Rotten Mango - #296: Two Sisters Dead After 12 K-Drama Directors’ Sexual Assault & Torture

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

12 K-Drama Directors that had worked on sets behind some of the most beloved, wholesome, shows were predators in disguise. They preyed on the extras. The ones that were desperate for work and just getting their foot in the door.  They “passed them around” as if they were all some objects they had control over.  For 3 months, Sora, was tortured at the hands of 12 casting directors. By the end of this case -  Sora will die.  Her little sister will die.  Her father will die.  And the perpetrators are still working in the Korean entertainment industry.  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

Bramble. But being barboop. I have a question for you. It's kind of like the trolley question. Let's say that a person is stabbed with a very long knife, like a 15 inch knife. I mean, it's clear from the get-go that if this person doesn't get medical attention immediately, they're going to die from their injuries. It's that long of a knife.

So they get rushed to the hospital. But at this hospital, the doctor that's supposed to save their lives puts them on the operating table, yanks out their knife without a care in the world and just watches them bleed out. Whispers in the patient's ear, walk it off, you'll be fine. If that person on the table ends up dying, who do you think is the killer?

The person that stabbed them? Or the doctor that did everything to make sure that they did not survive? Or both? Has it happened? That's kind of wild. Basically, it happens in this case. Not, you'll see.

It's not the same series of events, but you can see the clear killer, you can see the doctor, you can see everyone in this one. The police had given Sora's mom a very strange request. Imagine the police call you and they're like, hey, I need you to go to the store and buy me a box of crayons for the investigation. You're like, okay, that's really weird, but if it's going to help with the investigation, obviously, you're going to do it, right?

So Soda's mom goes to the store and she's picking up a box with the most color of crayons, like the most variety of colors for her 30-year-old daughter who is with the investigators right now. She's thinking, okay, maybe this is going to be the end. They're going to ask for this one more thing and everything will blow over and I can have my daughter back. Her daughter had been through enough. Sora had gotten out of the psych ward at the hospital recently and hopefully when all of this is over she would be on the path to healing. So she brings this little box of crayons to the police station and she watches as the investigator rips them from her hands, throws them on the desk in front of her daughter's hoarder.

Here, take these and draw it. Excuse me? He threw her sheet of a four paper and a ruler. You're saying he assaulted you? He's saying he didn't assault you. You have no proof, so prove it. Draw his private parts. No freaking way.

If you can draw it identically to his real life private parts, we'll investigate him further. So make sure you get it perfect though in terms of length and it with in millimeters. We want it precise. Oh, in the color your mom brought you some crayons. So this truly happened to you, you should be able to draw it from memory unless you're lying about it. You're being for real. This. I'm being for real. This is what police said. In South Korea. Yeah.

Yeah. Sora is kind of glancing around the station. The same exact reaction as us. I'm sure I'm sorry, I'm sorry, more visceral, I'm sure. But in the sense of like, okay, is someone going to pop out and be like, just kidding, we're going to put them in jail for what they did. Don't worry. Is this some sort of sick joke?

Nobody popped out. Sora would end up grabbing those crayons despite retraumatizing herself to the torture that she endured for the past three months. And she thought, if I just do this one thing, the police are gonna take me seriously, they're gonna know that I'm not lying, right? Instead, what happened was, when she was done drawing,

another detective came up to her and said, hey, take off your hat. I wanna see the face of the girl who slept with 12 people. She was assaulted by 12 people. Another officer said to her, you were assaulted by 12 people? What you look strong? Why are you acting like that over 12 people?

Did you love them at least? I mean, can you say it wasn't bad? Like was it at least a little good? Some girls are out there making really good money by sleeping with like 30 to 40 clients a day. So, I mean, it's just 12. It's like the world's not over. They even said, you know that supermarket family, the family that owns the supermarket on the street? Their daughter was also essayed. But look at her, she got over it is just like a passing storm for her.

She's living well with her family. I mean, you just need to, you need to work on getting better and getting used to society. After walking out of the police station with her mom, Sora would bolt. She ran and threw herself into oncoming traffic at the busy intersection right in front of the police station. She wanted to die in front of the police station who refused to take her seriously. She wanted the world to know what happened to her. The police refused to investigate the Korean entertainment industry.

