Rotten Mango - #179: Dismembered Into 2000 Pieces (Nanjing University Mutilation Case)

Episode Date: July 10, 2022

Margaret was cooking up her favorite stew. She could use it. The temperature was below zero, the winter storms were approaching, and Margaret hoped the nutrients from the pork bones would give her energy. She would need the energy for her cleaning job. She took her pork bones, which were neatly pre-sliced, she took them out, washed them, and plopped them into her water. It was almost muscle memory - but when she stuck her hand in again she felt something strange. She pulled out some bony pieces in the bag and it took her a moment to realize she was staring at 3 severed human fingers. Margaret didn’t have pork meat. She had the dismembered remains of a university student. The police would find 2000 more pieces of that student dropped around campus. Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rambles. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier or pay to description starting at 12.99 per month. Bettering Better Boop.

Welcome to this week's mini-sode of Rotten Mangle. I'm your host Stephanie Sue. And it was a bleak time at one of China's top universities. Have you guys heard of Nanding University? Yes sir. One of the toping University? Yes, sir. One of the top five universities in all of China. They've actually been dubbed the Kindest University in the nation, considering it's a top five school. The exams are hard. The standards are high.

But for some reason, it's not as cut-dosed as others. Students, professors, they're encouraged to uplift each other, you know? They kind of have a mindset of wanting everyone to achieve greater and greater. They're just really nice people. They're only to step on each other to get ahead. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the campus of Nunding University is smack dab in the middle of an old residential area. There's a lot of locals in and out of campus. There's a lot of mom and pop businesses around the corner. Maybe it's that, maybe it's the fact that it's a pretty serene place.

Other than a few major roads, the surrounding roads, they're all kind of side streets. The narrow alleyways, their common in Asia, that's what Nanjing is about. It's definitely a vibe there. But that winter, was definitely in the air the temperature was only slightly below zero Yeah, nothing to shiver about by the time that it was 5 p.m. The whole area was pitch black The cold wind sounded like somebody was screaming and the screams were echoing in the distance The snow covered roads were completely empty at night Maybe everyone was avoiding the snow. Or maybe all the students were just trying to study for final exams. It was only 10 days

away. This is the most stressful time in any college student's entire career. So knowing that nobody was out and the winter storms are only getting worse, a lot of the local shops decided to close early for the night. One by one, they shuttered their doors. They brought down the bars, the gates, they locked up their front doors, and the streets. I mean, it looked like an apocalypse. Snow was covering everything. The streets looked desolate. Even the trash pickup that the city scheduled every single night was rescheduled to when

the sun came up. Maybe the snow would melt a little bit by then. It was going to be a rough winter. It was the perfect time for the women. Let's call her Margaret. Margaret was cooking up one of her best soups. I mean, this is going to be perfect in the colder you're kidding. The heat of the soup, the nutrients pulled from the pork bones, it would be exactly

what she needed. She's humming along while she's cooking chopping away. She reaches into her little grocery store plastic bag, pulls out a little stack of pre-cooked meat slices. She said that she was kind of washing them, rinsing them, you know, like you would your meat, and then plop, throwing it into the water, rinsing in, plop, throwing it into the water. But this time when she reached her hand, she felt something weird. throwing it into the water. But this time when she reached her hand, she felt something weird.

She lifted her hand out of the bag and she's staring at what's in the palm of her hand and it kind of took her a second to register. That she was staring at three severed fingers. Pro. As always, full show notes are available at rottenminglepodcast.com, but we have a Chinese case and a Korean case today.

So I had a ton of articles professionally translated. All of that is going to be in the show notes. But let me know if you guys have more details because both of these cases, I like even all last night, I couldn't even sleep I'm thinking about, wait, how does this even take place? Now you're probably wondering which meat butcher in your other university is walking around seven fingers and just chilling in the snow? That doesn't even make sense.

How did the meat butcher not notice? Was he on drugs? I mean, I heard some drugs won't even let you feel the pain of losing a finger. I don't know if that's true, but you know what they say. Well, Margaret was ashamed to say, she knew it probably wasn't a butcher's finger,

or her fingers, I guess you could say, because knew it probably wasn't a butcher's finger, or his fingers, I guess you could say, because she didn't buy the bag of meat from the butcher. She picked it up from the side of the street. Okay, hold on, before you go on judging this poor woman, because Margaret is a cleaning lady. She was cleaning up the garbage on the side of the road. She's just doing her job, and and you know it's a tough winter. It's not an easy job. Food is expensive, inflation may be right and she comes across this bag of meat and it's in this big plastic bag. Now all the meat when she looks inside.

It's not what you're thinking. It's not one of those situations where it's just red flesh everywhere seeping blood and you're like,, let me go cook this pork. All the meat was neatly cut like a butcher had processed the meat. And some of it was almost like precooked. Not that it was so overly cooked, it wouldn't work, just like pre-boiled. And the meat slices, they were organized, stacked on top of each other. So it's not like just to back up random pieces of flesh thrown in. Everything was incredibly meticulous, evenly sized chunks like you would purchase at the counter. So Margaret's looking at the bags, she's looking around in the snow, nobody's around, it's been a rough winter for everyone,

including her, and considering that there's so many restaurants in the area that we're not getting as much service as normal due to the winter storms and the neat discarding of the meat she assumed it was the leftovers of a nearby restaurant. She assumed if it was going to the landfills anyway it might as well fill her family stomach first, so she took the meat. Thinkin' it was meat. Beef? Well, it looked more like pork. She had no idea. She had taken a college student's remains home with her that night. And I prepared them for a stew. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning. And in this harsh winter, more bags would pop

up around campus. Another one. And another one. There were more than 2,000 body parts placed in bags, dumped around campus, and they all belonged to one student. Diao Ai Ting. So what's even more unfortunate would be that her murder would be unsolved to this day. But because of this shocking gruesomeness, and the fact that she was a top university student, like this is top five school in the nation and her body was placed around the school,

a lot of netizens online started talking who could have done this. This is an unsolved case, but I think we can solve it. So a man named Hai Mishan, let's call him Hank, because he's not that important to the story. Hank had posted an article and it said, thinking about the Nanding University's corpse mutilation case. I mean, a lot of people clicked, because what are you talking about? Some people had never heard of it, some people were like, oh, I've been thinking about it too.

