This file photo, dated Dec. 19, 2011, shows SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won surrounded by reporters as he enters the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office to be grilled over allegations that he embezzled a massive amount of group funds in collusion with his younger brother. Chey was included in the list of special pardons that President Park Geun-hye granted to high-profile businessmen and more than 6,500 people on Aug. 13, 2015. The pardons are part of celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary on Aug. 15 of Korea’s independence from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule. (Yonhap)
I guess we will see how strictly enforced these new measures are on South Korean teachers:
Teachers found guilty of committing sex offenses will be deprived of their teacher’s license, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) said, Thursday.
The office said it will take a zero-tolerance approach to sex offenses by teachers.
The measure came after a group of male teachers at a public high school in Seoul were recently accused of sexually harassing female teachers and students for more than a year.
“Schools should be the safest social fence for students,” Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon said at a press conference at the SMOE building in central Seoul.
“We’ll take stern legal action against teachers found to have committed sex offenses. For a single offence, we’ll not only kick out such teachers convicted of sexual molestation but also disclose their names,” he said.
If a teacher’s sexual misconduct is reported, the SMOE will launch a special inspection immediately and will have the teacher removed from his or her post even before the police investigation is concluded or prosecution’s indictment is issued. [Korea Times]
Here is what civic groups have to say about the new measures:
Civic groups, however, said that the SMOE’s measure would not be an ultimate solution because most of the abusers have been punished softly and returned to schools after one or two years of probation.
“Of a total of 240 teachers disciplined for their sexual abuse in the last five years, 115 teachers, or 47.9 percent, still remain in school,” said a parent group official.
There has been many murder cases involving USFK servicemembers over the years, however there probably not one that was more gruesome than the murder committed by West Virginia native Private Kenneth L. Markle. Markle was a 20 year old medic assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division when he was arrested for murdering a Korean prostitute named Kum-i Yun in the Dongducheon ville outside of Camp Casey on October 28, 1992. Ms. Yun’s dead body was discovered beaten with an umbrella in her anus, a coke bottle in her vagina, and laundry detergent spread all over her.
The Poory Chop Store building was where the gruesome crime scene was located.
Private Markle was arrested two days after the crime when an employee that worked at the Crown Club that Markle left Ms. Yun with, recognized him.
Article from the November 23, 1992 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
The Trial
After Markle was arrested for the crime he claimed that he hit Ms. Yun four times over the head with a bottle after she attacked him. During the trial he said that she was alive when he left the room because he heard her groaning. However, Markle was proven to have lied about whether she was alive or not when Special Agent Willie Evans who was the chief polygraph examiner for the Army Criminal Investigation Division testified that Markle told him during a pre-polygraph questioning period that Ms. Yun was dead when he left the room.
Picture of the victim, Kum-i Yun.
Evans further testified that Markle told him that he was sure she was dead because he was a trained medic and checked her pulse. Evans further testified that Markle felt sorry about what happened, but that she attacked him first and that she “had an ass-whipping coming”. Evans said that after Markle realized that he killed her that he sat in a corner and cried. Evans then concluded his testimony by saying Markle also failed his polygraph test. The parts he failed were in regards to whether he had sex with her, put the Coke bottle in her vagina, the umbrella in her anus, and spread the detergent on her.
Article from the March 26, 1993 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
Instead of simply denying he killed Ms. Yun, Markle during the trial tried to pin the blame on another soldier Specialist Jason Lambert.
Lambert was 22 years old and also assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division. Markle claimed that he got into a fight that night with Lambert when he was trying to be a good Samaritan and help a drunken Ms. Yun he saw on the street back to her room. Markle claims that Lambert confronted him because Yun was his girlfriend and wanted to take her back to the room. Markle says he told Lambert that he would take her back and not Lambert. When Markle got Ms Yun into her room that is when she supposedly attacked him leading to him defending himself. Markle then claimed that when he came out he saw Lambert and he told him that he was going to go inside to have sex with Ms. Yun. Markle concluded his testimony by claiming Lambert then went inside the room. Markle also claimed that Lambert made a statement to investigators that he admitted going into the room 10 minutes after Markle left. Markle also claimed that Lambert was bragging to friends about the murder scene. Finally Markle has claimed that semen found inside of Ms. Yun was from a different blood type, not his. I have seen no evidence to support any of Markle’s claims about Lambert.