Twelve male casting directors on the set of famous K-dramas had harassed and assayed her. They quote past her around as if she was some sort of object that they had power and control over. They humiliated her, threatened to assault her with broken glass bottles, burned cigarettes on her face, and set her house on fire. By the end of this case, Sora will die. Her little sister will die, and their father will die. And the perpetrators are still working in the Korean entertainment industry. As always, full show notes are available at rottonmingopodcast.com. It's a very weird time to bring this up, but I do want to briefly mention that I am very grateful for the people that we work with on the

rottonmingo team. I mean the amount of passion and dedication that they approach, just every single case and every single story with is incredible and I feel so lucky to have this team and we're still growing and learning every day but for today's case one of our researchers who's based in Korea was actually able to connect with the victim's mother. They met in person, they shared a cake together, we didn't want to push her to talk to us about anything in particular, our researcher didn't show up with a list of questions, we just wanted her to feel comfortable. And I think even just for one of us to be in her presence and to see the pain that she very bravely carries around with her. And just to get further insight on what her fight for justice has been like,

it's given us a profound understanding of this case. And yeah, so her name is Mrs. Chang, but we're gonna call her Mrs. Young because they're the Yang family and I want it to be a little bit easier to understand. But please leave some supportive comments as we're gonna be translating a lot of the comments into Korean for her to get some strength from you guys. I just wanted to know that we're thinking of her

all the way in America. Oh, also she has a YouTube channel where she posts updates on the case. Wow. Oh, also she has a YouTube channel where she posts updates on the case. Wow. Yeah, and she's a one-man show. She does one woman protest. She runs her YouTube channel by herself. I'm going to link that in the description.

So please go show your support there too. I think it would mean the world. So with that being said, let's get into it. The morning of August 28, 2009, Mrs. Yang, so Sora's mom and Sora, they were touring homes for the family. So it's going to be Mr. and Mrs. Yang, Sora and her little sister, Sojung. Sora was no longer working on the sets of K-dramas. It's not something that they would ever bring up in the house, though. And Mrs. Yang was just really proud of her for this new direction that she was going

in. She was working on getting her real estate license while working at this fried chicken shop on the side at home. She would make these rings and these pins. She earned her bead craft's license and sold her little pieces at little markets. She even had her nail art certificate. So it's a lot of different avenues of passions, yeah, but Mrs. Yang was in no rush to tell Sora, like pick one,

you know, she wasn't thinking, you got to pick a career. She just wanted her little daughter, Sora, to be happy. She had come such a long way. After looking at houses, Sora and her mom, they're grabbing this quick bite to eat. So here is Sora putting food on her mom's spoon, urging her like, eat, eat them, ma, making sure that her mom is getting a variety of all the side dishes, of all the greens, of all the nutrients. And it used to be the other way around. Mrs. Yang used to be the one that was

always making sure that Sora was eating, even preparing all of her favorite foods to try and get her to take another bite. Probably the most vivid memory that Mrs. Yang had was, like three, four years ago, she was so excited to see Sora that day. She wanted to bring her all of her favorite dishes, so she woke up early in the morning, went to the market, picked out the freshest fruits. She inspected every single berry to make sure none of them were bruised or smushed or squashed. She picked the apples and she knows which ones are going to be crisp and sweet. Like after 30 years of being a mom, she's a professional at this.

Then she rushes to a few local bakeries asking, do you have fresh batches of this bread? So is Sora's favorite. And lastly, she timed everything perfectly. She was going to see Sora at, let's say, 1 pm. She found a chicken shop nearby. She was going to go and pick up the fried chicken at 12.45 pm. So by the time that she rushes to Sora, the chicken would still be crispy and hot. And Mrs. Yang remembers setting out all the food on the table. Her, her, her, eat while it's still hot. Come on, it's your favorite chicken, you're eat the wing, it's your favorite.

And she's putting food onto Sora's plate. And Sora was just picking at it in her hospital gown. The ones that they give all the psych ward patients. And Mrs. Yang is just sitting there anxiously waiting for her to say something, anything. Sora looks at her and says, Mom, I think I was raped. Mrs. Yang is like, okay, let me fight this memory out of my head.

