"Only my wives stabbed me to death." The reason why the murderer of the couple's meeting was not disclosed is because

■ Broadcasting: FM 94.5 (06:40~06:55, 12:40~12:55, 19:40~19:55)
■ Broadcast Date: November 11, 2024 (Mon)
■ Host: Lawyer Lee Won-hwa
■ Dialogue: Attorney Lim So-hee

* 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): No one would have expected such a terrible thing to happen at the time. The beginning was just a little bit of an argument that's common. I went to karaoke with different parties. Mr. A and Mr. B, where the altercation took place, met for the first time on this day. The argument between the two could have been a big fight, but it is said that the group who came together stopped the fight and naturally settled it. But a short time later, two women in the group were killed. What the hell happened? Let's talk about this in detail in today's case X file. Hello, I'm Lee Won-hwa, the case X file of lawyer Lee Won-hwa. Today, we are with lawyer Lim So-hee of Law Firm, Law Firm of Roel. Welcome, lawyer.

◇ Lawyer Lim So-hee (hereinafter referred to as Lim So-hee): Hello, I'm lawyer Lim So-hee of LOEL Law Firm.

◆ [Dualization] This is the case that we're going to talk about today, it's not that old. It happened about two years ago.

◇ Lim So-hee: Yes, it happened at around 0:13 a.m. on April 13, 2022, in Seongan-eup, Cheonan-si, Chungcheongnam-do. The perpetrator, Kim, wielded a weapon on the sidewalk in front of a karaoke room against two couples who had a quarrel and killed two women in their 30s. The husband of the victim couple was killed while waiting for a chauffeur to return home after a dinner meeting.

◆ Dualization: One person attacked four adults. Are you talking about this?

◇ Lim So-hee: Yes, all four victims were adults at that time, and two of them were men, so it may not be understandable that this tragedy happened due to one person's attack. However, looking at the situation at the time, the perpetrator suddenly approached the victims standing on the side of the road, and the victims wielded weapons without time to deal with them, knocking down their cousins, A and B, and stabbing C, the wife of his cousin's brother, to death on the spot. Also, his cousin D, who was resisting by wielding a bag, was also knocked down by a weapon wielded by Kim. In the meantime, his cousin A and B, who were lying down, managed to come to their senses and run away, but Kim persistently pursued B, a woman. Mr. B ran with all his might and locked the door in the back seat of a vehicle parked nearby, and Mr. Kim continued to try to open the driver's door and finally abandoned the weapon and returned to the karaoke room after being restrained by the owner. It took only about five minutes for a horrible crime like this to happen.

◆ Dualization: Let's ask the details of the situation in a moment, and have the victims' lives been saved?

◇ Lim So-hee: C, the wife of her cousin's brother, was stabbed by Kim and died on the spot, and B, the wife of her cousin, also hid herself in the back of a car parked nearby while being stabbed by Kim, but as soon as she got out of the car, she collapsed and died due to excessive bleeding. Cousin D and cousin A were also treated in the intensive care unit of the hospital after being seriously injured by a weapon wielded by Kim.

◆ Binaryization: Why on earth did this happen? Did you have a grudge?

◇ Lim So-hee: No. The perpetrator Kim and the victims had no contact with each other.

◆ [Dualization] But why did you do that?

◇ Lim So-hee: On the day of the incident, there was a minor altercation between Kim and his cousin A on the sidewalk in front of the karaoke room. However, it is said that the situation ended without any problems as each party stopped the quarrel and apologized to each other in the process.

◆ I think it's a situation where you get into a fight after drinking. There was an argument, but when the group stopped each other, they apologized and organized each other, but then they went to their car and took out a weapon and retaliated.

◇ Lim So-hee: Yes, that's right. At the time, Kim told his wife, who had been drinking with him, to go in first, and then took the weapon out of his car and walked back to the front of the karaoke room. And he shouted at the victims, "Why are you ignoring me and doing something to die?" and brandished a weapon.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: But there was a rumor to the police that this person was drunk and couldn't remember.

◇ Lim So-hee: Yes, Kim fled after committing the crime and was arrested by the police who were dispatched after receiving a report. Kim told the police that he was drunk and couldn't remember his crime. However, CCTV footage of the situation at the time showed Kim biting a cigarette and lighting it, hiding the weapon in his pocket when approaching the victims, and avoiding the bag of his cousin D, who resisted by wielding the bag. A legal video analysis expert also expressed the opinion that Kim's actions are not considered to be acts of drunkenness.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: From what you told me, this person smoked and hid the weapon in his pocket. All right. If you put it all together, I got angry and accidentally did it. I don't think this makes sense.