What Markle’s defense comes down to is that he bashed Ms. Yun with the bottle as an act of self defense and left her unconscious while Lambert went in and killed her to get back at Markle for a confrontation that supposedly happened earlier that night. This whole scenario is contradicted by the CID special agent’s testimony. Also Lambert denied Markle’s claims about what happened. Lambert testified that he went to Ms. Yun’s room three times while Markle was inside and heard sounds that indicated they were having sex. He said he left before Markle came out.
Also of note is that during the trial the Korean Hankyoreh reported that Markle was a barracks thief and troublemaker in days before the incident happened:
First Leutenant John Glin who used the same room with Markle testified Markle’s habit of theft in court. Markle’s nickname was ‘barrack shoes’; he got this nickname when his colleagues’ things were found in his locker. Markle was disciplined for fighting his ranking officers; he was to mow the lawn in a rainy day. Markle, with a knife in his hand, said he would commit a suicide. In the next day of the crime, Markle told first leutenant Glin “If someone knows what I did on Tuesday, he will not be able to see me forever.”
On April 14, 1993 Private Markle was ultimately convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence would later be reduced by the Korean court to 15 years.
Article from the April 15, 1993 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
Of interest though was that during the conviction the Seoul District Court Judge Byon Dong-gul stated the testimony by Specialist Lambert was inconsistent and that he may have lied.
Article from the April 16, 1993 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
I have found nothing in the media discussing what Lambert may have lied about. However, unconfirmed speculation that I have heard is that Lambert made claims about not being in an altercation with Ms. Yun the night prior though witnesses confirm that he did have an altercation with her. Once again this is unconfirmed speculation, but it would be interesting to know what the Korean court thought Lambert lied about during the trial. After the trial Specialist Jason Lambert returned to the United States and was discharged from the Army.
Article from the November 27, 1993 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
There had been other GI murderers before Markle, but nothing as gruesome as this had ever happened before. Besides the gruesome nature of the crime the anti-US movement in South Korea was gaining momentum as South Korea was exiting its military ruler years and entering into an era of democracy. This era of democracy allowed long suppressed voices within the nation to express their anti-US point of view. The anti-US activist who would not normally care about a prostitute like Ms. Yun were more than happy to exploit her death to advance their cause. If a prostitute like Ms. Yun was killed the way she was by a Korean hardly anyone would care, the fact a US soldier did it is what made this news.
During the trial Private Markle was kept in custody at the Camp Humphreys Confinement Facility. This was something else that the anti-US groups at the time were able to demagogue to drive anti-US sentiment. They wanted Markle held in a Korean jail, but it was agreed upon in the US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that all US military prisoners would be held in US custody until the soldier was convicted. This was to ensure that the servicemember was treated properly, had access to an interpreter, and not put under duress to sign false confessions. This SOFA sticking point would remain a major anti-US issue for many years until the SOFA was changed in the 2000’s where ROK authorities could hold prisoners prior to trial for major crimes like murder.
Though not as prevalent today in South Korea the Markle murder case after the 2002 Armored Vehicle Accident was used prominently by activists back then to push their anti-US agenda. I can remember my unit was responding to a protest in front of Camp Red Cloud back in 2004 and activists had signs with the pictures of crushed bodies of the two little girls from the accident, but also pictures of Ms. Yun’s defaced body. These activists obviously had no shame and were willing to exploit anything to advance their cause.