It is not something she wants to think about anymore. She wants to focus on So, that being healthy. I mean, it's been four years since that fateful day and So, that has been getting better, right? And they're looking at houses, they're going out to lunch together and then snap. After looking at houses together and grabbing a quick bite, as they're walking down the street, Mrs. Yang's slippers strap snapped, like her little flip-flop snapped. And there was just something about that day. It felt like some

sort of bad omen. And so Mrs. Yang grabbed Sora's hand, starts dragging her broken slipper across the pavement, half walking, half sliding to the nearest shoe store. And she looks at her daughter and says, National Treasure. That's her nickname for her. Let's make it a shopping trip. Okay, let's both pick out a pair of shoes while we're there. So you pick a cute pair and I'll pick a cute pair. Mrs. Yang chose a pair of yellow slippers. Sora chose silver ones that were very sparkly. And as they're checking out, Soda looked at her mom and said, Mom, if I don't wear these, are they your style?

Would you ever wear these? Soda's mom, that is kind of an odd question to ask. Like, honey, we have very different feet sizes. How could I wear your slippers? OK. After buying the new shoes, Soda told her mom, I just need to run by the house real quick and feed the dog.

Mrs. Yang had a few other errands to run first. So she says, okay, be safe. And she watched her daughter walk off. Soda would never wear the silver shoes. She walked directly home and jumped from the 18th floor of their apartment building in Sora. She left a note that read, I was their sexual toy. Death is the only way to live. When Sora's mom heard of her eldest daughter's death, she was so shocked she didn't even cry. She felt like she was in a trance. She wasn't even in her own body.

I mean the first night in the house without Sora, Mrs. Yang just stared at the silver shoes that she would never get to wear and she thought to herself, I should have felt something was strange when my shoes strap broke. And she blamed herself. She said, why didn't I know? Why didn't I know anything even though she's my daughter? In Korea, there are some gifts that are avoided for superstitious reasons. I was always taught by my parents that when I give someone a watch, they have to at least give me a dollar because now it's no longer a gift and it's an exchange of goods. Because a gift of a watch or a symbol of time is a very bad luck. It's like I'm telling the person I'm gifting it to. So in Chinese, yes.

Gif watch is Song Zhong. It pronounced exactly like seeing someone's death. Like someone died, you take them to Song Zhong, like through the whole process of that. That's why the words are, they pronounce exactly the same. That's why you can't give that. Wow, okay. So I was always taught by my parents. It's like you're giving a symbol of like your time is running out.

It's like a reminder, right? When I gifted my parents all watches for their 60th birthday, they both wired me like $1 because I was an LA. And you're not supposed to gift empty wallets. So if you want to buy your girlfriend a wallet, you have to put at least $1 or $5 in there. Because if you give someone an empty wallet, you're wishing them a future of emptiness financially. And shoes, if you gift someone shoes, it's also customary for them to give you a dollar

because shoes represent the end of a relationship. Usually in romantic partnerships, it's a breakup. It means that you wish the person would walk away from you. So does mom felt like she should have known better? And I think of mother's guilt is so painful to witness because how can you tell a mom that it's not their fault? Most moms feel responsible for anything and everything that happens to their kid. So yeah, so does mom was sitting there staring at the silver slippers, wondering of all the ways that she might have been able to prevent this.

Not knowing that six days later, her youngest daughter would also be gone. In a single week, she would lose all her children. As a mom, Mrs. Yang probably has been a fortune on shoes. She was never really upset by it, though. So, you know, as kids age, they outgrow their shoes. We're going through the same thing right now with our nieces, constantly outgrowing clothes. Shoes, I mean, it never lost. They'll get a fresh pair for Christmas.

And before you know it, their feet have grown so much that you can't even like force it into the shoe. And it's frustrating because my sister is like, man, these shoes are practically brand new. It's like, there's not even wear and tear. Sora never had that experience. Sorah would be running through town with friends, laps around the playground, up and down the neighborhood, up and down the stairs. Her shoes, the soles would be falling out before her feet even outgrew them. And Mrs. Young never complained.