And he wrote this incredibly controversial post that went viral, not because people thought that he solved the case, but because people started to believe he was the one that killed I-ching. What? He was the killer. Now, many years later, he's writing this article to relive his sick crime, to taunt the world that he did it and guess what?

He's getting away with it. That's what the netizens felt like. Firstly, it's that that Hank talked in this article with an air of arrogance, with confidence. He made assumptions that there was no way he could have even put together without some sort of basis. For example, he started describing in great detail about how I Ching was probably killed by someone who was really into heavy metal rock music. He said in the article I Ching's body was cut into more than 2,000 pieces.

Her head was boiled. The killer, whoever it was, must have been some sort of higher educated person. Maybe he even had medical knowledge, medical training. Hank said that a lot of other people on the internet assumed that the killer is some sort of meat butcher, a meat processor. But that can't be true. Why? Because it's not a job that demands respect and college student girls are probably not going to be drawn

to male meat butchers. So how would the killer have gotten I Ching's attention? So I guess Hank is assuming that this was not a kidnapping and that I Ching willingly went with her killer before she was murdered. You see what I mean? Yeah, that's easier. His reasoning behind his assumptions make no sense,

but bear with me. He could be pointing out to the fact that no college student would be attracted to a butcher. Well, because you know how killers have insatiable egos? Well, a lot of netizens thought. Maybe he's the killer, and he's of higher education, and he's upset that the internet thinks that a, quote, low level butcher that requires no higher education than that of an ordinary junior high school degree, end quote, was the one that killed I Ching.

Maybe he's upset. He's like, a mere butcher did what I did and got away with it. I don't think so. I did it because I'm intelligent. So for that reason, Hank says he rules out all the butchers, all the chefs, the meat processors. He hints that maybe the killer is a doctor. We don't know, but he's educated to a degree.

Hank also went on to say that he thinks rock music brought the killer and I ching together. How does he know that? Because he just assumes I ching likes rock music. And Hank thinks that the killer is a DJ. Maybe they ran into each other. Now, this is a time when having a CD player was a luxury for a poor student, okay? It is rough, you can't get one if you had one you were cool.

An ITING Meta felt honored and excited to go to the killer's house and see his record, see his CDs. She would have willingly gone. Hank even goes on a rant about how the killer probably would have had a mature, gentle appearance. Just a very stable vibe about him, so of course she trusted him. They developed a friendship of sorts, bonding over food and music. But the killer had a secret. A past he was hiding from her, that he hated woman.

He was cheated on by an ex of his, and he would never get over that anger, over that betrayal. And being so close to another one, and feeling the same connection, feeling the same emotions, it made him relive the painful memories of the past, and the anger just boiled over. And he knew that if he could just take out his anger one time, maybe next time, he wouldn't feel this angry.

And besides, maybe the killer felt that if he took I Ching and if he took her life, she would be with him forever. She would never leave him. That's the gist of the article. It said that it felt to a lot of netizens, almost more as a journal entry of a tumultuous thoughts of a killer than a true crime piece of solving a cold case. So one person ends up sharing this article being like, guys, here's a wild conspiracy, what if the author

is a killer, plot twist, and it was reshared and reshared and eventually, netizens started analyzing every single word of every sentence in Hank's original post. A lot of people dug into Hank's personal life. They found out that his dad was a policeman. Okay, so is that how we got away with it? It's an inside job. I mean, the police are notorious

at not solving this case. That makes sense. But this kind of reignited, this whole internet obsession with what the fork happened at Nanjing University. Why was itching killed? Why was her body cut up into 2,000 pieces? It sounds like an urban legend during finals week, I mean, it's weird.

I Ching was a really impressive person. I'm just gonna put that out there. She had gotten into one of the best universities, and everyone that knew her said that she was incredibly humble. She had short hair that was about ear length, and the night that she went missing, I Ching left her dorm room for a walk. Her friends remember that she left class early that day

because she started her period. She's like, guys, I got the worst cramps in the world. I need to go home and lay down and do a heat pack. She gets back to the dorms and around 5 p.m. It's snowing, it's dark outside, and she's miserable. But she's run out of pads. It's like the worst timing in the world. So she's like, I gotta go out into the snow in the dark

and get these freaking pads at the closest convenience store It's like the worst timing in the world. So she's like, I gotta go out into the snow in the dark and get these freaking pads at the closest convenience store and just run back home. That was where she was last seen. At the intersection of the main roads that night, after she had gotten some pen refills and some pads. And for a few days, nobody saw I Ching. And she didn't come back,

and that is when the university alerted the police. Listen, should they have alerted the police sooner? Yeah, absolutely. But the university dorm that she was staying at was just full-blown chaos. Nobody knew what was going on or who was where they really only had cold running water. The staff was on top of nothing and some of the dorm rooms were even being rented out to hotel rooms to random guests. So it's not like your typical college dorm, especially in China where they might have like a curfew. I know a lot of them do.

They're even separated by genders. This was not like that. It was just pure chaos. It was hectic. Nobody really noticed that she was missing. I mean, they assumed that she was out with friends studying in the library. And by the time that they realized,

I made it, it was kind of too late. Around that time, the news broke of the body parts in the bags, and everyone at school thought it was eye-ching. They wanted to help in some way. Eye-ching had like a handful of friends that cared about her intensely. They were all younger than 20 years old,

and this is important. They volunteered to go ID her body, so her family doesn't have to. Now, since the moment that there's three of them, right, they step in to the medical examiner's office and they're like trembling, like mice. They want to do this, okay, they want to do this for their own grief, their own anger, but also for itching in her family. And as soon as they walk in, one of the girls collapses.

