Wife threatens wife with family security as hostage... Retaliation for divorce lawsuit
Attendance at detention examination... Silent when asked “Why did you kill him?” and “Did you try to kill his family?”
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporters Cho Hyun-young, Kim Chae-rin, and Lee Eui-jin = A man in his 20s who murdered his mother-in-law and then kidnapped his wife and ran away was arrested on the 13th.
On this afternoon, Seo Beom-jun, chief judge in charge of warrants at the Seoul Eastern District Court, held a pre-arrest interrogation (warrant substantive examination) of Mr. A, a man in his 20s on charges of parricide and special confinement, and issued a warrant, saying, "There are concerns of escape and destruction of evidence."
On this day, Mr. A, wearing a hood and mask, appeared at the court to be interrogated as a suspect (examination of warrant) before arrest.
He entered the courtroom without answering reporters' questions about the circumstances of the revenge and planned crime, such as "Why did you kill your mother-in-law?", "Did you plan the crime in advance?", and "Did you try to kill other family members as well?"
According to Yonhap News coverage, Mr. A has been continuously threatening his wife by holding her family's safety as hostage.
Songpa Police Station in Seoul secured a statement to this effect from the victim during the investigation of Mr. A, a man in his 20s, on charges of parricide and special confinement.
The deceased's brother-in-law, who met with reporters at the Songpa-gu funeral home on this day, also told his niece (Mr. A's wife) that Mr. A had repeatedly threatened to harm his family, including his father-in-law and mother-in-law.
He also claimed that the marriage between his nephew and Mr. A was due to threats and coercion preceded by assault.
In fact, Mr. A's wife was preparing to change the divorce suit to a marriage annulment suit to the effect that 'the marriage itself was invalid'.
Mr. A generally admitted to the charges, stating that he did not feel good about his wife, who filed a lawsuit against him.
However, he claimed that the murder itself was an accidental crime and that he had no intention of harming his mother-in-law.
The police are weighing the possibility of a revenge or premeditated crime based on the fact that Mr. A waited for his wife nearby with a weapon about 4 hours before the crime.
To prove this, the police have secured the black box in the vehicle in which Mr. A drove his wife to Yangyang, Gangwon-do, and are analyzing the contents of the conversation at the time.
In addition, we have secured CCTV footage of the area and are focusing on confirming circumstances that reveal planning, such as whether Mr. A visited the site in advance.
The police plan to confiscate mobile phones and other electronic devices to determine the extent to which Mr. A prepared for this crime and whether he had any intention to attack his wife or in-laws.
The police have a policy of checking Internet search records and generative artificial intelligence (AI) conversations, but since Mr. A's residence has not been specifically identified, they are first backtracking his entire movements.
If a retaliatory crime is recognized, the sentence becomes heavier. Under the Special Price Act, the legal penalty for revenge murder is the death penalty, life imprisonment, or imprisonment for more than 10 years, which is higher than that of ordinary murder.
In particular, the charge of revenge murder applies when a murder is committed in retaliation for providing clues or statements regarding the investigation or trial of oneself or another person.
In the case of Mr. A, it must be proven whether he had a plan or intention to harm his wife or in-laws in response to a lawsuit or a police investigation of domestic violence against him.
He is accused of visiting his in-laws in Songpa-gu at 5:38 a.m. on the 11th, stabbing his mother-in-law in her 50s with a weapon, and fleeing with his wife in a car.
The mother-in-law, who was found at the scene, was taken to the hospital in cardiac arrest but died.
On this day, mourners who visited the funeral offered difficult consolation to the bereaved family, saying, “We must not collapse.”
The bereaved family members shed tears while looking at the portrait photos, and also beat their chests or stamped their feet in frustration.