She loved every single aspect of being a mom. Like when Soda had turned 100 days old, this is a really big deal in Korean families. It's called like the pagan. Mrs. Yang stayed up all night, making a hundred red bean rice cakes and handing them out turned neighbors. Nobody really does this anymore. It's really time consuming and people just think it's one of those old traditions, right, back in the day. But it's supposed to be for good luck.

And Mrs. Yang was like, I'm gonna do anything for my kids. And I think it works. I mean, it really works. So by the time that Sora is four, she's basically using all of the big words in Korean. She was even going to an English school, a Hanta Academy, I think is what it's called.

Chinese traditional Chinese words. Yes, the Chinese characters, right? Academies in kindergarten, she was like the little librarian of her class. She would read books to her classmates that couldn't read yet. After school, she would take Tecwondo lessons and then it turned into piano lessons. So like, I don't know, can you really tell me the rice cakes didn't work? I'm just kidding.

You know, it's good parenting. But Sora was just really a unique case. Her IQ was tested later to be 157, which is considered highly, highly, highly gifted. Wow. To put it into perspective, just how smart Sora was, one of Sora's teachers approached Sora's mom one day and said, you know, the teacher's a little bit of a superstitious lady, which who's not these days. And she said, can I ask for So does exact date and time of birth? My daughter and law is giving birth. And if we can try to plan a C section for the exact time that So does was born, I would very much like that.

Implifying that So does is developing so quickly. And this is a teacher who's seen generations of kids come through. She's like, there must be something in the birth charts, something, because this is a teacher who's seen generations of kids come through. She's like, there must be something in the birth charts. Something because this is crazy. So as Hota's growing older, she actually grew more into this very reserved intellectual type. She would spend most of her time head-buried in a textbook. She was never late to a single class, perfect attendance. Even later in college, when a lot of girls were finally out of the control of their parents homes, you know, they want to like experiment with the way that they dress their makeup their hair.

So, that is like t-shirt jeans. Let me just get through my studies. The back one, so that was four. Mrs. Yang had given birth to So-Jeong. And she was the opposite of So-Jeong. And I'm laughing because it kind of reminds me of me and my sister. She could not sit down to study. She would be dancing all over the house, stepping on Soda's homework. I mean, when she finally burned off all the energy, she would knock out. She would just be dead asleep on the couch. You could not move her until the very next morning.

And she would literally be doing her homework during breakfast and on the bus on Soda's back because she just was not studious. She was like this free spirit of the family. She wanted to just explore and she would secretly bring home stray cats and dogs. Imagine you come home after a long day of work and you just hear, you know, you're like, so don't, what is that? Why is there a noise coming from your room? And it would just be like another little kitten and Mrs. Yang, letter keep all of them. Wow. But the two sisters, they truly could not have been more different. I mean, just can you imagine how fun their house Mr. Ben?

Even like the big ring of so-dung dancing around and so does try and focus on her homework. And then there's like five cats in the background knocking glasses off tables. I feel like the family never had a boring day with the two. Also, Mrs. Yang never called them by their names. She called them National Treasure One and National Treasure Two. Seren Krivia, all the national treasures they're numbered, so this is a cute nickname that she gave, so it's like one and two.

And in 2004, after graduating college, Sora's 29 and her little sister, Sojung is 25. So they're both kind of in this phase of life where they're thinking, we should experiment with the possibilities. This is our time before we really settle into a career. Like we're toying with the ideas

of what we want to truly do. Sojung turns to Sora and says something along the lines of, on the, like, we're both bored, right? Why don't we try this job together? It's a bit far. It's near Busan. So four-hour drive, right? But we can get a place there together and be extras on all these dramas that are filming there.

There's like 10 of them filming there right now and they're all looking for extras. It'll be fun. We can get our foot in the door and if we like it, maybe we can, you know, level up to like a supporting role and then go bigger and bigger from there. I mean, it's just a small gig. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, and we just come back home. So at this point, Seo-jung had become a famous idol's backup dancer.

So she's already kind of in this entertainment industry. And it seemed like a very natural suggestion. The two sisters, they packed some of their clothes, they leave for the very southern coast of Korea and Soda actually got a bit more acting gigs than Sodaung. Since Sodaung was still dancing, she had a little bit of conflict in her schedule, it wasn't very open. Meanwhile, Sodaung was like, okay, let me just take this because I'm pretty free the next three months.