Discussion
Here are some thoughts I have on this case. First of all Markle admits to hitting Ms. Yun to the point that she was unconscious and he had to check her pulse. He claims that she was alive after checking the pulse and was groaning. The CID special agent Willie Evan’s testimony directly refutes this claim. Why would the CID agent lie about what Markle told him during the pre-polygraph questioning? Unlike the testimony from Lambert, Special Agent Evans has no motive to lie. How does Markle explain away this testimony? Further more he failed the polygraph in regards to the questions of whether he had sex with Ms. Yun and defaced the body. I don’t put as much stock in the polygraph results, but Special Agent Evan’s testimony is what sealed the deal for me on this case that Markle killed Ms. Yun. The only thing I am not as convinced of is whether he defaced the body since he did not admit to that to Evans; just the polygraph points to him which is not as reliable as the direct witness testimony from Special Agent Evans. Of interest though is that Markle’s former defense attorney Lieutenant Colonel Kevin M. Boyle, said in a 2007 interview that Markle had covered Ms. Yun’s body with washing detergent to destroy evidence:
Both before and since the Kwangju Uprising, an incident seems to occur every decade that further destabilizes the already frail U.S.-ROK alliance. The 7th Infantry Division withdrew in the 1970s, one of two American Army divisions that had been in Korea since the end of the Korean War. The 1980s saw the Kwangju Uprising, and the 1990s brought the murder of Kum E. Yoon, a Korean prostitute, by a 2d Infantry Division (2ID) Soldier. In the first decade of the twenty-first century there was the uproar over the decision to resume the importation of American beef. It is difficult to overstate the deleterious impact on the alliance brought about by the rape and murder of Kum E. Yoon by Private Kenneth Markle. At the time of the crime, Markle was assigned to 2ID and stationed at Camp Casey in Dongducheon. Yoon worked as a “juicy girl” in one of the camptown clubs. On 28 October 1993, Markle raped Yoon and bludgeoned her to death with a soda bottle. Yoon’s landlord discovered her naked, blood-caked body. Her legs had been spread apart, a bottle inserted into her vagina, and an umbrella inserted eleven inches into her rectum. Markle had also covered the body and the entire crime scene with laundry detergent—apparently believing it would act as lye and destroy the evidence. Markle was sentenced to fifteen years in prison by a Korean court. [Military Law Review]
Could have Lambert stumbled on to the scene later that night and saw the dead body and then defaced it? Maybe, but what would have been his motive for doing so? He might have been pissed that Yun was having sex with Markle if he did in fact think of her as his girlfriend, but defacing the body seems like something he would not do because it could implicate him in the murder. This is why I agree with the Korean court’s finding that he probably did deface the body.
Also how narcissistic is Markle that even if he savagely beat a woman unconscious like he claims, that two nights later he would go right back to the same club. It seems to me a normal person would feel remorse and be extremely stressed out over the situation; not go to the same club the girl worked at to go party two days later.
Criticisms of the Trial
During and after the trial, Markle’s parents began a long advocacy campaign to condemn the US military and the US government for its handling of the Markle case. They would make multiple trips to Korea for the trial and the appeals process:
Article from the July 9, 1994 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
The Markle family even tried to stop the military from handing over their son to the Korean authorities after his conviction by appealing to the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court denied their case and Markle was handed over to the Korean authorities to serve his time at the Cheonan Correctional Facility where all USFK prisoners convicted of crimes in Korean courts are held. Despite the criticisms from the family USFK in a highly unusual incidence flew and housed the Markle family in Korea during the trial and paid for his defense attorney.
Article from the February 23, 1993 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
One of the points of contention they had was that Markle signed a confession that was all in Korean without an interpreter. If so this should not have been used as evidence if is was in fact used during the trial. Also the fact that anti-US protesters were allowed in the courtroom to continuously disrupt proceedings should have also not have been allowed. Such protests within the courtroom could have influenced the judges to give into public opinion.
Markle did not do much to help his cause in prison when he was punished for a minor incident he helped to instigate due to an issue with the prison mail that caused him and another prisoner to go into solitary confinement for 57 days.