◇ Lim So-hee: Yes, that's right. Putting all the situations together, Kim's words that he was angry and accidentally drunk appear to be just Kim's excuse to lower the sentence. In fact, Kim had a seven-time criminal history, including being fined for assault in 1986, and in 2013, he was sentenced to three years in prison and five years of probation for attempted murder, and when his younger brother was killed in 1989, he carried a weapon in his dream of revenge for the perpetrator. However, the weapon was directed to the victims who had nothing to do with the perpetrator of Kim's brother's case and had no face-to-face relationship with Kim.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: It's shocking to hear that there's been a criminal record of attempted murder. Anyway, as the case became known, a national petition for the disclosure of the perpetrator's identity was posted. The bereaved families wanted this too. It's known like this, but it doesn't seem to have been released in the end. Why is that?

◇ Lim So-hee: At that time, a national petition was filed calling for the disclosure of Kim's personal information and strong punishment, and the bereaved families of the victims also wanted to disclose Kim's personal information. However, in this case, the prosecution was sent without holding a personal disclosure committee, and a national petition was posted calling for a review of personal information, but as a result, personal information was not disclosed. The Special Act on the Punishment of Specific Violent Crimes stipulates requirements for disclosing the identity of suspects. It states that the face, name, and age of the suspect can be disclosed if the means of the crime meet all the requirements such as sufficient evidence to believe that he committed a specific violent crime and crime that caused cruel and serious damage, the public's right to know, public interests such as preventing repeat crimes and preventing crimes by victims, and that the suspect is not a juvenile. However, in this case, even though all the requirements mentioned above were met, the identity was not disclosed as a result, causing various suspicions and accusations.

◆ Dualization: The perpetrators who have simply destroyed two terrible ordinary families. Isn't the way to do it in our society is to bring the perpetrators to justice and punish them? How did the trial go?

◇ Lim So-hee: The prosecution demanded the death penalty on the grounds that Kim stabbed the vital point with a single attack and threatened the victim who was bleeding a lot, and that the risk of recidivism was very high, and Kim complained of mental and physical weakness and leniency.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: But this person doesn't seem to have apologized to the bereaved families.

◇ Lim So-hee: Yes, that's right. According to the statement of the bereaved family representative who attended the trial at the time, Kim did not even deliver an apology to the victim in any way after the incident. The court said it wielded a weapon in a light quarrel that can be easily experienced in everyday life, and that the court could not even fathom the fear of the victim and the heartbreak of the bereaved family, and sentenced him to life imprisonment, citing the horrors of the crime method and the risk of recidivism.

◆ [Dualization] What I've been paying attention to in this case. There were a total of four victims, of which only two women were killed. It's a man who actually had an argument. It's on my husband's side. It's on my husband's side that fought, but even the perpetrator runs after him and breaks up with him and his wife. It's torn and encourages her husband to come toward her, but this person turns around and chases her. I think there is a part to be considered a misogynistic crime considering all these parts of pursuing to the end and committing murder.

◇ Lim So-hee: As you said, this is a case that has enough room to be seen as a misogynistic crime. Judging from the fact that he followed A's wife B to the end, not his cousin A, who had an argument all of a sudden, Kim seems to have attacked B more actively because he thought that B, a woman, would be easier to subdue than A, and would not be resisted or countered when he exercised his physical strength. This is one of the main aspects of misogynistic crimes.

◆ Dualization: It's a way to find an opponent that's easy to attack. But in our legal system, there are no separate standards for punishment for hate crimes and other hate crimes according to gender, right?

◇ Lim So-hee: Yes, that's right. There is no law yet in Korea that aggravates hate crimes. However, misogynistic crimes, such as the murder of a woman in Gangnam Station in 2016 and the assault of a woman in Seoul Station in 2020, are increasing day by day.

◆ Dualization: I suddenly wonder if there are such regulations that punish hate crimes in other countries or what measures are in place to eradicate hate crimes.

◇ Lim So-hee: In the case of the United States, the hate crime statistics law has been created since 1990 and statistics have been published every year, and the hate crime prevention law has also been enacted and implemented in 2009. Germany also defines crimes committed on the grounds of gender, race, mental or physical disability as hate crimes and punishes misogynistic crimes as one of the types of hate crimes. Latin American countries such as Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and El Salvador have enacted laws related to the murder of women and have also defined misogynistic killings as one of the types. It is time for Korea to make efforts to build a safer society for all members of society by legally conceptualizing misogynistic crimes and strengthening punishment.

◆ Dualization: Unlike other multiracial countries, Korea is composed of one race, so I think that perception of hate crimes itself is a little weak. I think a forward-looking attitude is needed in this regard. Case X File Today, we looked at the murder of the Cheonan stabbing rampage that killed two people by wielding a weapon against two couples who had never met before. The two families were completely destroyed by this incident. Both families had young children, and they only found out at the funeral that their mothers had been murdered. The perpetrator of this case is. He was also a bereaved family member who lost his brother in a murder case more than 30 years ago. So shouldn't you have known better than anyone else how painful it is to lose a family member to someone's crime and it should never be? That's all we've prepared for today. You all deserve to be defended. Thank you all for the case files.