She could not even walk in to the room where itching was. Her legs gave out and the other two girls kept going. And as soon as one of them took a look, she collapsed, screaming. Her legs wouldn't even work. She had to be carried out of the room. The other friend rushed out of the room on her own, bent down, and projectile vomited everywhere. They did idea the body as I Ching.

So you're like, how is that possible? You know, you said that they found three severed fingers and cooked bags of meat. They also found her head. I mean, I think this is the part where it's it's just mind blowing to everyone and it doesn't make sense. So let's talk about the body. I Ching's body was mutilated and dismembered into more than 2,000 parts. That in itself already sounds insane, but to be dismembered in more than 2,000 parts, it means that somebody had to put a knife to the body over 4,000 times. There were more than 4,000 cuts made on Iching's body.

Her body was cooked, neatly cut into small, like almost bite-sized pieces, some of them, some of them were bigger chunks, but they were all very uniform. It really looked like a butcher had processed the meat, and they were spread into bags, dumped at more than 10 different sites across the university, and after Margaret called the police, the police they bring in a bunch of dogs, and they're trying to find more bags with body parts, they found a lot. In one bag was just intestines intestines the intestines of I Ching were lined up arranged back and forth like you would packing tube or like if you were to paint something you know how you go down up down zigzag and it was in layers

Like a Rubik's cube some bags were found further from campus Some bags were found in the woods near the computer lab on campus. There was a denim backpack filled with body parts at the bus stop in front of the university gate. This is where students get off. Each time a new bag was found, the whole community, they feel this wave of shock

and fear all over again. I mean, it's just so sick and so twisted, it's one of those crimes where most people can't even wrap their heads around it. Yeah, it's like a freaking horror movie. Yeah, it doesn't even make sense. Like I can't even imagine what kind of person would do that to someone.

I Ching's uterus was found in a bag that was placed inside of a hole in a tree near the university gym. There was another instance of a bedsheet that was just folded in half. When you unwrapped it, you were greeted with this membered body parts. I mean, the police were able to identify itching, not through her body parts, but because they also found her head that was boiled and her fingers. But what the police find interesting is that they believe the body parts were dumped at different times. So the first initial bags that they found all contained flesh pieces

that were cut to look like pork, they look like discarded meat. But after the news of the murder hit everywhere, everyone knew about it. It felt like they killer rushed to get rid of the rest of the body parts. So they had just searched, let's say, the university gate. The news is everywhere. There's no bags at the university gate. Then the next day, there was a bag at the university gate. So it was dumped afterwards. Afterwards. So it was multiple different dumping times.

And this seems crazy because the police think that whoever the killer was dumped the bag at the university gate and at these high profile areas strategically so that a huge commotion would ensue and then they could dispose of a ton more body parts in the woods. Well everybody's rushing to the gate to see what's going on. So either the police presence is freaking the killer out and they feel like they need to dispose of all the body parts before the house searches started or they're getting balls here or maybe it's both. I, it's just crazy that nobody caught the killer disposing of any bags. I mean, fine, if they disposed of all the bags

before the news came out, I don't know if I would recognize a trash bag from a trash bag filled with body parts if I'm just walking by. But when the news came out, everybody's on high alert. These garbage bags, everyone with a garbage bag looks suspicious. It's one of those situations where if you have genuine garbage, you feel weird throwing it out.

You feel like you should open it up and let the neighbors see what's inside. But they still manage to dispose of it. It's kind of insane. And the fact that the killer got rid of the identifiable head of I Ching, that's what makes the police feel like the killer is getting ballsy. Why? I mean, if you have the head, why not try to make the head more unrecognizable? Why don't you completely destroy the head? The killer was cooking the other body parts, so it makes sense that he's trying to pull it off like it's pork.

He's not trying to have blood oozing out of the bags and onto the streets, so why not just do something to the head? Why just leave it for the police to find? So the police start putting together the pieces of her body Like a puzzle is how they describe it and they concluded that her body was cut off by a very sharp kitchen knife Not a scalpel not a saw a kitchen knife Now it can't just be you and a sharp knife or me and a sharp knife because whoever did this They had a very very in-depth knowledge of anatomy. The police believed maybe as a doctor, maybe someone in the medical field, maybe a forensic expert,

but again why the hell would the killer want the head and fingers of the victim to be found? I mean we've heard stories of people being like we have to get the rid of the head separately. We gotta do this, we gotta boil the hands so nobody can identify them. But this killer went through all the trouble of dismembering the body into 2000 pieces and left the head in hands. It just kind of didn't make sense. Now the police felt like the body had to have been dismembered in a bathtub so that the blood wouldn't leak and get everywhere. This makes sense, but only a few houses and apartments still had bathtubs at this point, so they searched all of those houses and nothing. There was no one in point. So they searched all of those houses.

And nothing. There was no one in I Ching's life that was alarming. There was no enemy. There was no jealous ex-boyfriend, a possessive partner, a creepy professor. Nobody was a suspect. Because I Ching had spent all her time studying. They said it's almost like looking at this blank page. She didn't have a web of a social life.

I mean, nobody in these top five schools do really. That's how they get into these top five schools. She wasn't dating. There was nobody raising the alarms. And the police thought maybe a stranger made more sense. They were able to check what was in her stomach when she passed. Since her intestines were pretty much intact and they were found. They found that she only had water in her system and no food. So the theory was that I Ching was kidnapped, lured somewhere, where she was tortured for three to four days, given no food before she was killed. Now I Ching's family became so desperate that they pled with the killer to turn themselves in. All they wanted in the end was an answer of just why? I Ching's

sister said, even if the killer gets shot and executed, what can he do now? I just hope that the killer can have some conscious. Just be brave and admit to your crime, give us the truth. Tell us why you killed my sister. And if you repent, our family will forgive you. We just want to know why. And in the end, theory starts circulating. Some thought it was the article writer Hank, trying to take credit and get praise for his cleverness. To show the world see I did it, and I got away with it.

