Rotten Mango - #287: She Tried To Turn 2 Boyfriends Into “Human Kimchi”

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

Kimchi is a Korean spicy fermented cabbage side dish. It is traditionally prepared in big red buckets… The two detectives were standing staring at one of those kimchi buckets. But they knew there was more than just kimchi inside otherwise, they wouldn’t be in a morgue right now. They slowly opened the lid to the massive kimchi bucket and inside they were confronted with 2 bodies. From this point on, the clock started ticking. The investigators would need to find the woman responsible for this and make sure she didn’t kill again. This is the story of South Korea’s most unhinged serial killer in the making. 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

Brambles. Bad being bad a boom. Have you ever had kimchi before? Oh yeah, every day. So kimchi is like the holy grail in terms of Korean cuisine. I mean, we eat this side dish with practically every single meal, even with hamburgers, even with pasta. Kimchi goes with everything.

It's a spicy pickled cabbage dish. Like if I had to choose to compare it to something, it'd be sauerkraut. It's fermented, it's fermented, it's loaded with probiotics, but if you drink kombucha or if you eat anything fermented, you know that there is a very strong smell that is associated with it. All these fermented foods.

But on top of that, kimchi has garlic and onions. It's really, it's a strong flavor that's absolutely delicious. So typically Koreans will have their own kimchi mixing bowl. It's typically this red plastic, maybe sometimes almost like a rubberish type material bowl. It's very shallow, very wide, so you can get up in there and mix all the kimchi thoroughly, and it's red, so that you never mistake it

for a mixing bowl and start whipping up a fruit salad in there. Most Koreans are familiar with these types of kimchi mixing bowls. They're iconic in Korean households. We're getting to the crime, okay? Like just bear with me. Did you know there's different sizes? So like the small, medium large, you keep those at home. Those are for home kimchi. They've got extra large ones that they use at churches or in Korean schools to make big batches, like tubs of kimchi for the whole group.

I mean, I've never seen any one of those personally, like the big ones. They're not that popular anymore because nobody really has the space for that in their homes. And you would need to be really feeding a village to eat out of one of those giant tubs of kimchi. Like some of these buckets, kimchi mixing buckets,

can be four feet tall with a lid on top. Four feet tall. Usually it was used to bury them so it ferments. But anyway, they're often used in like Korean restaurants to collect food waste. So usually like you put the cabbage and all these things in there, you seal it, you bury it in the ground, and then you take it out.

That's like super traditional. These days you just leave it on the counter for like four days. Then you throw it in the ground, and then you take it out. That's like super traditional. These days, you just leave it on the counter for like four days, and then you throw it in the fridge. Yeah, that's how you ferment it. But back in the day, they would need these big buckets. They're no longer around. But in 2014, in South Korea, one of these big red four foot tall kimchi buckets was now sitting in an empty room inside of a morgue.

Most of everything in that morgue room had been taken out. They laid down two layers of plastic tarp. This was like a double layer project. And now all that prep was done. The detective stood there, staring at this bucket. They don't even know how to continue. First of all, the size of the bucket is overwhelming, and they know there's no kimchi in there,

or least they hope not. The officers try to go through the bucket from the top, they're like standing on a ladder, reaching in. The first layer inside this bucket was a fluffy blanket, the kind that you curl up and watch a movie on your sofa with. And then when they ripped that off, there was partially decomposing corpse covered in some sort of thick juice.

And then underneath that, they saw some sort of plastic flooring if you will. So think of the flooring that you would buy if you wanted to cover up some ugly kitchen tiles inside your rental apartment. Peel and stick floors. So they're thinking, okay, well now underneath that is probably just a bunch of liquid and maybe some more evidence. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to get another bucket and just pour out the liquid into that bucket and hopefully

it's easier to go through evidence that way. As they're doing that, liquid is just splashing about everywhere. The smell feels like it's going through their skin. That's how strong it is. And then plop. They see something round and white, tumble out of the bucket.

It was a human skull. And once they saw the skull, they saw other bones, a femur, a part of a spine. and right there, that looks like a hand. The detectives in the room realized at the same time that the bucket didn't just have one body in it. It had two bodies, and one of them had been in there for much, much longer than the other one. There were two bodies in the kimchi bucket, and one very sadistic killer on the loose loose and the police didn't know when she was gonna kill again. This is the story of the kimchi killer. As always, show notes are available at rottenminglepodcast.com. I do want to warn you that this case is um, it's crazy. It unraveled in 2014 in South Korea,

but the crime itself took place like through 2014 through 2013 and then like a decade prior. Interestingly enough, it's not really covered on Western media. So most of the sources that we have are in Korea and we had multiple Korean researchers work on this case just so that we could bring you like a deep dive on this one. But as always with international cases, if there's any details that you want me to know or anything that got lost in translation, let me know in the comments. And side note, as with most Korean cases, there's a lot of anonymity involved. Interestingly, we do have the perpetrator's full name,

even though it's not allowed to be published on mainstream media, but we have it, and we're gonna use it, so. Before we get into this case, I just wanna put a quick disclaimer. This one is particularly gruesome. It's really intense. There's a lot of descriptions in here that I felt like I couldn't take out Before we get into this case, I just want to put a quick disclaimer. This one is particularly gruesome. It's really intense. There's a lot of descriptions in here that I felt like it couldn't take out because this case was so impactful in Korea and I feel like it's not talked about in Western media. But if you're eating, if you have a week's stomach, this is not the episode for you and I will see you in the next one.

And with that being said, let's get into it. This particular child psychologist had seen a lot, okay? His patients weren't just kids that were brought in by their parents that were like, we don't know what's wrong with our kid. Can you fix our kid? Please help us, sir, with our kid. Many of the kids that he worked with had seen the more sinister sides of humanity. He worked closely with the police. And whenever they called and said, Hey, we have a kid, can we send them your way? He would say absolutely.

And I think the most delicate part is that he would have to get the patient to open up. But then a lot of them would feel like they're in trouble or they did something wrong or they didn't want to share the details of whatever happened. And sometimes he would have to do this by not even asking or listening to their stories, but by watching them, observing them. He would give these kids a meal or a snack, and then he would just take notes. How a kid eats can tell you so much. Maybe they reject your offer.

Meanwhile you hear the little tummy scrumbling. That means maybe they don't trust you or maybe they have a hard time trusting most adults. Maybe most adults in their life have betrayed them in some way, shape or form. Perhaps they inhale the cookies and immediately they're like, can I get more? Maybe they're hungry and they're dealing with food scarcity at home. But he passes a burger to his newest patient, and his new patient was a special case. This is a boy that didn't exist. There is no record of him anywhere.

