The news of that day has passed, but its meaning remains with us today. "Today's That Day" reads the present through the records of the past.
At around 1:07 a.m. on May 17, 2016, a woman in her 20s was stabbed to death in a unisex restroom of a commercial building near Gangnam Station in Seoul. The assailant, identified by the surname Kim (then 34), and the victim had never met before.
According to police investigations, including closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage, the assailant entered the restroom at around 12:33 a.m. on the day of the crime and waited inside. During the roughly 34 minutes before the victim entered, six men used the restroom but were not targeted. The first woman who entered, at around 1:07 a.m., became the victim. News that a serious crime had taken place in an everyday space within a busy commercial district triggered significant social repercussions immediately after the incident.
◇ "I was disrespected by women," the suspect said. Investigators ruled it a 'random killing'
Immediately after his arrest, the assailant told police that "he committed the crime because he had been routinely disrespected by women." The remark made the question of whether the case constituted a "misogynistic crime" a central issue in the early stages of the investigation.
However, based on profiler interviews and psychological evaluations, police and prosecutors concluded that the case was not a hate crime but rather a typical "random crime (aberrant-motive crime)" stemming from schizophrenia. They determined that the crime was triggered after the assailant had stopped long-term psychiatric treatment, which deepened his persecutory delusions.
On April 13, 2017, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling sentencing the defendant, who had been indicted on murder charges, to 30 years in prison. While acknowledging diminished mental capacity due to schizophrenia, the court imposed a heavy sentence in light of the gravity and premeditation of the crime. Orders for treatment custody and the attachment of an electronic location-tracking device for 20 years were also maintained.
In May 2026, marking the 10th anniversary of the incident, civic groups gathered again at Gangnam Station to call for solutions to safety issues. On the 11th, 129 organizations including the Seoul Women's Association held a press conference near Exit 10 of Gangnam Station and declared the period through the 17th as the "Memorial Week for the 10th Anniversary of the Gangnam Station Femicide." They demanded that the government prepare measures against structural violence, saying, "Over the past 10 years, various forms of violence against women, including illegal filming and dating violence, have continued."
◇ Memorial post-it notes at Gangnam Station Exit 10... 'Violence against women' becomes public debate
Apart from the legal verdict, citizens connected the case to broader questions of women's safety. In the immediate aftermath, post-it notes and white chrysanthemums in memory of the victim were placed in front of Exit 10 of Gangnam Station. The notes carried messages such as "Rest in peace" and "It could have been me."
The wave of mourning led to discussions about the structural vulnerability of unisex restrooms and the need for separated spaces. It also expanded into a broader movement calling for public debate on gender-based violence and improvements to related laws and institutions.
◇ Marking the 10th anniversary in 2026... Civic groups urge "measures against violence against women"