Others thought since this happened at Nanjing University at one of the top universities, maybe the killer or the killers, maybe as a group of students, maybe they were kicked out of the school, maybe they all suffered from some sort of academic rejection. And they decided to prove it to themselves. Listen, I'm f***ing clever. This school doesn't even know. I'm smart enough. Better than them.

I can do anything I want. I can get away with it. I can kill someone random, spread their body parts throughout campus, thus devaluing the name of this campus that they're so high in my e-d. And I'm gonna get away with it. This might make sense because maybe that's why the killer was ballsy enough to leave the heads in the hands and maybe they really didn't have any

connection with I-ching other than the fact that they went to the same school. Maybe it's a medical student. Many netizens believe no, that sounds like a movie. Maybe it's a hunter. That makes more sense. Which side note, the netizens did do a lot of wild things. A ton of people on the internet decided to go out and buy a lot of pork with bones still attached. And they tried to cut it at home and time themselves, like cut it with a sharp kitchen knife. And they concluded that really anybody could do it.

What? Yeah. As long as you had the time and patience. Which I'm like, I don't know if that's the conclusion I would come to. So they tried to decide, is it more than one person that needed to be involved in the murder or is it just one? And they concluded it could have just been one and it could have been someone small, it could have been a female. Now, most netizens believed that the killer was a hunter though, because in one of the bags that was used to dispose of her body, there was this strange black powder residue, gunpowder. Someone with hunting experience would have the experience of disassembling corpses.

And maybe they went from hunting animals to hunting humans. Because isn't that what killers do? They hunt people. They hunt us. And it's hard because they look just like us. We don't know who are the hunters. we don't know who's the prey. We all look the same, and sometimes it's the people that you least expect to be hunting you. Why would you break into these apartments?

For money, for drugs, whatever was in there. Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No, who's gonna catch us? whatever was in there. Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No. Who's going to catch us? What a police. It was the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. I would suit up in my uniform and we're going to want some drug dealers, and I know how to

do it really well. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history, and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat? 100%. I saved my soul just like everybody else does. Listen to and follow the set an Odyssey originals documentary podcast series available now in the Odyssey app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your shows Have you guys heard of Teju Island in South Korea? Yes

Yes, it's one of the most popular vacation spots in the entire country. Listen, I've never been, but my parents say it's beautiful. They say that there's so much delicious seafood, there's cliffs, it's almost got this volcanic terrain, it's a beautiful island surrounded by water, there's so many beautiful beach resorts you can visit, it's picturesque, it's serene, and it's a very, very clean place. I mean, all of Korea is pretty clean, typically. There's actually no trash cans on the street, which I know might make you believe that it's dirtier than places that have trash cans on the street, but it's not.

Korea has a really intense trash disposal system where each person is responsible for their own trash, in public and at home. You have to buy specifically colored government issued a garbage bag. So you have a color for food waste because they don't have like food disposal there. Then you have a different color for recycling. Then you have a different color for regular waste. And somehow they can track it down to you if you mess up. I don't know if they track it down to your building and your buildings all have CCTV and they find you because I think the building gets fine. I mean it's kind of insane. I'm not sure at the actual logistics. I asked my

mom, I was like, hey, it's like, how can't you get caught? I mean, that doesn't make sense. You can just... I know, like in China, they're doing this too now. Yeah. With someone like in front of the apartment, just checks everyone's place bag, and they can report you. It's like almost a system that you can report your neighbor, like, oh, she did this. She threw it in the wrong bag. And I guess the thinking is so different in different cultures

because my thinking was, listen, I would do it, but what if my neighbor doesn't do it? Like what's to say someone's not gonna do it, right? And my mom looks at me and she just goes, why wouldn't people do it? Everyone just does it. That's the law. I was like, okay. She's like, why wouldn't people do it? Everyone just does it, that's the law. I was like, okay.

She's like, why wouldn't you, I don't get it. Like that makes sense. So like I said, Ted, you might even be cleaner than that. It's just not the type of place where you would see large garbage bags or any trash bags just sitting around, oozing blood. But that's what happened a few years back. Again, it sounds like an urban legend,

but it's not. A few years ago, someone road tripped around half of South Korea, dumping close to 30 bags of human flesh in random dumpsters. And again, it's confusing because Korean dumpsters, they're not like America where they just go to the landfills. I'm pretty sure each bag gets sorted. So, would someone just expect its meat, put them what about the head, what about the hands? Let's talk about cool Yu-jung. Yu-jung was born in Teju, so she was born on the island. She's technically a local where this all takes place.

She was actually the first born child and she had two younger brothers. Listen, there is not the most information about her family dynamic out there, but from what I can find, it's kind of relatable, kind of not. This is a part that it's not. Well, first of all, Eugene's dad was a well-known rich businessman on Chidu Island. He owned a rental car business, which is huge.

I mean, are you kidding? Because people will take the subway, then get on a ferry to go to Chidu, and the island is not so small, it's walkable, so you have to rent a car. I mean, it's popping up with all the tourism. He owned real estate in Jeju, the more he worked, the richer and richer the family was getting. So that's not the relatable part. No, not at all.

But this is. When he got rich, he decided to upgrade his life, upgrade his living standards, and he upgraded his wife. Yuzheng's dad goes out and finds a new partner. He's like, well, I'm in a different tech bracket now so my wife should be 20. I'm kidding, I don't think she was 20, but she was younger. So he's remarried with this younger wife and the kids are not really having it, especially Yu Zhong.

I mean, I think she's upset on behalf of her mom. And also, there's this anger towards the stepmom. Like you're not my mom. You don't belong here, you ruin my family, you should have minded your own business, like my dad was married with kids. But what's not relatable is that she starts just straight up taunting and torturing the new stepmom. She even convinced her two brothers to get on in it, to get on in it, and they would throw trash all around the house.

