The news of that day has passed, but its meaning remains with us today. "That Day in History" reads the present through the records of the past.
"I thought my daughter was living well on her own."
On June 6, 2017, it belatedly emerged that a man in his 30s, who had beaten his live-in girlfriend to death and secretly buried her body in a field, had his sentence sharply reduced on appeal, sparking fierce public outrage. Behind the reduction lay a settlement reached with the victim's father, who had cut ties with her for nearly 20 years.
◇Killed by Her Live-in Partner's Assault and Buried in a Field=The victim, identified as A, was raised by her grandmother after her parents' divorce before leaving home around the fifth grade of elementary school. She then drifted through orphanages, and after turning 16, the entirety of her relationship with her father consisted of one or two phone calls a year. Only the name of family remained, while any real bond had long been severed.
A was beaten to death by her live-in partner, identified as Lee, in September 2012. Lee flew into a rage because A had mentioned another man at home and assaulted her indiscriminately, and A died on the spot. Lee summoned his younger brother, identified as B, and buried the body in a field in Daeso-myeon, Eumseong-gun, North Chungcheong Province.
They dug a pit, placed the body inside, and tried to erase the traces by mixing and pouring cement they had prepared in advance. Lee later concealed the crime by telling those around him, "My girlfriend suddenly disappeared," even asking about her whereabouts.
For four years after A died, her father made no attempt to confirm whether his daughter was alive or dead. Even though the contact they had barely maintained was completely cut off, he did not even file a missing person report. Living in Gangwon Province, he learned that his daughter had met a tragic end only after police arrested Lee and others in October 2016 and contacted him as her sole blood relative. In the police investigation, he was reported to have said, "I thought my daughter was living well on her own."
The body was belatedly discovered in October 2016 in a field in Eumseong-gun, North Chungcheong Province. Because the remains were severely skeletonized, even a detailed autopsy by the National Forensic Service could not determine the exact cause of death. In the end, Lee was charged not with murder but with assault resulting in death and concealment of a body.
◇Behind the Halved Sentence, a Father Estranged for 20 Years=In January 2017, the trial court sentenced Lee to five years in prison. While the court rebuked him, saying he had "committed an inhumane crime that abandoned even the minimum decency owed to the deceased as a human being and tried to conceal the crime forever," it also ruled that "he appears to have caused A's death accidentally during an altercation." His younger brother B, an accomplice, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison, suspended for two years.
In June of the same year, the First Criminal Division of the Daejeon High Court's Cheongju branch reduced Lee's sentence to three years in prison. The basis the court cited for the reduction was that "the bereaved family has reached a settlement and does not want punishment."
The family member who reached the settlement was A's father. He was reported to have received a large settlement sum from Lee's side, submitted a statement requesting no punishment, and even handed the court a petition pleading for leniency. The father, who had turned away from his relationship with his daughter for decades, had effectively exercised his legal rights as a father in the face of her death.
Prosecutors strongly objected. A prosecution official said, "It is regrettable that the sentence was reduced through a settlement by a father who had been estranged from the victim while she was alive," adding, "It is problematic to treat such a case the same as an ordinary settlement by a bereaved family with a bond." However, since the charges were found guilty in both the first trial and the appeal, an appeal to the Supreme Court was effectively impossible.
Critical views also emerged within legal circles. An official at the time said, "Since the father-daughter relationship had not actually been severed, the court at the time had no choice but to reflect the settlement in sentencing," but added, "However, cutting the sentence by nearly half appears somewhat excessive."
As news of the ruling spread, public criticism boiled over online. One internet user lamented, "It makes me feel even more frustrated that a man who secretly buried a body got a reduced sentence because of a settlement by a father who was like a stranger," adding, "No matter how much sentencing is a judge's exclusive authority, am I the only one who thinks, 'Is taking a person's life really nothing?'"
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