A 75-year-old woman in Wonju, Gangwon, was arrested for allegedly killing her husband of 56 years with a hammer.
The suspect admitted the crime, according to police, saying she couldn’t stand her husband’s verbal and physical abuse any longer.
Wonju police filed a pre-trial detention warrant for the suspect. A local court will review it as early as today.
The alleged murder took place around 6 a.m. Wednesday, police said, after the 74-year-old victim fell off a chair while changing a lightbulb in a bathroom in the couple’s house.
The suspect heard a loud thump and went to check on her husband, and he allegedly berated her, saying, “It’s all because of you!” The woman told police during questioning that her husband’s head was bleeding and his eyes had rolled back.
The wife said she feared he would have to be hospitalized for a long period, which might prove expensive. She said she didn’t want to have to be his caregiver.
“I’ve put up with him all my life,” she said according to police. “I have even had to go to the hospital several times after he hit me.”
She left the bathroom, found a hammer and returned to finish him off. Autopsy results indicated she had hit him in about 20 different areas all over his body, including his face and neck. The direct cause of the victim’s death was “multiple injuries.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Via a reader tip comes this horrible story out of Japan where once again the mass killer had a history of mental trouble:
Nineteen residents have been killed in a knife attack at a care centre for people with mental disabilities in the Japanese city of Sagamihara.
Such attacks are extremely rare in Japan – the incident is the worst mass killing in decades.
Police have arrested a man who worked at the centre until February, and who turned himself into police after the attack.
He reportedly said he wanted people with disabilities to “disappear”.
The brutal killings have shocked Japan, one of the safest countries in the world.
The suspect has been named as 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu.
He sent letters to politicians in February in which he threatened to kill hundreds of disabled people during a night shift, Kyodo news agency reports.
“My goal is a world in which the severely disabled can be euthanised, with their guardians’ consent, if they are unable to live at home and be active in society,” Uematsu wrote in a letter to the speaker of the lower house of parliament, obtained by Kyodo.
He was kept in hospital for almost two weeks before being released. [BBC]
You can read more at the link, but along with mental health the other thing that causes these mass killings that few talk about to include the BBC is the glorification in the media that allows these killers to act out their fantasies. I do like how the BBC did find space to throw this line into the article though:
Mass killings are extremely rare in Japan, in part because strict gun control laws means almost no-one has access to a firearm.
Via a reader tip comes this unusual murder story involving two Korean businessman in California. Was it a suicide or murder, that is what a jury had to decide:
Beong Kwun Cho becomes emotional while testifying at his trial. Cho said Yeon Woo Lee wanted to die but wanted to spare his family of the social stigma and trauma of suicide. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Cho’s two daughters grew up considering Lee an uncle, he said. Their families vacationed together. The two men did business together.
Then a few months ago, Lee asked Cho for a favour he wasn’t sure he could do, even for his closest friend, he told the detective.
Lee’s motel business in Korea was foundering. His marriage was falling apart. Lee told Cho he wanted to die, but didn’t want to burden his family with the trauma and social stigma that comes with suicide, Cho said.
Lee tried to hire people he’d met at nearby casinos to kill him and make it look like a random crime, Cho said, but they demanded payment ahead of time and he didn’t trust them to go through with it. Ultimately, he turned to his best friend.
“He said there is no other way – this is the only way,” he told Trapp.
His friend orchestrated the entire scenario, Cho told police. It was Lee who procured the gun and a box of ammunition. Lee drove around scouting out possible sites, choosing a couple spots near bodies of water because he was superstitious. Lee arranged for them to go to a gun range together for target practice, and took Cho to a Wal-Mart where he bought black knit gloves and size 13 shoes – props to make his death look like a robbery.
Lee then chose the date for the deed, Cho said: his wife’s birthday. It would be his last gift.
After dinner that night, they each drove their cars to the first spot Lee had picked out, between Anaheim Lake and a basin, only to find that there were crews working there late into the night. They drove to a second location nearby, a quiet stretch of Miraloma Avenue.
Lee flattened the tyre, ransacked the glove compartment of his rental car and smoked a final cigarette. He handed Cho the revolver wrapped in a T-shirt before dropping to his knees with his back to his friend, Cho said.
“Keep talking to me so that I won’t know when I’m being shot. And while I’m talking … shoot me in the middle of our conversation,” his friend implored, Cho told the detective. [Sydney Morning Herald]
As it turns out the jury agreed with Cho that this was not murder and convicted him of voluntary manslaughter:
A man who shot his friend of more than three decades in the back of his head in an industrial area of east Anaheim is guilty of voluntary manslaughter, not murder, an Orange County jury found Thursday.
