Grief, action after a killing

As police continued their search yesterday for three men who ambushed and killed businessman Robert Chae, Korean American leaders mobilized to raise reward money and plan ways to better protect their community.

"We're really thinking about our way of life," George Choi said. "A lot of people are frightened about this incident."

Choi owns a Center City beauty-supply store, just as Chae did, and lives near the Chae home in Montgomery Township in eastern Montgomery County.

While he struggled through a day of work yesterday at Penncrest Beauty Supply on Chestnut Street - "we feel like we are in the air and still in shock" - Choi organized a meeting of community and business leaders for 7:30 tonight at Seorabul, a Korean restaurant in North Philadelphia.

"We're going to focus on catching the suspects" by raising reward money, Choi said. "The second thing we're going to talk about is how we can be prepared to prevent further incidents."

Police said they believed Chae's attackers had studied his routine at work and at home before implementing a vicious attack and robbery about 5 a.m. Friday as the 58-year-old father of two was about to leave his home for work.

Chae was slain one month after police arrested five men accused of at least 10 robberies in Delaware County and Southwest Philadelphia, some of which involved Asian business owners who were followed home.

The Korean business community sees itself as "a crime target," said Moo O. Yoo, founder and director of the Korean Community Service Center in Olney.

"It's a crime trend not only at active businesses, but where [owners] live," said Yoo, 67, of Blue Bell. "That's very scary."

His 29-year-old center addresses a variety of needs of an estimated 70,000 Koreans living in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, including placing them in jobs, teaching them English, and helping them become U.S. citizens.

At work tomorrow, Yoo said, he intends to get busy on developing crime-prevention programs for Korean business owners.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman lauded the idea yesterday, adding: "I'm hoping to be the point person. There's a lot that we can do.

"The first thing people can do to keep themselves safe is to be aware of their surroundings."

Chae apparently was unaware of what lurked outside his home Friday morning.

He was attacked immediately after he opened the garage door of his two-story, four-bedroom house on upscale Gwynmont Drive, just off Route 202, about one mile from the Montgomery Mall. He and his wife, Janice, were headed to their shop at 2 Penn Center, in the concourse between Suburban Station and City Hall.

Chae reportedly was stabbed to death. The assailants then forced Janice Chae and the couple's adult son and daughter, who had been sleeping upstairs, to the basement and bound them with duct tape, police said.

In response to her attackers' demand to know where the family kept its money, Janice Chae led two of them to a safe inside the house and opened it, while the third intruder stood guard over her children, ages 29 and 23. Sometime later, she escaped through a sliding glass door in the basement and ran to neighbors for help.

The robbers drove off in a dark SUV, police said.

Yesterday, as a township police cruiser sat at the end of the Chae driveway and yellow police tape lined the front yard, Myong Baek, 35, who knows the Chae family through Yuoung-Sang Presbyterian Church in Horsham, was grief-stricken and angry while at work in her family's dry-cleaning shop, Welsh Cleaners, in Maple Glen.

She was also there Friday when a flood of calls came in from church friends and other acquaintances about Chae's death.

When the Montgomery Township resident ended her 12-hour shift at 7 p.m., she went straight to church to pray for Chae and his family. She will be back there today doing the same.

Noting that Chae's dedication to working long hours to provide for his family - as do the many other small-business owners in the Korean community - was cruelly rewarded, Baek said: "It makes me disgusted."

"Look how he ends up his life," she added. "We have to be more careful and cautious."

Micah Pak, an associate pastor at the church, said he would urge congregants to pray not just for the Korean community but for "whoever the other side might be so that we would be united as a community."

"Philadelphia," he went on, "is the city of brotherly love."

Chae used to be president of the Pennsylvania Korean Beauty Supply Association, and Choi, a member, said it intended to put $10,000 toward a reward for information that leads to the apprehension of the killers. He said he expected additional money from other Korean organizations throughout the region. The Chae family has already put up $5,000, Choi said.

Meanwhile, a week that friends say was supposed to end with Chae's sailing off on a cruise will instead involve his burial.

"Why did they really have to kill a person if they were after the money?" Choi asked yesterday.

As the search continued for the only three people who can answer that, Choi said he and his wife, Sue, intended to alter their business and banking patterns.

By Friday night, Sue had already changed their routine on the drive home from work.

"She was looking out back," Choi said, "and trying to see if anyone was following us."

Friends of Robert Chae

may call from 8 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at George Washington Memorial Park, Butler Pike near Stenton Avenue, Whitemarsh Township, where final worship and committal services will start at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Anyone with information

about the crime is asked to call Montgomery Township detectives at 215-362-2300.