They would throw the stepmother's laundry on the ground while they was soaking wet. So all of the dust and the mud, the dirt on the floor would just stick to her fresh clothes. Should have to rewash them all. And when they were eating as a family and the father wasn't looking, the kids would deliberately shove a glass plate off the table

and say, oopsie, that was an accident. You're like, okay, well how does that affect the set mom? I don't know, I guess you're young's dad was a patriarch and didn't get up to help her clean the broken glass. So they were just straight up bullying this poor woman. No, I don't know how evil the set-mom is. Maybe she's mean behind the dad's back. Maybe she was just evil for existing.

But I didn't see any reports that the kids faced any of you screwing up. In fact, even when the kids were acting out like this, the stepmom and dad decided to let them express themselves. Maybe that's how they need to process their feelings about the divorce and this new marriage. The couple would actually spoil the kids more, trying to get them to behave. I don She was described to be domineering, arrogant, but also really, really manipulative, really good at hiding all of this when she wanted to. For example, when she's in college, she meets her husband, Kang.

Now, they're both part of a volunteer group. Yu-jung, the major princess at home, at school, she was like a completely different person. She loved to volunteer, she loved to study, she was kind of a pick me. She liked to be perceived as gentle and easygoing and nurturing. She liked to be compared to a fairy. That was her thing, like she's so delicate and just so feminine. And since she's pretty, sure, family as well off,

naturally, Yu Zhong is kind of seen as the campus-it girl. And of course, when Kang runs into her volunteering, the guy is like head over heels for her. The two start dating, they start living that philanthropist life, that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt life before they were divorced. They're traveling around the country, volunteering. Actually, they're going global.

They're like Mr. and Mrs. International. They're international volunteers. They volunteer as a living? I mean, they're in college. So they're just volunteering on the side. And I think it has to do with that both Kang and Yujong come from pretty decent families. So it seemed like they just weren't that worried about grades.

They wouldn't have to feed themselves with their own money, because they had their parents money. So, you know, we can all be good philanthropists if we just had the privilege. That's what it is. And for other college students, it was just such a privileged way to live. And everyone was jealous. They were the yet couple. Everybody's jealous of them.

And on top of that, I mean, it was cute. If you don't have an evening class afterwards, she would have to walk back to her dorm. And without fail, every single evening class, Kang would be outside waiting for her to get out. Every single time. And they're just talking about how they want to live different lives. They want to be philanthropists. They want to volunteer and help people.

And they don't really, you know, their parents, they're both business oriented, but they're not material girls, they're not material guys. They just wanna be good people. It's like they were bonding over that. So after six years of dating, June 2013, they get married. Now, six years is an incredibly long time to know someone, right? I mean, you should know their likes, their dislikes,

their weird habits, maybe they fart under the covers. Maybe they flick their boogers at you. Listen, I don't know. I don't do any of these things. These are just random things I've popped into my head. But six years, like I'm saying, is an incredible amount of time. It's not six months where someone can have like this fake persona six years. They get married and can't get surprised because right after signing those marriage papers, he finds out he has no idea who the hell Yu-jung is. She's not gentle, she's not nurturing, she's not the loving person that she was when they

were dating. And no, this is not one of those relationships where after they get married, Kang turned into this massive baby and expected her to do everything in the house, so of course she's no longer nurturing and loving because she's freaking exhausted. It wasn't like that. Actually, King did all the housework. He was the only one trying to get his doctorate degree outside of the house. You don't kind of lay it around and just yell at him.

She didn't work, she didn't study, just lounged around, full time lounger. Even when he got home from school, he would find all of her dirty dishes all over the counters, the dining table, with the food gunk just permanently stuck to the side of the bowl. She did not lift a finger to help around. Maybe it's the fact that she was raised in a rich family. Maybe she expected to have the same level of lifestyle after the marriage. So once they got married, both sides, both parents kind of wanted them to try to be independent. They weren't supporting them as much. Youjong just expected that her new husband would treat her exactly like her dad had treated her

and would have exactly the same amount of money and finances that her dad had. But that's just not what King had signed up for. I mean, because for full six years that they were dating before they got married, Yu-jung had talked to him about how she loved volunteering, how she wanted to build this amazing philanthropic life with him, she just wanted to give back into the world. And then there he is, standing at the airport with a screaming wife tugging on his arm. No literally, they were going home from their honeymoon and Yu-jung starts grabbing his arm, pulling him, screaming that she needed to go shop at the duty free shop.

He's saying, Yu-jung, We spent so much money on this honeymoon. We said that we were trying to work to save money. We're working towards our goals, remember? She's like, I don't remember shit. And she just keeps screaming at him and embarrassing him in front of everybody. So he shook her grip off and headed straight for the gate. Unfortunately, they got to the airport early.

So you don't did a ton of shopping. She managed to make it back to the airport gate in time and Plopped down right extra husband and waited to waited for their plane to board I mean he was so shocked That was like the first big fight that they had and it would only get worse I mean what's crazy to me is like how do you hide something like that for six years? Maybe it's just like she had the full support of the daddy. Yeah for six years maybe yeah Now immediately you have to switch to the husband and

crazy. Just this is just not the life. But I mean, you don't think that personality shines through in six years. Hmm. Because you know when I first started dating you, I was like, I'm never gonna let him see me without my makeup on and like look nasty and like farting. Like a year into a game over. You've seen everything, you know?

Six years is a long time. Now, it's not clear exactly where it gets worse, or if it was like a snowball of decline, or maybe it's like a defining moment, but one year after being married in 2014, Yu-jung gives birth to their son, their first child. Now, some people speculate that she's more confident, because it felt like she can push Kang around.