Article from the December 17, 1995 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
Markle’s Release from Prison
Markle would go on to be quietly released from jail in August 2006 and returned to the US just over a year before his 15 year sentence would have been completed:
SEOUL — A former U.S. soldier imprisoned in South Korea on a murder conviction was released this summer, both South Korean and U.S. authorities confirmed Friday.
Former Pvt. Kenneth L. Markle was supposed to be released in early 2008 but was freed on Aug. 14 with two years and nine months of time left on his sentence, the South Korea Ministry of Justice confirmed Friday.
Markle’s release drew attention last week when a member of Korea’s National Assembly criticized the move, saying Markle had not shown model behavior as a prisoner. On Aug. 15, Markle boarded a plane for the States and was separated from the military, a U.S. Forces Korea spokesman said.
Markle’s case sparked debate and protests in the early 1990s after he was accused of brutally attacking a South Korean woman. [Stars & Stripes]
The quiet release was likely done to preempt any of the anti-US groups from making a scene when Markle was set to be released. If that was plan it work quite well because little was made of Markle’s release at the time in the media. Amazingly after his release Markle resurfaced here on the ROK Drop. The below link to a November 2006 posting has a long drawn out discussion with Markle and a number of his past girlfriends and acquaintances who either defend or condemn him as the murderer:
The comments section in this old posting is probably the most incredible discussion in this site’s history that I recommend everyone read. Markle continued to proclaim his innocence using many of the same claims he used before. However, when I confronted him to post the trial’s transcript for everyone to read he refused to. Being able to read the transcripts would clear up a lot of the speculation and unknown facts discussed previously in this posting. The fact that he does not want to post the transcripts for people like myself to scrutinize further shows in my opinion he has something to hide.
As if the saga of Kenneth Markle could not get any stranger it does. It turns out that someone with the same name and age of Markle was arrested and sentenced to 7 years in jail for abusing his wife back in 2014:
A Lackawanna man who attacked his estranged wife when she arrived at his apartment last Halloween, then held off police for five hours before he agreed to surrender, got the maximum prison sentence this week.
State Supreme Court Justice Deborah A. Haendiges imposed the seven-year term on Kenneth Markle, 42, who had pleaded guilty to second-degree assault, according to Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III.
Before sentencing, Markle promised to become a productive member of society and asked the judge to give him the minimum prison sentence followed by probation.
But the judge told him that the only way she could ensure his wife’s safety was to sentence him to the maximum.
Prosecutors said Markle turned off all the lights in his apartment on Magnolia Street that evening and waited for his wife, then hit her in the head with a baseball bat and choked her. She fought him off and escaped with their child to a neighbor’s houses.
During the police standoff, he boasted through text messages, phone calls and social media that he was the cause of the standoff, which disrupted trick-or-treating on the block, prosecutors said.
Sedita credited Lackawanna police for resolving the standoff peacefully without further harm to anyone. [Buffalo News]
Is it the same Markle I don’t know, but it is highly coincidental that the guy has the same name and is of the same age.
Conclusion
Unlike other major crimes committed in Korea by US servicemembers, the legacy of this particular crime continues to lurk. Every time there is a major GI crime incident in Korea the Markle murder case comes back up for discussion. Due to Markle continuing to proclaim his innocence I hope this posting helps people to make up their own minds in regards to his guilt or innocence. I think it is pretty clear that Private Markle committed the crime he was sentenced and convicted of based on the media reports and second hand information I have received. If Markle would post the transcripts he proclaims would clear him of the crime then maybe I would have a change of opinion. However, he has refused to do so which I take to mean that there is further evidence that Markle does not want the public to read in those transcripts. Overall though this case really should be taken up by one of the true crime shows. It would be interesting to see what the resources from CBS’s 48 Hours or NBC’s Dateline could dig up on this old case. I would not be surprised however if their conclusions would ultimately match what I believe in this case, that Markle was the killer.
