■ Broadcasting: FM 94.5 (06:40~06:55, 12:40~12:55, 19:40~19:55)
■ Broadcast Date: October 15, 2024 (Tue)
■ Host: Attorney Lee Won-hwa
■ Lawyer Ahn Soo-jin
* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information.
◆ Lawyer Lee Won-hwa (hereinafter referred to as Lee Won-hwa): If my parents who gave birth and raised me suddenly die in an accident one day, is there anything else that sad? Have you heard of crocodile tears? Crocodiles do not shed tears when they are sick or sad, unlike humans. Rather, I cry when I try to eat something. You might think it's because you feel sorry for the creatures that eat it, but it's just a structure where tears flow naturally because the nerves that move the mouth and the nerves of the tear glands are the same. As a result, tears that are shed emotionless and false are often expressed as crocodile tears. What did you hear about A's tears that suddenly lost his father? A few days later, it was revealed that A's tears were just crocodile tears. Why did Mr. A, who was an incumbent professor respected by the overseas students, kill his father? Let's take a closer look at this case in today's case X file. Hello, I'm Lee Won-hwa, the case X file of lawyer Lee Won-hwa. Today, we are also with lawyer Ahn Soo-jin of Law Firm Roel. Welcome, lawyer.
◇ Lawyer Ahn Soo-jin (hereinafter referred to as Ahn Soo-jin): Hello, I'm lawyer Ahn Soo-jin of LOEL Law Firm.
◆ Won-hwa Lee: I wonder if this will really happen, but there are more cases than I thought, right?
◇Ahn Soo-jin: Yes, that's right. According to statistics from the National Police Agency, 31 out of 278 murders occurred last year, and 28 out of 492 cases, including attempted murder, failed to kill.
◆ Won-hwa Lee: This case, which we will talk about today, is also a perpetual murder case that once stirred up Korea. In fact, I think it was even more shocking because it happened in a very rich family, which is not missing anything from other people's eyes.
◇Ahn Soo-jin: That's right. The deceased father was the chairman of a famous private school foundation and was a wealthy family whose wealth was known to be worth at least tens of billions of won. His son, A, who murdered his father, also left the United States after graduating from a good university and obtained a master's and doctoral degree, and was serving as a professor at a domestic university at the time.
◆ Lee Won-hwa: You're a total elite.
◇Ahn Soo-jin: As such an objective family, the police did not predict that any of the family members would be the culprit when A's father was killed, and specifically suspected that the murder method of stabbing A's father was so professional and brutal that it was a contract murder aimed at A's father's enormous wealth. However, as the investigation progressed, it gradually weighed on the possibility of internal action.
◆ Won-Won-Won: What was it about?
◇Ahn Soo-jin: Witnesses' statement that they saw A coming home with a big bag has been secured. Another witness also stated that there was a blood stain on A's face, which he met in the elevator on the night of the incident, and that he was hiding something in the sleeve of his sportswear. In addition, given that A was having difficulty with about 2.4 billion won in debt due to his business not going well, the police also put A on the investigation network and gave A's mother a statement that he/she was considered a prime suspect, considering that he/she was in mourning instead.
◆ Lee Won-hwa: 2.4 billion won is still a lot of money, and it was 30 years ago that the incident occurred in 1995. So I think it's going to be a really big amount of money. I owe you such a big amount of money, and it wasn't easy, but of course you asked your father for help, right?
◇Ahn Soo-jin: That's right. Mr. A faced a huge debt in the business process and was on the verge of bankruptcy soon, and he asked his father for financial help for the purpose of repaying it and doing business again, but he refused, so he killed his father and inherited the inheritance to repay the debt.
◆ Won-hwa Lee: It reminds me of a movie. This son prepared the crime very carefully.
◇Ahn Soo-jin: That's right. Two days before the incident, A purchased not only crime tools but also clothes to wear immediately after the crime at Cheonggye Stream, and even practiced rehearsal with the crime tools hidden in the car. In particular, A showed a very meticulous appearance by practicing rehearsal and ripping off the bathroom window connected to his parents' room through the veranda used as a break-in route at the time of the crime, and then measuring the time to return to his room. Also, on the day of the incident, my parents are worried as I have a drinking party with my colleagues to make an alibi. After waking up to go home for a while, he turned on the boiler thermostat in the living room bath in advance to prevent his mother watching TV from hearing the signs of being popular, and as if he had practiced rehearsal, he broke into the main room and killed his father with two towels covering his face. Afterwards, A put the crime tool in the trunk of a colleague's car parked in front of the house in a chaotic situation, went to a building, threw the knife into a nearby sewer, and threw the bag into a nearby garbage dump.
◆ Won-hwa Lee: That's a perfect planned crime.
