On March 31st, prosecutors have sought the death penalty for a potter husband accused of murdering his wife and son. Prosecutors said that the husband took the victims' lives with a brutal method. After the crime, he covered up the crime, rode a horse, and watched a movie. Also, despite numerous evidence, he only made lame excuses and showed no remorse, repentance, or sorry for the victims.

▲ A potter husband accused of murdering his wife and son.

Gwanak-gu Mother and Son Murder occurred last August 21st. The father of his wife found his daughter and grandson stabbed to death in a multi-family home when he went to his daughter's house because of daughter's absence. There were no witnesses as well as obvious material evidence such as criminal tools and closed-circuit television. Also, there was no sign of an outside invasion like a forced opening of the front door and no missing valuables. The victim shed a lot of blood, but no bloodstained fingerprints or footprints were found in the suspect's genes.

▲ The victim shed a lot of blood, but no bloodstained fingerprints or footprints were found.

There are two main reasons why the prosecution indicted the husband. First, the husband had no affection for his family enough to mercilessly kill his wife and son. Because the victims' deaths are fatal wounds on the neck, it is believed that the killer attacked them with the apparent intent to bring them to death, not accidentally killing them. The husband had a secret mistress even before he got married. The second one is an economic difficulty. The wife provided a number of financial support, including a pottery battle, but she cut off the support as the relationship deteriorated. Prosecutors suspected that the husband killed his wife and son and tried to cover the money needed to run the workshop and gamble with death insurance.

▲ There are two main reasons why the prosecution indicted the husband.

The husband denied his crime, claiming that his wife and son were sleeping when he left home to go to the workshop and that the estimated time of death through the contents of the stomach is hard to trust. Given the conflict between the defendant and the prosecution's claims, future rulings are hard to predict. What the judiciary should do is not to create an unjust defendant or an unjust victim.

April 5th, 2020

by Pyo Seung Hui