Misses Young didn't really like being separated from her girls, but she was really proud and happy for them. She said, I was proud and arrogant, as proud as any mom in Korea who felt like they had the whole world. Three months later, that world would come crashing down. So-da and So-jung were back home and something had changed. It's not even one of those instances where Mrs. Yang can sit the girls down and be like, what's going on? Did you guys fight?

There's tension. It wasn't even like that. It was such a drastic scary change. Mrs. Yang was lost on how to even handle this type of situation. It's like Soda had turned into a completely different person. The minute she walked in through her family's home doors, she took off all of her clothes. She was unclosed, pacing around the house,

grabbing a knife and carving the words, die, die, die, onto a wooden tray. Mrs. Yang tried to talk to her, trying to get her to open up and tell her why she's behaving this way, but Soda would cut up furniture. She would ransack the house. She kept saying, someone is watching me, someone is watching me. The family felt like they were in over their heads like how do they even help Sora? She will not communicate with them.

They don't want to push her. They don't want to scare her. They don't want to stress her out even more. They're just trying to take it day by day, second by second, but it really was unsettling. Mrs. Yang said, even though she was my child, I was scared. Every morning, the Yang parents in Sojong, the little sister, they would wake up feeling this anxiety on their chest. Every morning, the young parents in So-Jong, the little sister, they would wake up feeling this like anxiety on their chest. They don't even know what the day had in store for them.

Most days, they would walk out into the living room and all the furniture was somehow moved in the middle of the night. Their couch was now standing on its side, leaned up against the back door. Their TV was in the kitchen. These were pieces of furniture that would take multiple people to move, but Sora had silently moved them in the middle of the night. Sometimes they would watch her obsessively roll up tissues and stick them into any little crevice or hole in the house.

She kept saying someone was spying on them with hidden cameras, someone was watching them. She was incredibly paranoid. So that would come out of her room naked, chanting, I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill you. It's like she was in a trance. Like she was possessed by someone. I mean, she felt like a stranger to the family.

She would repeat these very violent words that they had never ever heard come out of her mouth Like she's not even the type to watch violent movies or shows not saying that there's a link to like violence and that but It's just so startling like this is a girl that loves to read books and plays the piano and now after three months of Acting on K-dramas as an extra. She's come back and she's having a full psychological meltdown Every single day the family used every second to try and brainstorm of all of the ways that they could help Sora But like is there really a perfect way? Maybe if you're a trained psychiatrist you would know better, but for the family It's a very tricky situation of if we don't do anything

Clearly it's gonna get worse and Sora is obviously in some sort of pain for her to be acting like this. And if we do do something, it might push her away further. So we need to make sure whatever we do is the right choice. If we try and take her to a therapist right now, what if she rebels, runs away, and we can't even find her? There's nothing we can do. She's 30. The police aren't going to do anything if she's a runaway.

So does behavior would only get more alarming. She would be sitting down, staring at a wall, when her phone would ring. She would get angry and tell her, mom, I have to go to a shoot. I'm going to go to a shoot. I have to go. She would bolt out the door before her mom can even stop her. Before anyone can stop her because they clearly don't want to let her out of the house. And for days, she would be missing, and the family would try and reach out to her,

calling around asking if anyone had seen her, trying to get in contact with her, because they're so worried. I mean, there was no way that she was working in this state. But there was also no way of finding out where she was. A few days later, she would return in a state of just complete disarray. Her hair would be ruffled up, her lipstick would be smeared. They were so lost. How is this the same soda that we knew for the past 30 years? 30, not even like five, 30 years. Like this is her whole lifetime and just she's with the snap of a finger, a completely different person.

And then one day, Soda tried to physically attack her younger sisters Hoja. All the nurses on that hospital floor knew who Mrs. Yang was. She had been at the hospital every day for the past week, every single day she had been there. She would walk in, she would head straight for the steel doors of the waiting room, but instead of pulling on the handle, she would sit near the doors, tilt her head down, and silently cry.

Sometimes she did this for an hour, sometimes it felt like she was there all day. To the point where when she would get up, her legs would ache from sitting in the same position all day, she would have to grab the wall to support her as she walked out. She didn't ask the nurses if she could see her daughter. She knew the rules.