◇Ahn Soo-jin: When asked by the police whether he had learned criminal techniques from martial arts novels or cartoons at the time of the police investigation, A stated that the criminal acts of criminals that often appear in detective Colombo, a TV drama he enjoyed, have not been out of his mind since he decided to commit the crime. According to media reports at the time, A seemed to have hesitated a little even after deciding to commit the crime, and even before the incident, he/she returned home after drinking, but he/she delayed the crime by a day due to a change of heart that he/she could not kill his/her father when he/she saw his/her parents at home. In any case, after stabbing his father, A returned to his room through the veranda, and immediately covered his bloodstains by wearing a large outfit he had purchased with a crime tool on top of his bloodstained clothes after hearing his mother scream. Then he took his father, who he stabbed, to the hospital, and he ended up dying.
◆ Won-hwa Lee: What I think is that his acting ability is great is that he also complained to the detectives at the funeral hall to catch the criminal and to relieve the grudge. Anyway, was the motive money after all?
◇Ahn Soo-jin: The police questioned that it would not be easy for a professor who had studied abroad to kill his father because of money, and A stated that it was only because of the pressure of funds even after the police questioned him about his real motive. The prosecution, which took over the investigation at the time, concluded that a combination of factors may have contributed to A's motive, including the fact that his father, who learned that A's creditors called A's house and asked him to pay off his debt, severely reprimanded A's poor management, that his father's will was set against his eldest son, A, that there had been conflicts between his father due to religious issues, and that his child in the U.S. was denied financial requests even when he was about to have spinal surgery.
◆ Won-hwa Lee: And what this person really thought wrong is that if you commit a murder like this, you won't be able to receive the inheritance you wanted at all.
◇Ahn Soo-jin: That's right. The Civil Code stipulates that a person who deliberately killed or attempted to kill a spouse or a person in the senior or equal order of the immediate heir is the reason for disqualification of the heir, and the provisions were also in force at the time of this case.
◆ Won-Won-Won: What my father didn't help even though he had enough financial conditions to help. Of course, it may be disappointing for your children, but that's why you have to kill someone. I don't care. I think it was a very wrong choice.
◇Ahn Soo-jin: Yes, that's right. In fact, money is not the only reason why A killed his father in an interview with the media after his arrest. It was difficult to endure when the conflict caused by the difference in values with my father affected all of my family. People like me are not forgiven. He also said that his child should not do that no matter what, but he was stupid.
◆ Won-hwa Lee: I think it was a late regret.
◇Ahn Soo-jin: A originally tried to disguise his crime as a robbery, but during a family meeting, when his mother, who had been pre-told by the police, persuaded him to turn himself in like this, he confessed that he committed the crime due to the investigative agency's financial problems. However, A, who was arrested and charged with perpetual murder, argued in court that he committed the crime in a state of mental and physical weakness if 10 people had to live for one person. In response, the prosecution demanded the death penalty for A, saying it was a socially unacceptable crime against humanity.
◆ Lee Won-hwa: In fact, the sentence of perpetual murder is much heavier than that of ordinary murder.
◇Ahn Soo-jin: Of course. Especially at that time, it was also when the death penalty in Korea was still in effect. However, A's mother testified that her authoritative husband caused her family indelible pain, and in the end, the first trial court made a thorough preliminary plan for A and sentenced him to life imprisonment, revealing the reason for the sentencing, saying that he/she had killed his/her father in a cruel way, but considering the family's appeals for leniency.
◆ Won-hwa Lee: Did Mr. A accept this sentence of life imprisonment?
◇Ahn Soo-jin: That's not true. Mr. A appealed against this, but the sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court.
◆ Won-hwa Lee: But there's a story that he was sentenced to a reduced sentence and released from prison.
◇ Ahn Soo-jin: Mr. A is subject to parole because he is ultimately sentenced to life in prison, not the death penalty. Parole is a system in which an inmate who has served a certain period of time in prison is temporarily released from prison if it is determined that he or she is sufficiently educated. It is not unconditionally sent out, but if the inmate spent the rest of his sentence without causing problems again after parole, it is considered to be released. A person sentenced to life imprisonment, that is, an indefinite prisoner, must serve at least 20 years in prison for parole.
◆ Lee Won-hwa: 20 years is 95 years old, so maybe parole was actually done after 2005. There is a lot of controversy over parole. In this case, I think there will be a lot of pros and cons.
◇Ahn Soo-jin: That's right. There is a sharp disagreement between those who agree that even if they are sentenced to life imprisonment for life in prison and those who commit crimes to the extent that they are sentenced to life imprisonment need to be permanently isolated from society. In fact, the Ministry of Justice pushed for the introduction of a life sentence without parole as a punishment measure last year due to a series of crimes without asking, but it was discarded due to the expiration of its term of office because it failed to pass the 21st National Assembly. Meanwhile, in this case, after A was paroled, A's mother sold the management rights of schools belonging to the private school foundation for 13 billion won, of which 7.65 billion won was donated to A after her mother died, causing controversy between the brothers.
◆ Lee Won-hwa: Case X File Today, we looked at the case of the perpetual murder in which a son who was a university professor brutally killed his father to raise business funds. Mr. A cried at his father's funeral and told him to let go of his grudge. Was there any guilt about his father even 1% of those tears? That's all we've prepared for today. You all deserve to be defended. Incident X file, thank you everyone.
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