South Korea's police chief quit on Monday following a public outcry at his officers' handling of an emergency call from a woman later found raped and murdered.

National Police Agency chief Cho Hyun-Oh said he would step down to "take all responsibility... for unpardonable carelessness" by the police, Agence France-Presse reported.

"I express my deepest regret at the police's negligence which had such a horrendous result and attempts to cover it up with lies," AFP quoted Cho as saying.

The woman, 28, called police in the city of Suwon, south of Seoul, the night of April 1 saying she was being raped and giving a detailed location for her home and giving landmarks such a nearby school and playground, according to CNN.

The woman's seven-minute call to authorities — during which she can be heard screaming in pain and begging for her life — was also tracked, however the police operator who took the call reportedly did not tell police at the scene the woman reported being inside a house, so they checked only outside areas.

They only found her dismembered body 13 hours later, the BBC reported.

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The woman's body was found in trash bags at the home of the murder suspect — near the victim's own home — who was arrested in connection with her death, CNN cited South Korea's Yonhap news agency as writing.

He is a 42-year-old Korean-Chinese immigrant worker.

Police have admitted miscommunication between the emergency call center and officers on duty, which led them to search the wrong area for hours.

They also admitted giving the media an exaggerated number of officers sent to check the neighborhood after the case started to make headlines, AFP wrote.

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