Because, he can't leave me anymore. Like, before maybe he could. But now with this child, I have his child. I carried his child. He can never leave me without being seen as a total traitor to his family, and she was going to make sure of it if he did. And with this newfound bravery, Yu you jump started getting more and more violent. She would throw full asteris, full of ash,

directly at his face. He would have to go to the hospital because the ash would go into his eyeballs and it was burning like it was bad. King's friends started noticing strange bruises, showing up all over his body. And when they asked him about it, King was honest. He said, yeah, my wife threw something at me. And the violence towards men often gets ignored, and that's kind of

what happened. His friends just responded, saying things like, that's crazy. How did you not know that she had a temper for the past six years before you guys got married? Yeah, usually girls with temperors can only hide it for so long. But Kang kept blaming himself in the end. He kept feeling bad about how he wasn't making enough money, and that was the problem. I mean, most marriages end because of financial stress. So this is like the reason, right? That's gotta be the reason. But there was this one time where you junk picked up her son, grabbed a kitchen knife, climbed on top of the balcony, and started screaming. She screamed at King. Come on now.

Let's all die together, why don't we? Come on are you scared of death or something? Let's just fucking die. Yu-jung was pointing the knife at herself holding their child off the balcony, like literally suspending their child off the balcony. Like come on let's die together. And in the end, King felt cornered, he felt terrified that his wife was going to drop his son so he got on his knees and started begging.

And only when Yu-jung felt satisfied with his begging, she climbed down from the balcony and walked past Kang on his knees. Like even the way that she swayed her shoulders as she walked past him, it was like a victory walk. Yu-jung thought that she won the fight, but she lost the war. That was the final straw. Kang realized how dangerous and terrifying and toxic their marriage was.

And they have this kid like he can't do this. He files for divorce in 2016, citing spousal abuse. And you junk sitting there looking at the divorce papers, just huffing and puffing spousal abuse. Yeah, well, let me tell the judge about how you drink all the time and you're never home. And you never take care of me or my kid. The truth is King never even drank alcohol.

He's not a drinker. But the court ruled and you're young's favor. They granted King visitation rights but he was only allowed to see his sons two times a month. He was also forced to pay $3,500 a month in Alamoney every single month. But when he would show up at the door begging to see his son that he hasn't seen in months, Yujung would just slam the door in his face. Sometimes she would say, yeah, no, I don't really care. Slam. Oh, the kid is sleeping. Slam. I'm busy coming out another day. Slam. This went on for years.

King would send money, he would never see his son, and eventually in 2017, Yujung gets remarried. So she's got like a whole new husband. And she decides that this precious son, that she was trying to protect from his alcoholic father. Well, yeah, you can go live with grandpa and step grandma, because my new husband wants a wife, not a mom, da. So she just leaves her son. She would still get calls from Kang, and he never tried to fight.

He was always so sweet. He would just ask her Please can I see my son? I've been seeing him in like but two years now I miss him so much. Don't you think he needs his father in his life? And she would just sarcastically reply. Yeah, well, weren't you Mr. Tough Guy when you were divorcing me? Where's the tough guy now, huh? What you're gonna start begging me now? So Kang keeps trying and trying and eventually he just can't take it anymore. I mean this is within his full legal rights.

He has been paying all the money for two years and he hasn't seen a son since the divorce. He files a lawsuit and the court finds Yu-jung in contempt of the law. The judge tells her, Yeah, you need to let Kang see his son in 15 days or else. So settled. March 25th of 2019, Yujung would come down to Jeju to meet with Kang. She would bring their son and after two long years they would be reunited. So Yujung rented herself a little secluded vacation spot and she told Kang, well why don't we go to like the adventure park and then we'll

come back home and I'll make dinner for us. It's like, okay, so you don't even know how excited King was. This is the moment that he had been thinking about for years. Would his son remember him? Would it be awkward? Would the son like all the gifts that he bought? I wonder how much he changed? Oh, what is he wear? What is he like?

What kind of food do you think he likes? All of these things are running through his mind. He didn't even realize that for the first time in a long time, he was humming along to music in the car. He was just so happy. They had these big plans, the amusement park was going to be great. And it was. And the three even came back home to where Yu-Jung was staying so she could make a nice little curry rice for them to share for dinner. So on the way home, they drove separately, obviously. Well, on the way to the vacation home. And Kane called up his dad to update him. And he's like, dad, oh, it went great.

Like, now we're going to go home, eat curry rice. I think I'll be heading home after that. I stopped some studying to do so. I'll probably study a bit and then head to bed. The adventure park was so exhausting, but so good. Now mind you, Kane is not trying to get back together with you, don't get anything. He's just happy that he gets to see his son.

And you, don't, is not trying to murder him together with you Jung or anything. He's just happy that he gets to see his son and you Jung is not trying to murder him. That's like his main thing. He's like, wow, she's actually being kind of nice. Around 9.25 pm, King's younger brother is waiting by the phone. Like the whole family knew about it. That's how excited he was. They're all like, oh my god, it's the big day. So he wants all the updates.

How did it go? And he texts him, wow, it's still going on. Like you're still hanging out with them? Wouldn't the four year old be in bed by now? It's 930. So he texted King, you still there? And now a later he gets a text back. Oh, it's over now. I came to the workroom at the university to deal with some work and my phone is about to die, so I'll talk to you later. That was the last time anyone heard from King. If it even was King. Listen, the text messages were weird. It didn't sound unlike King. He was always working,

his phone was always running out of battery. But the thing is, after that text message, it was radio silence. Nobody got another text or a call from King. He was an answering or responding to anyone. So finally, after two days, King's brother decides he needs to get the police involved. Something must have happened. It doesn't make sense. So he's like, police, you have to help us. My brother, he went to go see his son and his ex-wife and well, I don't know. Something just feels off.

He's usually really good at picking up our calls and answering our texts, but he's gone. I haven't heard from him in two days. He should be bubbling with excitement to tell me what went on. We also went to the workroom that he said he was going to be at at the university. Turns out he hadn't gone back to the school since that night. Please, you don't think that's weird? And the police are like, I mean, it's a little weird. Are we worried?

Probably not. But it's an easy problem for us. We'll just call up the ex-wife. Maybe they've rekindled their love. And your brother is too embarrassed to tell you guys. So the caller. Ring ring ring. Hello?