This is in 2014. Okay, yeah, it looks like 10 years ago, but still, it's South Korea. Everything is on the record. How did this boy manage to be invisible in a society like South Korea? No hospital records, no government records, no school records, nothing. Anyway, he passes him in an individually wrapped burger, and he very calmly picks it up, opens up the burger wrapper, and puts it neatly to the side. And the psychiatrist is watching, as this little boy breaks off a small piece of the burger,

but instead of putting it into his mouth, he sets it down. Then he breaks off another piece about the same size. He did this again and again until he had five equally sized pieces laying on the desk in front of him. He did not speak a single word. He didn't even glance at the psychiatrist to see like, oh, does he think that I'm being weird right now? He was so focused. He was treating this as if every kid does this. As if this is completely normal, this is how you're supposed to eat a meal. He grabs the original wrapper and neatly puts four of the five pieces of burger back inside. And finally, just eats one piece.

Oh my gosh. The psychiatrist wrote in his notes, patient most likely does this as a result of being left alone for long periods of time. Best guess is parents would come home once or twice a week, every couple of weeks, and bring food. Other than that, he would be on his own, so he learned very quickly to ration out his food

if he wanted to make it until his parents came back. Wow. So the detectives are reading his notes and it's heartbreaking, but it was also kind of expected. You see, like considering the way that they found this kid in the first place, it made sense. Let's talk about one of the neighbors, a middle-aged neighbor, and we're going to call him Sam. Okay.

He was the one to call emergency services. He lived right above the stinky apartment. All the neighbors called it that, the stinky apartment. The apartment was on the second floor. The third floor neighbors right on top of the stinky apartment, and the first floor neighbors right below the stinky apartment, they had it the worst. But every single resident in this massive building, they complained non-stop to management that the entire building was uninhabitable because of the smell that was just radiating

off of this stinky unit. It was so bad that they wanted to walk over and slap a biohazard sign on there. But that would be rude. So instead, they took the elevator instead of the stairs. If they, for whatever reason, had to take the stairs, they would do that thing where you pull your shirt over your nose and you just start booking it, you make a run for it. There wasn't a single day, the smell did not punch them up

the nostrils. I mean, the entire second floor gave off a stench like the sun gives off heat. But that's not why neighbors have called emergency services. I mean, he wished he could. Hello, I'd like to report a stench. The police would laugh at him. He called 112 because there was a kid crying in that stinky apartment all day long, all night long. And when he first heard the crying, he tried to ignore it. You know, it's pretty standard Korean culture

to not meddle in what is perceived as family business. So he's like, OK, maybe the parents are mean, maybe the parents are slightly abusive, I'm not gonna do anything about it. That's what he's saying. I'm not saying this right, but that's what he's thinking. Now, this kid was not crying like a normal kid. He was crying so loud that neighbor Sam

couldn't even focus on cooking anything. He couldn't even focus on his work, or focus on sleeping. He tried turning up the TV volume. He tried putting in ear plugs. Nothing helped. This kid would keep crying. It was unbearable. The noise this smell. neighbor Sam said he would plug up his ears and then he would plug his nose and try to breathe out of his mouth.

But the stinky apartment was so stinky. He said he could almost taste it. And he wanted to gag. Side note, he was never rude about it. I mean, none of the residents were. He never directly complained to that unit. He actually tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. He thought to himself, okay, maybe they have some sort of health condition and they cannot help the smell, maybe they cannot clean.

Some neighbors also had the same thought. They actually went once to knock on the door, offering to help clean the place up free of charge. And the resident never responded. Now neighbor Sam was at the Stinky apartment store knocking. He just wanted to ask, you know, if you could stop hitting the kid or being nicer to the kid so that the kid could stop crying. Like, what if you're doing to your kid?

Can you please knock it out? He tries knocking. Nobody answers. He could literally hear the kid crying through the door. neighbor Sam leaves and he comes back within a few hours and he tries knocking again. This time he hears a tiny little voice on the other side. Please call my mom. I want my mom. neighbor Sam didn't even have his mom's number. He barely even saw her in the apartment building. So he couldn't do anything. He went back to his apartment and hoped the kids mom would come home that night. But she did not. The crying did not stop. The kid cried for hours and hours sometimes for two days straight.

This time neighbor Sam was determined to get answers. So he gathered up a few of the other residents. They stormed the stinky apartment door and they started knocking on it and they hid out of the way from the people. They could hear the kids shuffling closer to the door and one of the female residents clears her throat. Hmm. Sweetie, it's your mom. Can you please open the door? I forgot my key.

Can you let me in? The doorknob made a little jingling noise. It sounded like the kid was trying to open it. The doorknob twists right and left but it wouldn't open and the kid starts crying again. It's okay just open the door. The kid starts jiggling the doorknob again but the door still doesn't open and he tries this a few more times until he starts scream crying and running and screaming. I will not open it. I'm not gonna open it. They're planning to work and the kid goes back to crying but even harder.

So that night, neighbor Sam called 1-1-2 at 9pm. 1-1-2, what's your emergency? For a while, I've been hearing a kid crying in the house next door, but I feel like something really bad is going on. I mean, the kid isn't just crying. He's like crying as long as that like he's dying. I think there's something going on in that house When the police get there for a wellness check the kid would not open the door for them either But they could clearly hear him crying and neighbor Sam was right There was definitely something wrong like judging by the way that he was crying something bad was happening

So officer June he tries to bust down the door. It doesn't work. It just makes the kid cry louder. So they're scaring the kid now. The two officers they call for backup. Someone brings them a ladder and they use it to climb up to the second floor balcony. The balcony door is locked. But there's a window that's unlocked. And they push it open. Officer June said he almost fell off the balcony. The smell that came rushing out of this apartment unit hit him so strong he almost toppled over. So he's clenching his nose, he peeks in through the window, he can't even see the floor. I mean there's bags and bags of trash everywhere up to the ceiling, it's

like a hoarding situation. They're around the room. They're ceiling high. There's random things scattered all throughout the apartment like random old rusted shower heads. Random drawers that have been pulled out of the dresser that are now laying around with old baskets and weird microwaves nearby. Random parts scattered everywhere. Even just by looking through the window, Officer June saw more flies and maggots than he had ever wanted to see in his entire life. Yet inside, just crawling around. Oh my goodness.