For the first week, the hospital focuses on stabilizing psychiatric patients. They will not allow any visitors because they just don't know if the patient is going to have some sort of reaction to that person or some sort of reaction to anything that they say. They're trying to avoid taking one step forward and five steps back. But for seven days Mrs. Yang sat there every single day knowing that she would not be able to see her daughter. She's not even trying to. But she just wanted to be there in the only way that she knew how at this point, and

it was just to show up. I'm sure to a degree she felt some sort of guilt as a mother for having her daughter admitted involuntarily to a psych ward. And I just want to make it very clear. This is a very serious, very hard decision for her to make. This is not her saying, oh, I just can't deal with it anymore, so let me just bring her to a hospital. This was arguably the best choice that Mrs. Yang had at her disposal. She can't bring Soda to a therapist even if they can force her to sit through a session after an hour. What they all go back home and everyone just hopes that Soda doesn't run away or doesn't try to kill Soda again. Mrs. Yang was just desperate to help both of her kids.

And so when the eighth day came she went and bought Soda's favorite to help both of her kids. And so when the eighth day came, she went and bought sort of favorite chicken and all of her fruits and all of her favorite bang, her bread. And she anxiously set up in the waiting room. She spent the entire day getting ready for this moment. It was in November, so she was even hugging the chicken close to her to keep it warm as she ran to the hospital. And she was telling her daughter like, eat, eat, eat, eat, well it's still hot.

Mom's always say this but Mrs. Yang said, I know it's my kid but she's so beautiful that day. So so pretty but also so so so sad. It was like in the waiting room she said this dark cloud was just hanging directly over Soda and it looked like it was following her around and she just wants to like break up the cloud on top of her but there's no way she can do that. So Soda is just poking around at her food and she says mom yes I think I was raped. Mrs. Yang sat completely frozen while her oldest daughter, her national treasure number one, cried and told her the horrible things that 12 men had done to her. By the time Soda was done sharing her story, the chicken had gone cold. And Mrs. Yang's heart shattered in a thousand different sharp jagged pieces that

felt like they were ripping into her from the inside. She felt as a mother just pure, unadultered rage. Through Mrs. Yang's patience and encouragement, Hoda starts to trust the medical staff. Sora would tell them bits and pieces of everything that's happened. She would call her mom sometimes. Sometimes in the middle of the night, Sora couldn't sleep and she would ask the nurse for a phone and she would call her mom and tell her everything in bits and pieces over the phone. Mrs. Yang quit her job to be there at any given time, any given hour for her daughter. Whatever her baby needed, she was going to do it. Mrs. Yang constantly met up with the doctors in charge of Sora's care. They informed her that Sora had contracted chlamydia, which is a bacterial STD.

Thankfully, it's treatable and curable, but the part that worried the doctors was. Sora was at a stage where it was very painful for her because of the chlamydia. There was pus that was exiting. And Sora did not register any of that pain nor any of that discomfort. It was like she was in that was exiting. And Sora did not register any of that pain nor any of that discomfort. It was like she was in a trance. She was out of her body. She could not feel the pain of her body.

So while Climidia was an issue that they're working on, it seemed like the more worrying problem on hand was she's showing just extreme symptoms of PTSD. Sora was assaulted, abused, humiliated, and potentially drugged for three months by 12 men. It wasn't at once, it wasn't a single event, but it was a consistent schedule of abuse. She did not speak out because they threatened to kill her, but more importantly, to Sora,

they threatened to do the same thing to Sora's little sister and then kill her. In Korea, I'm not sure the exact verbage for these positions here in the US, but in Korea, they have something called extra directors. So it's not saying like, oh, this is an extra director, like another additional director, but they're like casting directors, but they don't work with casting the main crew.