Oh, Ms. Yujong. Can we ask you a few questions about your ex-husband? She's really calm. Oh, yeah. Sure. What's going on? Is this about the sexual assault? What?

Ma'am, the what? Oh. Oh. I thought it was, well, two nights ago, I was with my ex-husband. He had come over to see his son for the first time, and he tried to wait me. I resisted, he ran away, and I haven't heard from him since. My son and I actually left the island the next day after it happened. I was just so scared that he was going to get away with everything. Oh, we didn't know about that, ma'am. Well, do you mind coming back and making a statement with the Chidru police? That would be really inconvenient, but let

me see what I can do. When I do want to mention, I did text him. I told him that I was going to report him for the rape attempt and I called him a monster. So maybe he's stressed that he'll never see a son again. Maybe he thinks he'll be arrested. Anyway, he texted me back. I'm sorry, I was in shock. You remarrying someone else was such a shock to me and I'm sorry. So maybe he's in hiding, thinking you're gonna arrest him.

So please hang up and they tell King's family the update on the case. And the family felt frantic, honestly. They didn't know what to think. I mean, they knew without a shadow of doubt that King would never attempt to rape you junk. But they didn't know where King was, and that was their main priority. So King's brother lied.

He tells the police that he believes his brother is suicidal. He's expressed suicidal ideations before, and the family just felt like with this new report, the police were going to go and try to look for King. They didn't care about the safety of this guy because he was an attempted rapist. They think he's a horrible person that's in hiding for his crimes. So the family gave the police a reason to look for him. He's going to commit suicide. And it worked.

So the police tracked Kang's phone and it pinged miles away from the vacation rental that you jung was staying at. It was just like randomly there. Then they also found Kang's car just sitting in front of the local supermarket. The police tried to look for CCTV at the vacation rental, but they didn't have any. So they just give up. They felt like we've done enough, and now if he commits suicide, the blood is not on our hands. But King's younger brother is getting frustrated. He's confused like, you found his phone, you found his car, you don't think that's weird.

Like if he's on the run, you don't think that he would take these things. So he goes out on his own looking for his brother and Kang's brother looks around the area for any CCTV cameras that might be pointing at the vacation rental. So the police checked if the vacation rental had cameras, they didn't. But that doesn't mean that they checked all the neighbors.

Because sometimes you'll get some overlapping, right? And what do you know? Someone has cameras and the footage is alarming. You see Kang entering the vacation rental, but you never see him leave. In fact, you see Yu Jung leave with two large carry on suitcases. Oh my gosh.

With two large garbage bags that she threw in the trash can. The suitcases makes sense. You know, they were visiting, but the two large garbage bags was that far. Now, this is what made the police think that, okay, visiting, but the two large garbage bags, what is that for? Now this is what made the police think that, okay, maybe this guy isn't missing after all. But they still didn't suspect you, John. She was too cooperative.

They said that she didn't sound like a murderer. Which is great, because maybe she should narrate an audiobook in her non-homicidal voice, what does that even mean? At this point, we're four days after the first initial missing persons report. The police gain access to the vacation rental, and they start testing the entire place for blood. And they run the lumenol test and they're getting positives everywhere. In the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, ceiling everywhere. There's over 89 different spots that had blood.

Not only that, it was verified to be Kang's blood. So the next day, Yudang is arrested for the murder of her ex-husband. And when the police tell her ex-husband, and when the police tell her that, her response is, which like, what would be your response if you were arrested for first-degree murder? Maybe. Murder? Why?

Who was murdered? Who was dead? She said, why? Am I getting arrested? I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Yeah. Wow.

It was odd. I mean, I get it, Kang was missing. Maybe she assumed he was found dead, but that's still so weird. After Yoojung's arrest, she was told, yeah, you can try to say whatever you want, but you practically painted the vacation rental red with blood, and we know it. She said, well, let me just say, I did lie. I didn't murder him, it was self-defense. Okay, so please, you have to listen.

He was trying to rape me while I was cutting a watermelon, and I was just so scared that I stabbed him in self-defense. Okay, then where did you put his body? Did he die after one stab? Where did you stab him? Did you kill him? Did you stab him more times? And she stopped talking. She just stopped talking. Now this is where the police really dropped the ball. They go back to the vacation rental and the owner is there and he's pissed. He realizes that someone was probably killed there and he's stressing about his future business. So he threatens the police and begs them,

like, please, you gotta work with me. You're gonna kill my business. Let me clean this place up so that people don't see like a mess in here. So they just let him clean up the entire crime scene. For what? For his Airbnb side hustle? Like, I get it.

It's not his fault that the murder happened there. He's a victim too Technically because he'll be impacted financially, but somebody died there like this is to get them justice The police I mean, honestly, it was the police's fault because they should have been managing all of this The police never should have agreed and they would later be accused of gross mishandling of King's murder case So while Yu-jung is sitting in prison her new husband comes to visit her should have agreed and they would later be accused of gross mishandling of King's murder case. So while Yuzheng is sitting in prison, her new husband comes to visit her. Now she didn't really spend that much time trying to explain herself. It seems like he just kind of believed her that it was a rape attempt in self-defense.

And then at one point she frantically asks him, do you have my pouch? You know the pouch that I use all the time? The one that I love? Yes, the green pouch or whatever color it was? Well where is it? Did the police take it? Well you need to go home and find it? Make sure the police never take it. So, there are new husband. I mean, let's call him Mr. A. He's confused. Like, that's strange. So, he goes home, he finds the pouch, he looks inside. I mean, she claims she was innocent and she killed himself defense. Why was she so worried about a damn pouch then? When he

opened it up, there was a bunch of mundane things and then a prescription bottle for Zolpedem A sedative for insomnia So she drugged him. Yeah, so he knew this was bad And he felt like he had been tricked so he goes to the police and turns it in Okay This would be eventually the final nail for you, John, because as the police found the garbage bags of flesh, they were able to test that Kang did have an excess of zolped

immunosystem. You know, the husband probably is like, oh my god, this is this woman's probably there's a lot of reflags. And now it's all like coming together. All the past of like, oh my god, I just ignored that moment and that moment and now it's like, I can't even imagine that feeling, too. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다.