And the kid was still crying. How old is the kid? Eight. Oh my god. Officer June couldn't see the kid from the window, which means he's gonna have to go in and get him. Like, there is no time to call for a hazmat suit. He had no idea what state the kid was in if he needed dire medical attention, needed help in some way, so he holds his breath, puts his leg through that window, pushes aside a giant bag of trash that has like

roaches crawling out of it, and he starts walking through the unit. He's listening to the sound of the kid whaling, and he pushes open a door to the bedroom. This was the cleanest room of the house, but it was still filthy. I mean, just imagine Rocha's and rats all over, there were probably only about three square feet of clear floor space, but even the carpet looked like it had been defecated on

and then vacuumed into streaks. There was a bare mattress on a frame, presumably where the kid was sleeping, but the mattress was brown. It wasn't brown sheets, it's not a brown mattress, it was brown from filth. There were more bags of trash in the room, and Chihol, the little boy, this is not his real name, but we're going to call him Chihol. He was cowering in the corner of the room He looked

Well, we know he's a but he didn't look aight. He looked incredibly malnourished, so he probably looked younger Officer June said Chio looked like he was about to faint and his eyes were just glazed over like he was he seemed out of touch with reality is how the officer describes it Like he seemed out of touch with reality, is how the officer describes it. Also another interesting detail that I honestly have no idea what to make of it. He said that Chiehl's eyes were super blue. So his actual iris were dark brown color,

like most of the Korean population, but he's saying that the whites around his eyes were almost like a hazy, cloudy, fluorescent, bluish tinted white color. So not white, not yellow, but like kind of like a weird murky bright blue white. Others would later theorize that he hadn't been outside and exposed to natural light in years. So maybe his eyes were adapting to just the blue light coming out of the TV. But I don't know if this theory is plausible and I'm not an eye doctor, but we have talked about other cases where people have been trapped for years coming out of the TV. But I don't know if this theory is plausible and I'm not an eye doctor,

but we have talked about other cases where people have been trapped for years and there has been no known phenomenon or reoccurring theme that their eyes look blue, but we did look into it online and it seems as if if this were true, it was probably most likely genetic and it's not really blue, it's more like a blue white tint. Anyway, Officer June scoops up little Chihol. He was wearing tattered dirty clothes and he's taken straight to the hospital. And while no sources state outright that he was physically abused,

I mean, I think being that malnourished as a kid is basically a form of physical abuse. So Chihol is left in the care of the doctors while the police start combing through the apartment. They speak with the neighbors who stated, I mean, we saw men come in and care of the doctors while the police start combing through the apartment. They speak with the neighbors who stated, I mean, we saw men come in and out of that unit, no offense. We never saw like the same guy most of the time, most of the time, or at least recently. I think it was just him and his mom.

Like I think those are the only people that live in there, like full time. And since the kid was found crying alone in the apartment, the police safely assumed maybe the mom died. Maybe the mom had a stroke and died inside the apartment somewhere and because the kid was scared he never left, he just cried and never let anyone in. I mean, it's devastating, but it makes sense. Add to that, the officer stated that when they walked in to find the little boy, they knew someone died in that apartment. There is a specific scent that humans give off when they die. And we've talked about this before, but it's often described as rotting meat, but with a very specific, very nauseating, almost syrupy, sweet, floral undertone that makes you want

to bend over and puke, and they smelt that in that unit. They can smell it. So they're like, okay, we've got to go back in and search for the mom because what and puke and they smelt that in that unit. They could smell it. So they're like, okay, well, we gotta go back in and search for the mom because what if she's there? I mean, the apartment isn't even big by any means. I think it was about like 600 square feet in Atlanta that's tiny in New York, that's a palace, right? But it's not technically massive.

It's not like a 10 bedroom home that they're like, we gotta come through this mansion, right? It was just so dirty, so covered in filth and random objects and trash pile to the ceiling. It could have easily hit in a body. Side note, none of the trash bags were tied up tightly, so just think of the, they were staining, there was a lot of insect activity

coming in and out of those bags. They said that their eyes were watering as they're going through the place. Anyway, they're sorting through these trash bags and they opened the door to a small room. It didn't look like it was being used as a bedroom. They opened up the door and in the center of the room, just in plain view, like think about how odd this is. Think about you go into someone's home, you push open a door and this is what you see.

A four foot red kimchi bucket in the middle of the room. You're like that in no world, would that make sense in my head where I'm not like, oh, I should ask them what that's for. It's so unsettling. There's a giant bag of salt on top of the lid. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I used to think that therapy was only for people who had gone through very traumatic things. Like as if a therapist would sit there and judge me

for the fact that my life hasn't been that bad. And once I realized how weird that thinking was, I was like, yeah, okay, maybe I should try therapy. I mean, everyone should try therapy. I feel like I've learned so much One of the biggest things was learning to communicate confidently and just being able to express my boundaries But I feel like expressing my boundaries was a way of hurting someone or inconveniencing people That was huge for me. I used to be the world's biggest people pleaser Okay, I'm still kind of a people pleaser a little bit

But therapy has helped me learn how to take care of myself first without even feeling guilty about it I've learned that saying notice something doesn't make me a bad person and my therapist has shown me positive coping mechanisms for when I'm just feeling overwhelmed or anxious and for that I am so grateful each hour long therapy session just feels like I'm learning more about myself it's like a map therapy is a map from the person I am today to the ideal version of myself that I wanna grow into. Better help is here to help you, however you need it.

It's therapy done completely online, so you never have to go into that awkward waiting room in traditional therapy offices. You don't even have to change out of your pajamas. It's designed to be convenient and flexible so it fits your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with the license therapist.

If you're not clicking with your therapist, better help lets you switch therapist free of charge because sometimes you just don't click. If you're thinking about starting therapy, give better help to try. Let therapy be your map with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash rotten today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help, h-e-l-p dot com slash rotten. I have a lot of friends and family recently that have been starting small businesses and it's really enlightening. I mean some of them have been doing this for a while and it's just so cool to sit down with them

over dinner and just talk about all the things that they've encountered in their businesses like even what motivated them to get started and Literally not a single business owner sat there and was like you know what Stephanie? What a splendid question If I'm being honest with you, I just wanted to be the next e-commerce expert. Like not a single one, but it's so funny because it feels like with this day and age, in order to run your passion project or your passionate business, you have to try and become an e-commerce expert,

whether you like it or not. An online business needs to be maintained and proved constantly. If you're a business owner, honestly bigger small, you know the struggle. And Shopify is the solution to that. Shopify is your online storefront if you're an online business owner. It is the commerce platform that's revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you consider yourself a garage entrepreneur or an IPO-ready company, Shopify is the only tool

that you need to start. Run and grow your business without the struggle. They put you in control of every sales channel, so whether you're selling satin sheets from Shopify's in-person POS system, or offering organic olive oil on Shopify's all-in-one e-commerce platform, you're covered. The best part is Shopify grows your business. No matter how big or how far you grow, they've got everything you need to revolutionize it. Shopify takes away all the guesswork with built-in tools that far you grow, they've got everything you need to revolutionize it. Shopify takes away all the guesswork with built-in tools that help you create, execute, and analyze your marketing campaigns.

And once you reach your target audience, Shopify has the internet's best converting checkout to help you turn browsers into buyers. I just love seeing small business owners taking their business to the next level with Shopify. I know that so many of you guys are such creative like artists who want to get into this space. Trust me, I am so impressed with how much it's helped so many businesses, including myself. I just like that wish Shopify, you have so much more time to

spend all your energy on the passion parts of your business. And that's what I think really helps grow too. They power 10% of all e-commerce in the US. They're a global force. They power all birds, Rothees-commerce in the US. They're global force. They power all birds, rothies, brook linens, and millions of other entrepreneurs across 170 countries. So trust me, you're amongst really great companies, and they have award-winning help that is there to support your success every step of the way.

So sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash rotten. All lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash rotten to take your business to the next level today. Shopify.com slash rotten all lower case go to shopify.com slash rotten to take your business to the next level today shopify.com slash rotten this is possibility powered by shopify one of the officers got up on a step-soul push the giant bag of salt to the side lifted the lid off the bucket and there he saw a fluffy blanket. He's like, okay, maybe that's okay. He uses just two of his fingers, pushes the fluffy blanket to the side, half expecting something to like pop out and reach out at him, and the bucket was

filled with this mysterious thick viscous liquid is how it's described. And on top was a floating body part. He almost gagged directly into the bucket. The bucket was nearly filled to the lid with a liquid that was most likely a direct result from decomposition. And because of that, they needed to take the whole bucket into evidence to look through it and try and ID the bodies. That's how the bucket ended up in the morgue.

So there were two objectives now for the police. We got to find the mom. And they find out through the apartment lease that her name is Lee Sejeong. So they're like, we got to find Sejeong. And then we got to ID the bodies in the bucket. They wanted to start with IDing the bodies in the bucket because it was technically possible that Sejeong was one of the bodies. Maybe mom is the body, right?

Maybe some bad people snuck into the apartment, murdered Se-jung in front of Chih-ho, and then stuffed her in the bucket, and maybe that's why he's not okay. You know, I think they knew that that's kind of unlikely, but still they have to rule out the possibilities. The bucket thankfully didn't have any kimchi in it. I say thankfully because not because corpses are better than kimchi but I guess thankful in the sense that there wasn't like a cannibalism aspect to this or nothing was being eaten for human consumption. That was like a big thing. People were like, uh, was she making kimchi out of them or like what was happening? So she wasn't like making kimchi out of them. Just want to clarify. But there was a lot of liquid in the bucket that was reminiscent of fermentation, if that makes

sense. So I think that's right. It's a little complicated. People are like, no, she was making kimchi. She wasn't making kimchi. Yeah. So the officers, they had to be extra delicate. They had to push, like they had to take out the contents from inside the bucket. They wanted to save every last bit of the liquid to send it in for testing, but they also couldn't just like throw it into bags. They couldn't throw it into another bucket.

It was really complicated. Officers said that they had to receive intensive therapy after this. They thought, you know, we had seen everything in our careers until this case. They had to run their gloved hands through the liquid and look for pieces of evidence. So I can't even imagine what that does to someone's psyche, which side note, I don't know, I don't know why I wasn't expecting it to be this gruesome when we were researching this case, like this case is so dark. So the body

parts that come out and they splash on the ground, they were barely recognized as human. So there were two bodies. One was considered a partially decomposed body and then underneath that was in plastic tile, like flooring, and then a badly decomposed body. There was a 20 pound bag of salt on top of the bucket lid, but no salt was inside the bucket, so imagine the state of these bodies, especially with all the liquid having no place to go. It was going to be a rough time for investigators to ID the bodies, but they knew right off

the bat that both of these bodies, both of these victims were men, which means Tihua's mom is alive. And that also means, since they were found in her apartment, Se-Jung is the number one suspect. Side note, her name is technically protected under South Korean law, but it was leaked online because of the police. So the police put up, it's a long story. We're going to get there. The police did something. Her name was out in the public. They didn't say that she was a killer. They went like,

we want her for murder. They were like, have you guys seen this nice little ajama? So when that happened, that's just like free game. Like her name's out now. Yes, but you cannot, like all these Korean mainstream publications cannot legally say her name. But it's out for, you know, online, like, you know, technically in other countries, it's kind of free game. And I don't think they're going to prosecute anyone for it because like, you're going to see what she does. So she could have changed her name since then.

But the police at one point, you know, they put up missing posters with her picture. We just have one clear picture of her because of this missing posters and her name. And that's how we know. So anyway, the police run her records and she is registered as a wife to a Mr. Park. They're like a Mr. Park. None of the neighbors mentioned seeing a dad or a husband going around here. So what's going on? They have been married for the past 20 years. But since no neighbors knew of a Mr. Park, maybe they separated a long time ago, and they just never formally filed for divorce because of the hassle or the social stigma. Maybe they could talk to Mr. Park to get some answers on this case. Release gets him inside on whose hejong is and whether or not she's a killer.

And who would she even want to kill? So they put Mr. Park's name into the system, which would pull up his record. Everything. Drivers license, arrest records, loans, contracts, apartment leases, insurances, phone contracts, everything is going to be pulled up. Anything that's in his name, credit card bank account, everything is going to be pulled up, but the screen was empty. They scroll and what do you know?

Everything on Mr. Park's record, anything signed in his name was dated over 10 years ago. He hadn't had a car loan, credit card, apartment lease, filed taxes in the past 10 years. The only thing active still under his name and being paid was his phone bill. Every single month for the past 10 years, his phone bill got paid. But other than that, he's basically invisible in society, which is nearly impossible to do. So they pulled the records on his phone, and his phone actually had frequent activity making

calls and sending text. But when they run those numbers through the system, none of them are people that are related to Mr. Park. He wasn't talking to other women or any other family members or like anyone for that matter. His phone was only in contact with ease headjongs, family and friends and even her co-workers. His estranged wife's side of the family that doesn't even make any sense. Record show that Mr. Park and Mrs. Lee had a kid. Okay, so you're like, Chihuah.

No, remember, Chihuah has no records anywhere. He's like an invisible kid. This kid was 27 years old now and living on his own. So the police pull up his record and he's got a record. So not like a criminal record, but he's got like an apartment, he has a life that's on the record. So he's still around, you can find him.

Yes, so the police go and pay him a visit. And, um, you know, they had to try and let's call him James, because South Korea is protecting his identity. James was going about his daily business when the police knocked on his door. He was not expecting them. He hadn't done anything differently. As far as he knew, he hadn't been involved in anything shady, at least not for a long time, right? Why would the police want to talk to him? Hi, we're with the police and we're here to ask you some questions about your father, Mr. Park. Do you have time? James' blood runs cold. He hadn't seen his dad in 10 years. No birthday cards, no calls, no nothing, and when he was a kid, his parents weren't too happy living together. Like, there wasn't any abuse in the household per se, but it was just that they had a lot of financial stress,

which made the marriage tense. And then there was the incident. They never really talked about it. I mean, nobody in the family could really discuss it out loud. James didn't really like remembering that time in his life. A few years before his father disappeared, James' younger brother was walking home from school. He was patiently standing at an intersection waiting to cross. When this huge sand truck comes down the road, the truck was going too fast and the driver underestimated

how the weight of the sand was going to affect his ability to turn. So the truck topples over right in front of his young brother. He was not hit by the truck, but the sand spilled out like an ocean and completely engulfed the kid on the side of the road and suffocated him to death. I've never heard of it. What? Yeah. Are you talking about?

Yeah. So James was old enough to remember all of the details of this incident and how it ripped apart his whole family. His parents' marriage basically fell apart after this. His mom blamed his dad for the accident. Mr. Park wanted to move to this town to be closer to his aging parents and Se-jung felt like if we hadn't moved something like this wouldn't have happened. In her mind, it was her husband's fault.

