Murder ‘out of curiosity’: Woman in South Korea jailed for life for killing, dismembering stranger
A 23-year-old woman who killed and dismembered a stranger “out of curiosity” was sentenced to life in prison by a South Korean court on Nov 24.
Jung Yoo-jung was also ordered by the Busan District Court to wear a location tracking device for the next 30 years, reported the local media.
In May, Jung shocked the country when she was arrested for the murder of a 26-year-old female freelance tutor. The identity of the victim was not disclosed by the police.
Jung pretended to be a mother of a high school student who needed English lessons on a mobile app that matches parents with private tutors. She was matched with the victim.
She scheduled a session for her “daughter” at the tutor’s home in Busan on May 26.
She went to the tutor’s home in a school uniform that she obtained online. After the victim let Jung into her home, Jung attacked her and stabbed her more than 110 times.
Jung later dismembered the victim’s body and dumped some of the body parts in a riverside bush in the city of Yangsan, north of Busan, reported Yonhap news agency.
A taxi driver, who took Jung to Yangsan, tipped off the police after finding it strange that she dumped a bloodstained suitcase in the woods.
In June, Jung confessed to the horrific crime and admitted that her curiosity to kill arose from reading and watching shows about murders.
The Korea Herald reported in June that prosecutors in Busan found that Jung had called her father before the murder and made remarks that sounded like death threats.
She had also looked up a word for killing close relatives on an online search engine, said officials in the news report.
Jung was abandoned by her father when she was six, the report said, adding that her mother left the family when she was one year old. Jung was raised by her grandfather.
Judge Kim Tae-eob, who presided over the case, said Jung merited “grave punishment”, reported the Korea JoongAng Daily.
The court said Jung killed the victim “despite not knowing her beforehand for her own perverse reasons”.
Jung stabbed the victim in multiple parts of her body, including non-fatal areas such as her palm, in addition to the fatal wounds that caused her death, according to prosecutors who were cited in the Korea JoongAng Daily report.
The Korea Herald reported that the court had analysed Jung’s motive as “a feeling of resentment and anger towards her family, helplessness due to continued failures such as college entrance and employment and admiration for the lives of others”.
Jung’s background may have influenced the formation of an abnormal personality, said the court, according to the news report.
The police had also conducted a psychopathy test, known as the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, on Jung. The average person in South Korea scores about 15 out of 40 on the test.
Her score exceeded the average, said the police in June in a report by The Korea Herald.
The report did not state Jung’s score, but it said that a person is considered a psychopath if he scores higher than 25 out of 40 on the test.
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