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다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. 다 같이 왔다. So, after this was turned in, I mean Yujung knew it was it. So she pled guilty to the murder of her ex-husband, but she refused to tell anyone where his body was and why she did it. She was still sticking with her obviously fake reasoning of self-defense. Now, because Yujung was being so secretive about where Kang's body was, the police felt like she was hiding something worse. I mean, typically, when killers lead police to the bodies, it's seen as a remorseful thing. I mean, it's not really a sign of remorse, but in the sense that families do deserve

closure and they want to lay their loved ones to rest. This is so important. So why wouldn't she take this opportunity to be like, see guys, I'm a good person, I was just protecting myself. Maybe the truth was worse. The police believed that she was in that apartment for a while with him. And they believed that she cooked his body to make sure that he didn't bleed more. They also started going through her phone records and they found out that right before Kang's visit, she was googling things like sedatives, fatal dose of nicotine, taser, incinerator, grinder, weight of bones, travel bags, and then she was prescribed a sedative for insomnia.

In her car on the way to Jeju, she was packed and ready to go. Three days prior to her drive, she went to a local supermarket and bought bleach, a knife, cleaning supplies, and rubber gloves. Three days before the actual murder. The scary thing is when she bought these murder weapons, essentially she stood there and still had the faculties to scan her code, to redeem points on her supermarket card. Wow. And an hour after that, her friend invited her to go to the bar to go drinking and she

was seen eating fried chicken, drinking beer, laughing like nothing had happened. Even though she was just planning, plotting, her ex-husband's brutal murder. It's assumed that she put sedatives into Kang's curry for dinner, and once he passed out, she brought her son to the room and let him go to sleep, went back out to King and stabbed him. According to the blood patterns, it looked like King did not die immediately. He woke up, ran for the kitchen, trying to escape, but she stabbed him another four to five times, and eventually he fell down and he laid there bleeding out. So what does she do? She wipes her hands, reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone and texts his

younger brother back and she gets to work. She starts buttering Kang's body. When she was stunned she put as many of the body parts into her bags as possible. There were more than 12 garbage bags filled with body parts in the suitcase. And the same day that she's out, discarding of the garbage bags one by one. I don't know if she's doing this to create some sort of alibi for herself or if she really is this heartless.

I go with the latter, but you don't with scene on cameras laughing on the phone with her friends. Imagine knowing that your friend was getting rid of her mains while on the phone with you, talking about this new TikTok recipe. Even on the boat back to the mainland. So Ted you island, you can bring your car if you want, but it's one of those big boats

where you drive your car in and then you can get out and enjoy the view. Well, you don't got out and she was seen throwing garbage bags off the boat for seven minutes straight from her trunk. She just tossed the body into the water. Wow. She also ordered an electric saw to her parents' house on the mainland. So she's still bringing... there's so much body parts. She's getting rid of as much as she can and Tedu in the water. And when she gets to mainland, she still needs to get rid of more bags. So she confessed these or these are just footage that they found. Footage. She didn't't confess anything She still claims self-defense

She took a road trip across half of Korea to dispose of 30 bags of dead body parts And when it was all said and done she went home to her husband and she cried She told him my ex has been tried to rape me. She didn't tell him anything else You know just said he had ran off after he failed at the rape attempt. And her husband was so mad that he grabbed her phone and started blowing up Kang's phone. Polly threatening to hurt him for what he tried to do.

I think what's really scary about this is that Yoo Jung was a really logical, methodical person. It seems like it's not frantic. It's a long period of time. She's very thought out. And during, I mean, I can't imagine how many hours it took, but not once, did you freak out while you're dumping? Yeah, she didn't lose her cool, right?

She seems normal the whole time. She's on the phone most of the time with her friends. That is so scary. Like, when something small happens in my life, I can't even have normal conversations with people because I'm so focused on that thing and so anxious that I can fake a conversation, but you know I'm not a part of it. But she's on the phone.

Nobody noticed anything. I mean, I think what's really scary is that her temper was considered really intense, but the fact that she can keep it at bay for as long as six years while she's dating King, I mean, she really knows how to hide herself. She's not only very temperamental, but she's incredibly manipulative. The way she planned the murder, it was meticulous. And Kang's family, they wanted the world to know who did it,

who planned their son's murder so heartlessly. But in Korea, most suspects faces can't be revealed to the public. It's a law. So you have to cover their face on TV because of the fierce defamation laws in Korea. But there are exceptions. If the suspect committed a violent crime, or if there is substantial evidence that shows

that they are guilty, or if it will protect the public, this case kind of fit all the requirements. So her name and her face was revealed to the public. Yu Jung tried to cover her face in front of cameras and pass her eyes were so pissed off at this they straight up tried to tackle her and rip her hair off of her face. Police had to stop them. At the sentencing Yu-jung tried to beg for a lighter sentence because she said her googling weight of bones was of for a bone broth recipe. And the overdose of nicotine levels, well that was just because her husband was a smoker so she was worried about him. Bone broth

are you serious right now? So in June of 2019, more than 210,000 South Koreans signed a petition in favor of the death penalty for you, John. Kang's parents said, I want the death penalty. Even life imprisonment would be lenient for her. I hope the court will show that our justice system works for victims and not criminals. Kang's brother said, I have not had a full night's sleep since the incident. I don't even feel hunger. I've searched for his body in streams and forests

because I can't just sit around and do nothing. But in the end, your junk was given the life sentence. And that's the story of how hunters can be any one of us. And that's terrifying. Also, if you see a garbage bag, don't open it and stay safe. I hope you guys enjoyed this week's mini-sode and I'll see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Bye!