The son who became the body after leaving with the stepfather. Intellectually disabled 母 eagerly sought

[사진 셔터스톡]

On September 19 of last year, a 20-year-old man was found dead along a remote road in Imsil, Jeollabuk-do. There was no doubt that he was killed due to a head injury. The man was found to be Mr. A, who had a second degree of mental retardation and was reported missing two weeks ago. Stepfather B, who was identified as a strong suspect, denied the crime from the investigation stage to the Supreme Court. In this case, there is no direct evidence that Mr. B committed the crime, such as witnesses, tools of the crime, and CCTV footage of the crime scene. However, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment, saying it was true that Mr. B was murdered.

Mr. A had a mother, an older sister, and an older brother. All suffered from mental retardation disorders, albeit to varying degrees. After September 3, when her son did not return home, the mother who reported running away hung a banner for the missing person, handed out flyers, and found Mr. A.

However, on the morning of Mr. A’s disappearance, it was discovered on CCTV that someone was riding in the stepfather’s car. At the time of his death, he was a man wearing the same color as Mr. A. B’s car was also caught passing through a town two minutes from the body’s discovery site. In particular, his car remained at the crime scene around 6:12 for about 3 minutes, then returned 31 minutes later, and this time it took 7 minutes and 50 seconds. The first trial judge decided that “7 minutes or so is enough for Mr. B to finish the crime.”

The results of Mr. A’s autopsy also pointed to the stepfather as a suspect. In Mr. A’s body, the drugs used to treat depression were detected more than 7 times the normal level. It was close to the lethal dose. CCTV video taken on September 3 showed a man sitting next to the stepfather with his body stretched almost 90 degrees toward the driver’s seat with his head bowed. In the video taken 6 hours later, the male figure did not change.

Then the stepfather insisted that he was “taking a radio traveler in his 30s to the side of the road.” But the judge didn’t believe it. This is because, while he indicated in detail the name of the motel where he stayed on the night of September 3, he could not adequately explain the unusual experience he had with the radio traveler. Additionally, the same ingredients that were found on Mr. A’s body were found in the medicine bag found in the stepfather’s car. Furthermore, it was revealed that he normally kept many medications in plastic containers at home.

It wasn’t just this. In 2015, the stepfather took A’s brother away in a car, dumped him at a convenience store, and drove home alone. A’s brother, who also suffers from a disability, committed a robbery while working part-time at a convenience store and had to live in a child protection institution.

In 2008, even before this, he was sentenced to one year in prison for intercepting insurance premiums and health care benefits that were signed on behalf of the daughter who lived with him. The woman who lives with her, who was a victim at the time, is still missing. It was also revealed that the stepfather called the mutual aid company the day before Mr. A’s disappearance and inquired about the funeral procedure.

[일러스트 김회룡]

The insurance payment paid after Mr. A’s death was 417 million won, and it was difficult for the mother, who was a beneficiary of basic life security, to pay the monthly premium of 700,000 won. The stepfather complained of resentment. He said that he had a sufficient financial margin to cover his living expenses of 5 million won each, and the beneficiary of the insurance money is also the mother of Mr. A. However, all the details of the deposits from the bank book from his stepfather were money he received from various insurance companies and basic living expenses. The first trial judge considered that A’s death insurance was sufficient to motivate the stepfather’s crime.

The first trial found that in the case of a murder without witnesses, as in this case, it is difficult to specify in detail the moment and method of the crime, but by summarizing the actions and motives of the stepfather on the day of the crime, it was determined that he murdered and abandoned Mr. A. In particular, the first trial sentenced him to life imprisonment, saying: “Since A’s mother was also in fact completely subordinate to the stepfather, so that he could control the victim’s family at will, it is necessary to permanently quarantine Mr. B. ”

The second trial and the third party of the Supreme Court (Justice Min Yoo-sook, Justice of the Supreme Court) also found that the court’s ruling was not incorrect and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Reporter Lee Ga-young [email protected]