Mr. Park reacted to this guilt and blame by having a lot of affairs. And James said his mom just kind of reacted strangely to everything. She started saving everything. Maybe it was the loss of her child. She just wanted to save everything. Nothing was going to be taken or lost or thrown away, even if it was a food wrapper, with no more food inside, she would save it. Or an old, unusable screwdriver that was broken, she would save it. She would never throw a single thing away, and that house turned into a hoarder house. That combined

with the resentment, the anger, I mean, it caused a lot of stress for everyone. And then one day, Mr. Park just disappeared. He was just gone. It's just James and his mom left and he told the police, I don't know where he is. He just left us 10 years ago when I was 17 years old. The police kind of felt bad for him. They thanked him. They apologized to him, you know, sorry for bringing up such painful memories, but thank you. And they leave. Sorry for bringing up such painful memories, but thank you. And they leave. James closes the door behind them, wondering what the hell is going on? Like he hadn't seen his dad in so long, was his dad in some sort of trouble, was his dad back?

But deep down he knew that there was no way. There was no way, because his dad was dead. And James knew that for sure. He had helped his mom drag his father's dead body into the kimchi bucket 10 years ago. So if Mr. Park is the body at the bottom, the badly decomposed body, who is the other person in the bucket? Because a lot of medical examiners stated that person was probably put in there in 2013 like a year ago. And how did Mr Park even end up there? How, who, what is going on?

So Lee's head down was a very interesting woman and by interesting, I just mean horrible, like just a horrible person. When James was 17, he said he came home from school. He hated being home. So normally he would keep his head down, rush into the kitchen, get a snack, run into his room and never come out, right? But the neat just saw something in the corner of his eye, the day that he went to the kitchen. It was like a very eerie scene. His mom was crouched down as if she was making kimchi, she was squatting, and Mr. Park,

his dad, was underneath her, laying on his back on the ground motionless. It seemed like Seidong was about to put her arms underneath his armpits and drag him somewhere. But stopped because James walked in and she froze and now James was frozen, staring at his parents like, Mom, like what are you doing? Instantly she snaps out of it and she puts on this whole show. Your father died of natural causes. I got home from work and your father was like this and I'm just trying to take him to the room to figure out what to do next.

James looked into the room that she's pointing at and there in the center was a giant four-foot red kimchi bucket. Look, I don't know if she always just keeps 4 feet tall kimchi buckets as like the centerpiece to her bedroom, but from what I can tell, that is not normal, especially for people who live in cities. It's very likely that she bought this intentionally, knowing that she was going to put it to use one day. So James is in a state of shock and he's thinking, is my mom really trying to put my dad into a kimchi bucket right now? Like, this doesn't even make sense. It's not even registering in his head. And he's trying to talk but he can't even think clearly he can't even think logically

he felt like he was out of control over his own body. One moment he's freaking out in his head the next moment he's helping put his own father into the kimchi bucket. She kept reassuring him the whole time. Sweetie it's going to be okay it's temporary. I just need somewhere to put your father to like and call a funeral home. It's just so complicated right now to go through the whole process.

I don't even know where to start. So in James's foggy state of mind, I mean, it kind of made sense. His mom struggled with severe depression. And so things that would take people and used to take her like two minutes, it would now take her a full day. I mean, to make a doctor's appointment to go to the doctor, that took her like months to just get through. And surely reporting a death, calling a funeral home, like these are

things that's going to take a lot of time. And that's the thing that he regrets the most about all of this is that he helped put his own dad's body into the bucket. And now he's technically liable. I mean, he technically helped her get rid of the body. And even afterwards, when he has a moment to finally be like, okay, this is not normal. Like people don't just do this when people pass. People don't do this when your loved one dies naturally in the house. There was no way that he felt like he could call the police. You say he was 17? Yeah. He just didn't report it because he

felt like, okay, I'm gonna go to jail. And then I'm never gonna go to university. I'm never gonna get a job. I'm gonna, I'm gonna face stigma for the rest of my life. Like, I can't throw away my future for this, which I know it sounds crazy. It's like, um, excuse me, what did you just say? But in theory, it makes sense. I'm not saying that I would do this, but the idea that he has is, my dad is already dead. I'm already grieving his death. I didn't kill him, he's already dead,

so should I go ahead and kill my future too? I think that's where James was coming from. So he stays quiet about this whole thing for decades. He didn't say a single word to anybody for 10 years, but now the police are knocking on his door, demanding answers about his missing dad, and he was so scared he lied to them. Again, he knew the minute that they left,

he should have told them. He should have been like, okay, you know what? I was so scared 10 years ago that I never told you guys this, but I'm gonna tell you guys now, especially because the statute of limitations for what he did, being an accomplice to concealing a body is seven years. So you can't even go to jail if he tells them the truth. Wow.

Okay. Maybe he didn't know that. Maybe he was so scared. He just, he didn't tell them anything. Now, it didn't seem like James had much contact with his mom. Like maybe there was a location all letting her borrow money or like a birthday dinner here or there, but I don't think that they were close.

But here's the thing. Lee Se-jung had two sons. One that passed from an accident, and then her eldest son was James. And now she has an eight year old son, Tihul. But Mr. Park has been in that bucket for the past 10 years, so who is Tihul's dad? Could he be the other been in that bucket for the past 10 years, so who is Chios' dad? Could he be the other man in the bucket?

Does she just like to off the father of her children like what is going on? According to neighbors and those who news hejong from 8 years ago, they said no, it's not possible. According to the neighbors, there was a foreign man that came by the apartment a lot around the time the Tio was born. This is before they heard the kid crying, so they assumed that this is Tio's dad. It was like maybe eight, nine years ago. And later when Tio was an infant, they would see Tio around once in a while, and one of the neighbors had caught one of the foreigners, like the foreign man and Tio on the way out of the apartment.

The neighbor just casually asked, like, oh, like, are you the dad? And the foreign man said, yes, I'm the dad. But they don't remember anything else about this guy. Other than the fact that his hair was curly, he had big eyes, and some sources say that he was from Bangladesh, and he decided to move back after his visa was over. So he moved out maybe a year or two after Cheol is born. Sejong is left to raise Cheol by herself, which I get it. It's a hard task.

Like having to be a working single mom feels nearly impossible, but she didn't even try to put in effort. She didn't even attempt to be a good mom. Firstly, she never let Chio go to school, which is illegal. In South Korea, it is required that every citizen attend school up to middle school.

And because neighbors knew that she had a kid, she had to keep up the appearances because they can report to you. They And because neighbors knew that she had a kid, she had to keep up the appearances, because they can report you. They're like, hey, there's a kid that's crying and it's school hours. So come get this kid. So she tells her local school district that her son is not ready for school yet.

He's not developing at a normal rate. That's what she said. Which you can use this excuse until the first grade. So you can skip all the way through kindergarten with this excuse. First grade, it doesn't matter anymore. Your kid needs to show up to school. So she does this all through kindergarten.

