The news of that day has passed, but its meaning remains with us today. "That Day in Today" reads the present through records of the past.
Three years ago today, on July 21, 2023. In the afternoon near Exit 4 of Sinlim Station in Gwanak-gu, Seoul, a 22-year-old university student surnamed A, who was earning tuition and living expenses through tutoring and part-time work during the vacation, visited Sinlim-dong alone to look for an inexpensive studio apartment. After touring a real estate brokerage, A set out to call another brokerage — which became A's last outing.
Cho Seon (then 33), who was living in Incheon at the time, took a taxi around noon to his grandmother's house in Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, then obtained two knives to be used in the crime at a nearby mart. He then took a taxi again toward Sinlim Station and, around 2:07 p.m., began searching for a target in an alley near the station.
The first person Cho targeted was A, whom he encountered by chance. He suddenly lunged at A, who was standing in front of a building, and swung a knife. Leaving the collapsed victim behind, he ran about 140 meters and attacked three men in their 30s one after another. All the victims were intensively attacked in fatal areas such as the face and neck. A was taken to a hospital but ultimately died from excessive bleeding.
Immediately after the crime, Cho, who had been sitting on the stairs in front of a sports center, was arrested around 2:20 p.m. by police who had been dispatched. When police demanded that he drop the knife, he said, "Just listen to me," and at the scene he was also reported to have made remarks to the effect of "I don't want to live in this world," "Nothing goes the way I want," and "I killed them because I was just f***ing angry." Footage of the arrest, filmed by citizens, spread rapidly online at the time.
"Felt inferior to men his age"...Search records included killing methods and vital points
Police searched Cho's home and residence and secured his cellphone and a computer he had destroyed himself before the crime. Digital forensics confirmed that before the crime he had searched for "methods of killing," "human vital points," "types of knives to kill people," "Hong Kong random killings," "involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital," and "escaping from a psychiatric hospital."
He was also found to have scored above the domestic threshold on the psychopathy diagnostic test (PCL-R). The test evaluates lack of empathy, impulsivity, and callousness, and in Korea a score of 25 or higher is typically classified as indicating psychopathic tendencies.
During the investigation, Cho stated, "I live an unhappy life, so I wanted to make others unhappy too." As for why he chose Sinlim Station as the crime location, he said, "I knew it was a place with many people."
Prosecutors concluded that after repeated failures in school and work life and social isolation, Cho had developed strong feelings of inferiority and hostility toward men his own age. During his activity on internet communities, he had been sued over insulting posts, and receiving a police summons four days before the incident was seen as one of the triggers that led him to decide to commit the crime.
"Cho's inferiority toward men his age turned into anger, and he targeted only young men for his attacks," prosecutors explained in court. "He committed the crime as if playing a computer game."
According to police investigation, Cho had a total of 17 prior convictions and investigation records before the incident, and had repeatedly engaged in delinquency from childhood, entering juvenile detention centers several times.
Bereaved family: "Just because she caught his eye first"...Death penalty controversy and confirmed life imprisonment
After the incident, the bereaved family of the deceased A posted on the National Assembly's public petition platform, writing, "My younger sibling went to a real estate agency to find an inexpensive studio and was sacrificed for no reason," appealing for a death sentence.
The family lamented, "The suspect brutally killed my kind and diligent sibling simply because she was the first to catch his eye. Seeing the wounds remaining from face to toe, our entire family collapsed. Even now we are afraid that he might receive a reduced sentence through an unrepentant letter of apology and someday come out into society."
Prosecutors sought the death penalty in consideration of the premeditation and brutality of the crime, but the court sentenced him to life imprisonment and the attachment of an electronic location-tracking device for 30 years in the first trial. Cho's side claimed mental disability, but this was not accepted.
Afterward, both the prosecution and Cho appealed on the grounds that the sentencing was unjust, but the second trial upheld the original ruling. Cho appealed again, but the Supreme Court also dismissed it, finalizing the life imprisonment sentence.
The case also led to controversy surrounding the parole system for violent criminals. Under current law, even those sentenced to life imprisonment can undergo parole review after serving a certain period.
As defendants in the Sinlim-dong knife rampage, the Sinlim-dong hiking trail murder, and the tutoring app murder were all sentenced to life imprisonment, public opinion grew that a life sentence without parole should be introduced for heinous criminals.
The government prepared a Criminal Act amendment in 2023 to establish a life sentence without the possibility of parole, but it was automatically scrapped with the end of the 21st National Assembly's term.
Abolition of supplementary investigation rights, even within the ruling party "this isn't right"?