Note:You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link:
1967 was the first year that US troops were allowed to be tried in a Korean court under the newly signed US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Prior to the SOFA, US troops caught committing crimes in South Korea were tried in US military court martial. The first US servicemember tried in a Korean court was US Air Force Staff Sergent Billy Cox who was convicted in a taxi cab related incident. However, the first servicemember tried in the death of a Korean national was US Army Specialist John Vaughn.
Vaughn was a 20 year old Specialist from Douglasville, Georgia assigned to E Battery, 4th Missile Battalion, 44th Artillery outside of Kunsan where he served as a unit medic. Vaughn was accused of throwing a block of wood from the back of a moving vehicle and fatally killing 59 year old Dok-sin Yi who was a fish peddler riding a bicycle that the truck passed. What is especially interesting about this trial is not only is it the first trial of a US servicemember accused of killing a Korean national handled in a Korean court, but also the incident happened while on duty. What this means is that USFK voluntarily gave up jurisdiction for this case since any crime committed on duty is supposed to be handled by the US military. Considering how South Korea was in the midst of an attempted insurgency operation by North Korea at the time maybe the USFK leadership felt that even a case like this one that should have been tried by a court martial would be best to have in a Korean court to avoid any political repercussions?
Whatever the reasons, Vaughn found himself on trial in a Korean court and it may have actually worked out to his advantage. Vaughn claimed he accidentally dropped the wood from the truck that struck and killed Mr. Yi. The Korean Judge said that the prosecutors could not prove that Vaughn intentionally dropped the piece of wood from the truck that struck Mr. Yi. Due to this fact the judge convicted Vaughn of manslaughter and fined him 30,000 won which in 1967 was worth about $110. In addition to the $110 that Vaughn had to pay, USFK already paid the victim’s family $2,200 as well in compensation for the accident. Overall I would have to think that Specialist Vaughn must have felt pretty lucky to not have been convicted of more serious charges and only had to pay a $110 fine even if the death of Mr. Yi was an accident.
Note:You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link:
One of the criticism often claimed by anti-USFK activists is that US soldiers commit crimes and not be tried in Korean courts. This is of course ridiculous, but it was a claim often made by Koreans especially during the 2002 anti-US movement period. This claim had no truth to it stretching all the way back to 1967. It was in 1967 that a US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) was reached that allowed US troops to be tried in Korean courts. Before then crimes committed by US troops were handled by US military court martials. When the SOFA was agreed upon back in 1967 it was only a matter of time before someone became the first US servicemember tried in a Korean court. That person would end up being US Air Force Staff Sergeant Billy Cox:
Billy Cox was arrested for crimes that are amazingly similar to stupid crimes committed by US servicemembers to this day. SSgt Cox on the night of February 20, 1967 was accused of setting fire to the home of his Korean girlfriend named Kyung-soon Eum who lived in Osan. He was alleged to have set the fire because he found out Eum had been cheating on him with another man. After setting the fire he was then accused of assaulting a cab driver. Considering all the incidents with cab drivers in recent years, it is only fitting that the first servicemember case handled by Koreans courts was a taxi cab related incident. Here is how the March 10, 1967 Stars & Stripes described the incident:
As the case went to trial the Korean prosecutors asked the Seoul court to sentence SSgt Cox to three years in a Korean jail. Here is how the June 7, 1967 Stars & Stripes described the trial:
The trial ended with SSgt Cox being acquitted on the arson charge, but convicted of assaulting the cab driver. He was given a 50,000 won fine by the court which was about $185 back in 1967. So if there was ever a trivia question asking what crime the first US servicemember tried in a Korean court was convicted of, it would be for assaulting a cab driver all the way back in 1967. Good luck though getting an anti-US activist in Korea to ever believe it.
Note:You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link:
Via Gusts of Popular Feeling comes a Korean news report about a foreign hagwon teacher who is driving a scooter and reacts angrily to being cut off by a Korean driver. He later pulls in front of the car to stop the driver and then punches him in the face.