First grade shows up and she comes in with a doctor's note and says that Chio has epilepsy so he can't go to this school. She didn't say school, she said this school. She said, I'm gonna be sending him to a private school that has better resources for a kid like him. And that didn't make sense to literally anybody. Private schools are so expensive.

Sejun couldn't afford it. And the public school she was supposed to send to you to actually was one of the best disability programs in the area. The teacher in charge of this disability program was well known in the teaching world as being an expert in specifically teaching children with epilepsy. So this would have been the best absolutely the best choice for Chih-ho, but Se-jung refused. She said that she could take him to a private school and the principal, I believe, tried to reach out to her a few more times and around that time Chih-ho went under the radar. Neighbors never really saw him again. So up until he was about five years old around first grade year, he's out, he's hanging out of the playground, he's doing his thing, and then just nothing gone. No crying, you mean?

No crying, nothing. It was so bizarre. And Neighbors just assumed that he went to go live with his dad or potentially even, you know, like Sejong's parents. And then about two years later, Sejong was kind of in and out of the apartment whenever she felt like it, like she would bring in random men here and there. And then about 2013, a year before all of this unraveled, she had a relatively stable boyfriend.

He ended up moving into the apartment. And the smell had been there since the day she moved in and had only gotten worse over the years, which is wild. Like, how does someone come over, date someone like that and is not thinking, this is such a big red flag. So he's dating her.

He's moving in. And Se-jung, she had known this boyfriend from work, so they both work at this candy factory. They start dating. his name is mr. Jung so this whole time that the Apartments smells because there's a corpse in there. So at this point mr. Park had been in that bucket for like eight nine years And this whole time it there's a smell yeah and other stuff Some people say that she wasn't actually a hoarder and that she was piling up trash to

make an excuse for the scent. Some people say that she was a hoarder and that's why she kept the bodies for so long, because I mean, you would think that sometime between the 10 years you started thinking, okay, maybe I should get rid of this body, right? But some people say no, because she was a hoarder, she didn't even want to get rid of this body, right? But some people say no, because she was a hoarder, she didn't even want to get rid of the body that she allegedly murdered. Anyway, she meets Mr. Jong at her candy factory workplace.

And the boss has this crazy role. Strictly, no employees are allowed to date anyone. I don't know, it's like a weird power-tripping reason, but the boss is like, absolutely not. So they fall in love and everyone knew what's going on. I mean, they're suddenly walking to and from work in the same direction. It's very clear that they're dating. In October of 2013, the factory boss is like, you know what? I'm gonna make an example out of them. So he fires Mr. Jung. He's like, you break a rule. This is what happens. I'm not

here to play around anymore. And this is when it's speculated that their relationship just starts kind of falling apart. Mr. Jung stays home all day. Se-jung goes to work and she's the breadwinner. He's starting to feel insecure. He's not a provider. Se-jung takes over his bank accounts, changes his passwords, doesn't even give him access to his own money. And she argued, you stay home and you spend all this frivolous money that you don't even give him access to his own money and she argued you stay home and you've spent all this like frivolous money that you don't even need to be spending when you don't even make money I Mean he has no control over his life and then at the end of 2013 He just

disappears He goes missing He'd already been isolated from his coworkers his boss was not expecting him to come in because he didn't have a job. And even his family, I mean, nobody really knew until the time he was gone. Sometimes his family would call Sejeong and be like, uh, what's going on with Mr. Drunk? Like, where's my brother? And she would just scream into the phone.

Your brother cheated on me and left, so don't you ever dare call me anymore. It was like a lot. So she quickly moves on and she starts dating all these other men. And none of them move in though. So just like Mr. Park's, hejong's first husband, Mr. Junk just fanishes off the face of the earth. The police speculated that he is the other victim in the bucket. So even before the trial or even before hejong's arrest, this case is receiving so much

national attention. People are like, you're telling me that there were two bodies inside of a kimchi bucket. That's wild, that's nuts. Where is the killer? Who is the killer? The public is putting pressure on the police, get the killer.

So the police go around and they put up these little misting posters for Sejong and they're like, oh my God, she's not. He wanted for like a double homicide. This is so unrelated to the kimchi kivist right now. She's just a missing ajama and we need to find her because missing ajama is like their vulnerable. They had her full name on there.

But people are like putting two and two together that are like, mm, missing ajama, kimchi bucket murders. Just like that? Yeah, they're like, it's, to me, it sounds weird. So the day after finding the bodies in the kimchi bucket, the police show up at Sejong's work and they're like, hey receptionist, we need to talk to this lady. Oh, her? She's left.

What do you mean? She just left. Like, and how we go? You just missed her. She's at Jadson's sort of family emergency. So the police, they track her through the CCTV cameras. They see her literally leaving work an hour ago, running home, seeing the cop cars outside the apartment building,

you turning it, literally turning on her heel, you turning it out of there. And they try to track her as far as they can with the CCTV, but they lose her. She's like in a blind spot and then she's just gone. They can't see her anymore. She switched off her phone. She stopped using her credit cards.

There was no way for the police to track her and the cops. They had seen so many cases like this. Okay, not like this, but instances where perpetrators go off the radar and they know that in cities like this, you can't do that unless you have help. Unless someone is helping you. There's no way you can avoid all the CCTV cameras while you're going out, not use your phone or card to purchase something unless someone is out going and buying these things for you. South Korea is a pretty cashless society filled with cameras everywhere. Even to order food through a delivery service, you need to use your

real ID, which is like your social security number. So they tracked Hye-Jung's phone before it was shut off, and there was one number that she would constantly call at night. Which is like, who do you call at night? You call your boyfriend at night. And it's always to the same one, and it belonged to a foreign, anonymous man. Let's call him Christopher. Christopher was an immigrant from Sri Lanka, and he worked in the factory next to Hye-Jung's

factory where she worked. Also, he didn't just work in the factory he lived there, And he worked in the factory next to Sejong's factory where she worked. Also, he didn't just work in the factory he lived there. So he lives in the factory and it made sense. Because neighbors were like, oh yeah, she never comes home. So we don't even know where she's sleeping. We don't even know why she pays rent here, other than to stink up our nostrils

because she's never home. So they go to the factory and they try to find Christopher. Now, I do want to mention the conditions in this factory are like abysmal. Like sure they get free housing, but I'm talking like shoe box apartments that have roaches everywhere. It's really bad. And it technically wasn't free. I'm sure it was deducted from their pay somehow.

Employees always complained about the conditions, but the employer is just didn't care. They were basically living in these shipping containers that had been split into multiple apartments and there wasn't even like a single window in each one. The police arrived at Christopher's room and they knock on the door. And he opens it and he's like sticking out just his little face, just a crack. And the police have an arrest warrant for ease hedging.

But they don't have a search warrant for Christopher's house. So technically, unless he lets the men, they have no legal authority to search his home. And Christopher just kept saying, I don't have a search warrant for Christopher's house. So technically, unless he lets the men, they have no legal authority to search his home. And Christopher just kept saying, I don't know this woman. I don't know Korean. Well, I have no idea what you guys are talking about. And no, you cannot search my place. So they're like, fine, we'll just come back with a warrant.