Beong Kwun Cho, 56, admitted to police that he shot his friend, Yeon Woo Lee, and left him abandoned on the side of a road near a basin along Miraloma Avenue. But Cho insisted it was at the request of Lee, who wanted to die but didn’t want to burden his family with the social stigma and trauma associated with suicide. [LA Times]
Here is yet another example of a mass shooter with possible mental issues:
For six years starting in 2009, Johnson served in the Army Reserve as a private first class with a specialty in carpentry and masonry, the military said.
In May 2014, six months into his Afghanistan tour, he was accused of sexual harassment by a female soldier. The Army sent him stateside, recommending an “other than honorable discharge,” said Bradford Glendening, the military lawyer who represented him.
That recommendation was “highly unusual,” Bradford said, since counseling is usually ordered before more drastic steps are taken.
“In his case, it was apparently so egregious, it was not just the act itself,” Glendening told The Associated Press. “I’m sure that this guy was the black sheep of his unit.”
According to a court filing Glendening read over the phone Friday, the victim said she wanted Johnson to “receive mental help,” while also seeking a protective order to keep him away from her and her family, wherever they went. Johnson was ordered to avoid all contact with her.
Glendening said Johnson was set to be removed from the Army in September 2014 because of the incident, but instead got an honorable discharge months later — for reasons he can’t understand.
“Someone really screwed up,” he said. “But to my client’s benefit.” [Associated Press]
You can read more at the link, but just like the Orlando shooting it appears a guy with mental issues influenced by radical hate spread through mainstream and social media decided to take action at the urging of others.
Apparently this elderly couple had their son plus his wife and children visit on weekends which created a lot of noise which for whatever reason set this guy off. Sadly the elderly woman was killed by the stabbing:
The 34-year-old man suspected of having stabbed a senior couple that lived upstairs from him in in Hanam, Gyeonggi, for ignoring his requests to quiet down was caught by the police at a sauna in Incheon, Hanam Police said on Monday.
The suspect is accused of having planned the crime in advance, as he allegedly had a knife with him, which was purchased one month ago, when he visited the elderly couple at about 5:50 p.m. on Saturday. The suspect had also allegedly installed a video camera in front of the victim’s home in order to find out the door passcode.
Although the husband, 68, and the wife, 67, were both stabbed, the wife died after being transferred to a hospital while the husband is in stable condition, police have announced.
“I remember having locked the door,” testified the husband. “I don’t know how he managed to open it.”
“I faced difficulties in my daily life because of the loud noise coming from upstairs,” the suspect later testified to police. “I personally went upstairs twice in March and told them to be quiet, but they kept making noise. I just got more and more stressed out as the days went by, and that’s why I did what I did.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Here is a general safety note to everyone, do not let strange people into your apartment that you just met in the elevator:
The 36-year-old sex offender arrested last Saturday for allegedly murdering a 60-year-old woman in Gaepo-dong, southern Seoul, did not know his victim as he claimed.
Police now say he stalked a complete stranger, sneaked into her house to rape her and then killed her so he wouldn’t get caught.
After his arrest on June 18, the suspect, surnamed Kim, claimed he met the victim while working at a real estate agency and had known her for about a month. He told police he asked her to lend him money and murdered her when she refused.
But investigators found no record of calls or texts between the two.
Under questioning, Kim changed his story. According to police, Kim saw the victim in a parking lot on June 14, two days before the murder. Security camera footage caught him in the same parking lot as the victim.
He tailed her as she drove to her residence because he wanted to develop a “good relationship” with her, Kim said, according to police. He followed her into the apartment building elevator and introduced himself as an insurance salesman, a profession he had started to study.
He asked to come inside her apartment to tell her about policies and she agreed. When she punched the code into the security keypad of her apartment, he noted the combination of numbers. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but this guy was out on parole after being jailed for 10 years for a prior sexual assault and was forced to wear an ankle bracelet. However, it broke and no one was tracking him when he committed the crime.
A night of drinking on a South Korean fishing boat led to the murder of its captain and chief engineer in the Indian Ocean:
Kwang Hyun 803, a Korean fishing vessel whose Korean captain and chief engineer were allegedly killed by two Vietnamese crewmen, arrives at Port of Victoria, Seychelles, Thursday. The Korea Coast Guard officers took the suspects into custody and are transporting them to Korea. / Yonhap
Korea Coast Guard officers have taken into custody two Vietnamese crewmen who allegedly killed the Korean captain and chief engineer of a fishing boat.
