fallout was swift. South Korea's interior minister resigned, other officials were suspended, and a commission investigated the police response. But for the families of the victims, recognition came slowly. The villages of Uiryeong County carried their grief quietly for decades. It was not until 2021 that the county governor proposed a memorial park, responding to a request the victims' families had first made in 2018. The Uiryeong 4.26 Memorial Park opened on April 26, 2024, exactly forty-two years after the attack. Its centerpiece is a monument of two golden hands releasing a dove into the sky, with a wall behind it listing the names of 56 dead and 34 wounded. The first proper public memorial service was held that same morning, giving a community that had mourned privately for four decades a place to grieve together.