Two days later, they show up with a search warrant in hand, and this time, something bizarre happens. Christopher opens the door, sees the police, and lets the door swing all the way open. The cops are like, okay, that's a weird change from the first time they came around where his face was just like peeking through the crack of the door. They don't immediately bring up the search warrant though. I think that they still want to play nice as he was maybe like a could be considered a viable witness in the trial

one day. So they tell him, hey, we're here to talk to Sejong. And he just kept responding, I don't know her. You can't come in. That's what he said the first time too. But it didn't matter because they have a search warrant now, right? But Christopher kept reiterating, I don't know her. You can't come in. And his eyes were wide. They're like bugging out of his like face. And he keeps repeating, I don't know her. You can't come in. And it's almost like he's looking at the wardrobe behind him. What? Why don't he just just point it, just say come in, check the wardrobe. What does he do? Maybe he's scared. That's what the police presumed that he's very scared. And maybe the police wouldn't check.

And then he'd be screwed. And I do think that there was a language barrier. So he just kept saying, I don't know. You can't come in. And so the police look at him. And they walk past him. He lets them. And they're silently looking, standing in front of this wardrobe.

And they're like, OK, count to three. They're silently looking, standing in front of this wardrobe and they're like, okay, like count to three. They're like one, two, three. And they slam open the wardrobe door and there is Lee's headjong squinting from the sudden light, dressed in nothing but her underwear. So the police immediately arrest her and side note about Christopher. Police theorized that Christopher had no idea about Sejong's kid, no idea about the bodies. He was just dating her and then maybe she probably came up with some sort of lie about,

hey, I'm on the run because my ex boyfriend is also a cop and he's trying to get after me and then he was just shielding her and then probably right on the news that some weird, weird stuff was going on. He starts connecting the dots but now he's so scared that he's going to be the next one in the kimchi bucket. So he's like, what do I do? So the police bring her in for questioning, and she is ready to talk. She seems like a nervous talker, if I'm being honest.

The ones that just keep talk, talk, talk, until they find themselves in a very uncomfortable situation, that's what she was doing. That is not a good combination if you're in police custody. So getting her to talk wasn't the hard part. Getting her to tell the truth was the challenging part. When she was first detained, she kept insisting, I did not go to Christopher's to run away. I was there to get some rest. It was just tired, that's all.

I wasn't running from the law. And then out of nowhere, she blurted, okay, I killed I killed them. It was me. I said, I'm sorry. She confessed to both murders, but she totally recants everything when she lawyers up. Just keep that in mind. Inside note, there was one part during the questioning that made the investigators feel very uneasy. So unsettling.

So the conversation would keep going. And they would ask her all the questions about like the case and stuff like that. How do you feel right now? Why did you do this? And she just kept repeating, I'm sorry. You're saying that you're sorry? Yes. I'm sorry. Why did you do it? I'm sorry. Okay, so you killed both of them. I'm sorry. Sorry. The interrogator said it felt like she wasn't sorry. She was practicing which version of I'm Sorry sounded the best.

Imagine someone's acting and they have one line and they keep repeating that one line in different emotions. But you can tell they're not feeling the emotions. It's almost like they're overly analyzing their own cadence and tone. She's like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was so weird. What does that mean? Like what is that? She's not sorry just trying to learn how humans say sorry? Like what? Yeah, so people think that clearly she might have antisocial or psychopathic tendencies

where she doesn't feel sorry and a lot of these psychopaths, especially the ones that turn violent. I mean, anyone can turn violent, but you get what I'm saying. A lot of them mimic humans. So they just mimic people. They mimic the emotions and that's why you'll like, that's why you kind of, I don't know, I wonder if people get it like a gut feeling

because you can just tell something is off even though they're smiling at you, even though they're saying these things you're like, hmm, something feels a little weird. It seems like she was trying to learn how to best say it. Yeah, it was really unsettling, they said. Anyway, her final version of events was, I came home after work, I saw a bunch of officers,

and I felt my son was dead, and the police were looking for me because I left him home alone. Side note, she doesn't even remember Tio's age when the police asked her. And so they're like, okay, yeah, we're gonna talk about that later, but that's not why you're here, ma'am.

Can you tell us about the two bodies inside of the bucket? The man at the bottom was my first husband. Mr. Park. The man on the top is just a foreign man that I met on the street by chance once. I ended up killing him inside my house, and I hired another foreigner to help with me and put his body in the bucket.

I paid him like $1,000 to keep quiet. And they're like, OK, why did you do it? And she's like, why I'm not some heartless killer, you know? I'm not some horrible low life mom who just leaves her kid alone and feels so she can have fun. I'm just kidding, but she's like, I'm a good person, I didn't kill them. She states that for her husband, Mr. Park, she woke up one morning. Just like so happy and love. She woke up a great mom.

She could feel it in her bones. She's like rubbing her eyes, looks to her left. Her husband is dead. This is literally how she's explaining it. And she said she kept trying to shake her husband away, but his body was already cold. He had died in his sleep. OK, let's be real.

If this story is true, she would have no reason to hide his body in a bucket for 10 years. The police also had his medical records. There were zero traces of any medical condition or problem and middle-aged people contrary to some people's belief, don't just like die in their sleep from old age out of nowhere. So why didn't you call the cops? Why didn't you call the hospital? I was severely depressed at that point and the idea of reporting a death calling a funeral home doing all of these things, I mean it was so daunting. It was just so stressful.

It felt like honestly, it felt like a hassle. She uses the word hassle, the exact word. She said, you didn't want to deal with it. Later, I think she realized that's a horrible story, so she changes it with the help of her lawyer. And she says, no, no, no. I left Mr. Park in that bucket because I love him so much. I can't be away from his bod. Wow. Yeah. And as for the second body, they're like, why did you

kill the second body? And then she goes, no, no, no, I didn't kill them. Um, letting kill Mr. Park, but I did kill this one. He's a foreign man. That's our explanation. That is her explanation. As if saying that he's a foreigner's explanation enough, inside note, this body does not belong to a foreigner. And it's speculated the reason that she lied about it being a foreigner was because it sometimes the Korean police do go easier if the victim is a foreigner, which is weird. So she thought the police would be easier on her if it wasn't a Korean citizen.

Yeah. So, it's a lot. Now the police were able to successfully ID the bodies and the process was really long and creative. The fluid of both the bodies were all mixed up in the bucket. The first one, the one on top that wasn't as far along in the decont process. I mean, there were very few remaining skin particles, so they tried to draw DNA from that. Also an autopsy would have been pretty much no use.

There was a piece of fabric still wrapped around the victim's neck like a scarf, so it speculated that he could have easily died from strangulation. But that's not enough in court. They still need it a motive. They still need to find out who this body belonged to. So the police get in contact with the Korean National Forensic Service to see if they can help, and it's difficult. The body fluids from both the bodies had mixed and cross contaminated each other.

