Five years ago on July 16, 2021, the first trial opened for a woman in her 30s who killed her ex-boyfriend, 16 years her junior, with a weapon because her name had been deleted from his phone contacts. The defendant, identified as A, admitted all the charges in court, and the court began full proceedings to examine the circumstances of the case.
According to the ruling, A, who was 38 at the time, was working at an entertainment establishment when she met a 22-year-old man, identified as B, who visited as a customer in the summer of 2020, and the two developed a romantic relationship. Living alone after her divorce, having even given up custody of her child, A began to treat her young partner as the center of her life. As time passed, her feelings grew closer to obsession than love.
When B did not answer the phone, she called him repeatedly, and she frequently visited his home regardless of the hour. In particular, she felt great anxiety over the fact that B did not actively tell those around him about their relationship.
Ultimately, B announced the breakup a month and a half into the relationship. But A could not accept the separation and continued her obsession with and stalking of B for seven months.
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The tragedy began in the early morning hours of early June 2021. B, who was drinking with friends, kept in contact with A by sending her a photo as proof, but stopped replying after dawn. Unable to bear the anxiety, A visited B's studio apartment the following morning and found him asleep, drunk.
At that moment, A checked his phone. When she called her own number, instead of being saved under her name as it usually was, only the phone number was displayed, and after attempting a KakaoTalk video call, she also learned that she had been blocked.
A, who habitually harbored a sense of victimhood that "he is trying to hide my existence," brought a weapon from the kitchen and committed the crime. B, who awoke and could not even properly resist, was attacked as many as 34 times, mainly on the neck and chest, and ultimately died of multiple injuries.
Immediately after the crime, A remained at the scene for about an hour and a half. She then personally called an acquaintance of the victim to report the crime, and was arrested in the act by police who responded to the report.
In the police investigation, she stated in effect that "when I saw that my number had been deleted from the phone, I thought he was trying to break up, and I committed the crime on impulse."
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The court of first instance strongly rebuked the cruelty of the crime and the irrationality of the motive. "The victim ended his life at the young age of 22 without being able to defend himself at all," the court said. "The fact that she committed murder simply because her name had been deleted from a phone contact list, without even asking for the full story, is utterly difficult to comprehend."
A's side argued diminished mental capacity due to mental illness and intoxication, but the court did not accept this. Based on grounds including that the conversation she had with the victim just before the crime and the process of the crime were relatively consistent, the court determined that she had normal judgment capacity and ultimately sentenced her to life imprisonment.
However, the appeals court reached a different conclusion. While noting as a premise that "the motive for the crime is still difficult to understand and severe punishment is necessary," the court reduced the sentence to 22 years in prison, taking into comprehensive consideration factors such as the difficulty of viewing it as a premeditated crime, her attitude of admitting the crime and showing remorse, and the low assessment of her risk of reoffending.
Both the prosecution and the defendant appealed, but the Supreme Court found no problem with the lower court's judgment and dismissed the appeals.
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