The detention was made at Port of Victoria in Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, Thursday night, as the Korean vessel arrived there four days after the alleged killings.
The coast guard officers are now bringing the suspects to Korea.
According to the coast guard, seven of its officers boarded the vessel, Kwang Hyun 803, with local police when a pilot was boarding around 10:10 p.m. local time. The coast guard gained control of the ship and had the vessel steered to the pier. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but the two suspects have been flown back to Korea from the Seychelles to be investigated.
Here is an update on the aftermath of the Gangnam murder case:
Korea on Wednesday unveiled a series of measures aimed at creating a more equal society for women, about a month after a woman was killed by a stranger in a high-traffic neighborhood in Seoul.
The murder sent a shockwave through a nation that has made strides in recent years but apparently leaves much to be desired in areas of gender equality.
The measures announced Wednesday focus on preventing hate crimes against women, better protecting victims of such crimes and raising awareness for gender equality in the country, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said. It held ministerial-level talks with the Ministry of Education and the National Police Agency.
The measures are a follow-up to the first batch announced earlier this month when Korea decided to seek the maximum default sentence for hate crimes against women and actively appeal sentences that fall short. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but the murder of the young Korean woman in Gangnam reminds me so much of the Orlando shooting debate. The scale of the two murders is no where near the same, but both led to false national debates. For the Orlando shooting the debate has centered on banning so called “assault rifles” though no one has shown any evidence the terrorist would not have shot up that night club if every AR-15 in the country was confiscated. The real problem appears to be once again a person with a history of mental trouble that was easily influenced by radical Islamic extremism.
In the Gangman murder the national debate in Korea has been about hate crimes against women when the murderer for years was in and out of mental hospitals and became homeless because his family could no longer handle caring for him due to his mental illness. In my opinion the national debate to respond to both murder incidents does not address the core problems, but instead have been hijacked by activists to push pet political causes.
The suspect in the murder on Mount Sapae in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi, changed his story and admitted he initially tried to rape the victim.
Uijeongbu police announced on Tuesday that they found problems with the suspected culprit’s denial of rape in the initial questioning.
“While conducting analysis at the crime scene and reconstructing the crime, we found some contradictions with the culprit’s testimony,” an official in charge said. “We then used a lie detector to find out that he actually had attempted to rape the victim before killing and robbing her.”
The suspected culprit, surnamed Jeong, confessed to having initially denied raping the victim in order to avoid heavier punishment. The 45-year-old turned himself in on Friday after strangling a 55-year-old woman to death and robbing her of cash on Mount Sapae on June 7. The body of the woman was found on Thursday morning by hikers.
According to police, Jeong brought a bottle of soju to the mountain in misery after finding out he only had 14,000 won ($11.87) left in his pocket. While roaming the mountain drunk, he allegedly spotted the victim sitting on a bench by herself and approached her from behind with the intention of raping her. Police say that after strangling her with his left arm and punching her in the head twice, he undressed her from the waist up and pulled down her pants, but when he realized the victim was dead he ran away with her wallet, which contained 15,000 won and a credit card. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
I don’t think there is any more danger for women on Korean mountains than there would be in the city. That is why I don’t think these recent murders should cause people to avoid hiking in Korea:
When a 55-year-old female hiker was found dead this week on a mountain in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi, police officers didn’t want to think she was murdered.
Just 10 days before and 7 kilometers (4 miles) away on a different mountain, a 60-year-old woman was stabbed to death by a man recently released from prison. Murders are hardly common at spots where people hike, a favorite Korean pastime.
But on Thursday, police acknowledged that the 55-year-old appears to have been choked to death. Autopsy results found bruises “all over her body.”
A sexual assault is also possible.
Police are now wondering whether lone female hikers have become new targets for brutal killings.
“When a murder case unfolds on a mountain, very rarely can you find a witness,” said Lee Yoon-ho, a police administration professor at Dongguk University in Jung District, central Seoul.
The police have no suspects in the alleged murder case on Mount Sapae (1,808 feet), where the 55-year-old was choked, which is one of the most popular hiking destinations in Gyeonggi.
A lot of women say they are less keen to go hiking alone.
On a recent visit to the scene of the crime on Mount Surak (2,100 feet), where the 60-year-old was stabbed, very few people were spotted. Even male hikers admitted they were feeling slightly anxious. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but the article calls for CCTV camera to be set up along popular hiking trails to protect hikers. It seems a bit overboard to me to put up CCTV cameras all over the country to protect against crimes. If people are so concerned for their safety than carry some pepper spray for personal protection.