The examiners did find traces of different drugs in the liquid though, so one was the medication used for allergies. But think like Benadrol, one of the biggest side effects is it makes you super sleepy. So nowadays doctors will recommend it either if you have allergies or whether you have insomnia. And it's an over-the-counter medicine so you don't even need a prescription. And then there was high blood pressure medication that was found in the fluid. This one is a prescription medication and it's not just used for high blood pressure. Some doctors will prescribe it for depression and anxiety.

But it's not the most common drug to be used for that. But it happens. 그는 and the other one, they didn't have the confirmation. So this is where investigators, they get really creative. And they got really lucky. So the bottom body, presumed to be Mr. Park, he, that would have been the biggest obstacle. I mean, he had been dead for 10 years. Most of his body was just soaking in liquid. Miraculously though, miraculously, one of his hands was above the liquid.

Like reaching out towards the top, it looked like he was reaching up for the sky. And a small, like a few of his fingers didn't decay as much. That meant they were trying to run fingerprints. Wait, this is from the top bottom, really after 10 years. Top was pretty easy to identify. Wow, after 10 years, they still can run fingerprints. So they had to get very creative. They cleaned off the thumb, trying to recreate the fingerprint. They had to put the thumb under pressurized hot water to kill as much of the bacteria as possible and get a lot of that liquid from out of the grooves of the fingerprint. But they did make sure that the

water was in two pressurized or it would destroy the sensitive skin because imagine just like soaking in liquid for 10 years, your skin is going to be practically like a slop. So once they examined the, sorry, once they cleaned out the grooves, the examiner tied a rubber band around the thumb below the joint and then they carefully injected air and hot water into the thumb using a small needle. So this had been in the liquid for 10 years. So it was shrunk in, mischraped, and very pruny. So they had to inflate the finger pad. So while it's bloated, the examiner would try to record the fingerprint. And the rubber band worked to

keep the air in water inside, but it wasn't a perfect solution. They had to try multiple times. But sure enough, it was a match to Mr. Park's head-ung's husband who went missing a decade ago. The body on top was easier to identify, like I said. They lifted a print, a fingerprint, and it was Mr. Jung, the co-worker. So, now with this, his head-ung couldn't lie that this was a foreigner, and she starts coming up with every excuse in the book, and she's like, you know what, I came home from work one day and he was drunk out of his mind. Okay? He was drunk out of his mind. He was belligerent. He was fighting me. We were yelling screaming.

I tried to walk away, but he kept drinking and he kept yelling. So I told him here to take this. I gave him some medication that I have for insomnia and I said, you know what? Just sleep it off and talk in the morning when your head is clear. Now this medication, think Ambien. This is available only with a prescription and it was prescribed to Sejong and Ambien, it slows down your nervous system so that you can get some sleep. But if you mix Ambien with alcohol, it's a huge no-no. Doctors will drill this home when they prescribe this to you. Mixing the two can cause your respiratory system to stop working like it should. And you can suffocate to death.

Se-jung would have known that because she's the one that's been prescribed that. It's unclear if she did the same exact thing to Mr. Park 10 years ago, but he took the medication, got really weak, got really drowsy, he was out of it, and I genuinely thought, I'm sitting there like, okay, she's gonna say that he died. She didn't know that he died. She didn't know that the meds would interact with the alcohol in a system like that because that's what this all sounds like, a set up for, doesn't it?

Instead she goes, he knocked out and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to start choking him to death. So she confessed? Yeah. She choked him to death and then threw him into the kimchi tub on top of her husband. She didn't get help. Now there are allegations that she had helped from another boyfriend of hers or somebody else, but the police have come out and said that there's no evidence of it. So she admits to killing Mr. Jong and refuses to admit to killing Mr. Park and all of this goes to trial

And the police want to charge with Se Jong with the murder of both of these men so August 14th 2014 trial starts and Se Jong shows up in court and everyone's kind of freaking surprised She is just a normal shows up in court and everyone's kind of freaking surprised. She is just a normal, ajama, middle-aged lady, like just looks so normal. Like your typical Korean grandma, not even grandma, just like mom at H-Mart. People even questioned if she could lift a body and put them into the kimchi bucket herself.

She didn't even look strong enough, which the police were one step ahead. They actually made her do a reconstruction for the crime, and sure enough, she was capable of lifting Mr. Jung's weight above and putting him into a container that was four feet tall. Yeah. In court, she just repeated the same thing that she told the police, and that she never, ever killed her husband Mr. Park. She just kept repeating that she loved him so much she couldn't dare part with his body. There were some moments in the trial though,

where it seemed like maybe his headjong's lawyer was put in their hole back into this case because for example, all the neighbors were called in to testify about the stench coming out of the unit alluding to the fact that she had two bodies in a kimchi bucket in her apartment and it was so blatant, she didn't even care that she was ruining everyone's quality of life nor nor the fact that even for the slightest bit she someone

could have looked into her because of that scent. Well when the neighbors got up on the stand to testify about that god awful smell coming out of her unit they were asked what about the poopy plant next door spectators are like what what did What did they just say? What poopy plant? The whole apartment building is right next to a soil plant that specializes in natural fertilizer. In other words, they live next to a factory that takes animal feces and mixes it into dirt to make really rich fertile soil and packages it into bags to sell for gardeners. So that factory is literally the whole neighborhood that at least looks like shit. But honestly the neighbors were prepared and they said that actually further proves our point. The whole

neighborhood smelled bad. We knew that moving in. This was a new to us. That wasn't a deal breaker, but the fact that we could stand the smell of a poopy fertilizer plant, but not her unit should tell you how bad her unit was. So in February of 2015, the court requested that Sejong received 24 years in prison for her crimes. It was sent to the higher courts in Korea, and she received 18 years in prison instead. Yeah, the public was pretty pissed about this.

They wanted the Supreme Court to explain themselves, and everyone was really disappointed. They wrote online, our legal system is crazy, like 18 years, seriously, we need to rip apart the law and rewrite it. For two people's deaths and an entire kid's future, 18 years, that's way too low. Side note, Chiu has been taken from his mom's custody. He's in a child home that provides him therapist and psychologist for his trauma. He was 8 in 2014, so he should be about 17 years old now. And I just hope that wherever he is, he can lead a happy fulfilling life. Now the courts, they stuck by their decision, which means that she's going to be getting out in 2034.

She's going to be 73 years old. But a lot of people say that Se-Jong is a different kind of killer. You know, age never really stopped her. Her physical strength never really stopped her. So who knows if society is safe from her, even though she's 73. I don't know. What are your thoughts on this case? Do you feel like the

sentence is just as served? Do you think that this is another case of Korea giving more rights and protections to the perpetrators rather than the victims? Do you think she got off easy because she's a mom? And she looks like your stereotype a glau-la-jima? Let me know in the comments. But please stay safe, and I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-suit. Bye! Let me know in the comments, but please stay safe and I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-suit. Bye!