Video of the incident can be seen at this link. Not that it is a good thing to try in the first place, but considering all the cameras in Korea it would be hard for a foreigner especially to get away with an assault like this.
This should come as no surprise that the man who slashed US Ambassador Mark Lippert was a radical leftist inspired by North Korean propaganda:
The South Korean man who slashed the top U.S. envoy to Seoul earlier this year committed the crime after being influenced by North Korea’s propaganda, police said Tuesday.
Kim Ki-jong attacked Mark Lippert with a knife at a breakfast function at a cultural center in central Seoul on March 5, leaving the US ambassador with deep gashes on his face and arm that needed more than 80 stitches to close.
Prosecutors have charged Kim with attempted murder, violence against a foreign envoy and business obstruction.
On Tuesday, police brought an additional charge of violating South Korea’s National Security Law that prohibits citizens from supporting or praising North Korea.
Police said Kim’s alleged attempt to kill Lippert was inspired by North Korea’s propaganda that incited the killing of the U.S. envoy.
North Korea has hailed Kim as a hero, comparing him to Ahn Joong-keun, a renowned anti-Japanese independence fighter revered in both Koreas. Still, North Korea has disavowed its involvement in the attack, which South Korean officials called “an act of terrorism.”
Police also said books and other materials confiscated from Kim’s home support North Korea’s strategy of communizing South Korea.
In April, he told the first session of his pretrial at a court that he did not try to murder the ambassador and that he was proud he reduced the annual South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises by one day. [Yonhap]
It just wouldn’t be a major construction project in Korea without a bribery scandal of some kind and USFK is not immune to this:
Police said Tuesday that they have raided SK Engineering & Construction Co. and its construction site on a U.S. base in central South Korea over slush fund allegations involving a U.S. military official.
The National Police Agency confiscated materials including account books and computer hard disks from the head office of SK E&C in Seoul and its work site at the U.S. Forces Korea base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, a police official said on condition of anonymity.
An SK E&C subcontractor allegedly stashed away about 1 billion won (US$890,000) and handed it over to a then USFK official in 2010, according to the official. The now-defunct subcontractor is headed by a former South Korean field officer.
The police have already obtained witness accounts from former employees of the subcontractor. They are currently investigating whether SK E&C was involved.
They have also sent investigators to the U.S. to ask U.S. law enforcement authorities for cooperation in searching for the former USFK official. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but $890,000 bribe has got to be one of the biggest bribery scandals in USFK history. That is a lot of money. If anyone is wondering, corruption involving USFK personnel is nothing new. What is important is that these people are caught and punished to discourage others from trying to pull off the same scams.
This just goes to show that in Korea there are limits to free speech that people need to be aware of:
Suwon District Court sentenced four months in prison to two “Ilbe” members who were convicted of criminal insult. The insult unfolded in this manner: one defendant, last named Kim, purchased the school uniform for Danwon High School–the high school whose entire second year class nearly wiped out in the Sewol tragedy–for the purpose of Internet trolling. Kim discussed with the other defendant, last named Cho, about the best way to troll, and Cho suggested Kim take a picture of himself wearing the uniform and holding up a stick of fish cake. The caption for the picture would read: “I made a new friend”–that is to say, the drowned Danwon student is now friends with fish. [Marmot’s Hole]
You can read the rest at the link, but this seems like a pretty harsh punishment for Internet trolling. Korean men who rape USFK soldiers get less less jail time than this.
I would be very surprised if the appeals court ruling acquitting Cho is overturned because really is what she did worthy of going to jail for a whole year?:
South Korean prosecutors on Thursday appealed a court decision that acquitted the eldest daughter of Korean Air’s chairman of disrupting a flight in a rage over macadamia nuts.
Cho Hyun-Ah, who had been in jail since her arrest in December, walked free last week after an appeals court overturned her conviction for violating aviation safety laws.
The prosecutor’s office in Seoul announced that it had submitted an appeal with the Supreme Court to reverse the verdict. [AFP]