So they're not casting the main lead or the supporting roles, but they more so focus on casting a bunch of extras. You know the scenes in the K-dramas where they're in a coffee shop. They need people in the background. Or when they're walking down the street, it can't be a ghost town. But they also can't use the same people in all the shots because what is the population of this town, like five people, right? So they have to organize all of these different schedules all of these different people to appear on set

Be dressed in the same like if the drama is set in winter everyone's got to wear winter clothes They got to know what positions to take what kind of actions to do and oftentimes these extra directors are also in charge of the miners on set oftentimes, these extra directors are also in charge of the miners on set. Not all the time, but I think legally miners have to report to someone who knows all the child labor laws and follows the specific regulations that the government has set, and for some reason, it often falls on these positions. So these extra directors, they will often have assistance supporting directors underneath them managers, as well as production managers that work below them. Just for simplicity, SIG, we're going to call all of the positions casting directors. They all have immense

superiority over soda and the extras on set. They're like top of the food chain. They have the power to take away jobs and to create them. So moving forward, I'm just going to be using the word allegedly. It is in my personal deep opinion and feeling that these men are absolutely guilty, but since there has been no official conviction, I will be using the word allegedly because it seems like these,

in my personal opinion, nasty scum of the earth pigs are very, very lawsuit happy. Yeah. The predators have been named in an article that I will also link in the show notes. The series of assaults is said to have been triggered by a casting director by the name of E. Texu. Now, since he has since changed his name to E. Young-Gwang,

I'm gonna call him E. Young-Gwang, so that we know his real name, right? He was working at the World casting net company in 2004. He was Sora's director on set for one of these dramas. And allegedly, he wanted to impress his boss by committing crimes. And allegedly, he drugged Sora's coffee and gave, quote, gave Sora to his boss as a gift. I don't know what happened there. I don't know if the boss was like,

what's wrong with this kid? I mean, apparently not because he wasn't fired. Or if the boss did something to soda, I don't know, but this seems to have been some sort of starting point to everything. Because after work one day, it seems that the lead guy that director Lee would initiate a way sheke of sorts. And a way sheke is when all the managers in the support and it's they go out to eat and they primarily drink after work, this is off the clock hours. You do not get paid for these gatherings. And if you're not one of the managers, it's literal hell. You have to sit there and laugh at all their unfunny jokes while you pour their drinks

as if you are not just as qualified, if not more qualified to do their goddamn jobs, better than they can. I feel it's probably the bane of existence for most working women. If you go and you do what is asked of you, it is humiliating, it is degrading, it is oftentimes dangerous. These managers will force female subordinates

to drink without concern for their wellbeing or safety. I mean, just even the principle of it is like, why am I here pouring you a shot of soju and laughing at your stupid jokes and complimenting you when everyone in the office knows that you are a blubbering, power-tripping idiot that doesn't know how to do anything correctly. And if you don't pour these egotistical managers their drinks,

you risk the chance of never getting promoted because now the managers will tell their superiors that you're quote, difficult to work with and you don't have the drive or the team spirit. It's alleged that Soda was at one of these events when she became very very drunk. Now this is where I want to preface something. I think if anyone thinks even for a split second, well why was she so drunk? I think that would be a very good moment of self-reflection and I would like to assist in that self-reflection. Firstly, if so-dart or anyone

that you were out with, like let's say someone you're out with whether it's a work colleague or a friend, if they're that drunk, yeah you could be like, maybe they shouldn't have gotten that drunk, but the human decency aspect is you just want to get that person home safely. That's it. That's the only thing you care about in that moment. You're not thinking, why are they so drunk? You're like, okay, let me make sure that you don't lay on your back so you don't choke on your own vomit and let me make sure that no predator gets to you. That's going to be the main thing to think about.

Secondly, there are allegations and suspicions that Soda was roofied during these team building meetings. Soda was said to have not been much of a drinker, and when she did drink, she knew her limits really, really well. I can kind of resonate with that because you think it would be the other way, like, oh, if you don't drink, you shouldn't know your limits. But as someone who doesn't drink often, I'm like, okay, I know I'm okay with like one glass of wine.

And then I'm like, everything after that is a hard limit, you know? And she was very, very mindful to never cross these boundaries. I don't even think that she would drink like a full glass of wine. Because it's alleged that after just one sip of beer, beer, people started witnessing sort of behaving very drunk. So this is not normal. But let's argue that she was never drugged. Still, one of the main problems at the so-called team

building events is that managers will push and shove drinks down your throat with this passive aggressive hint that your job is on the line if you're not fun and letting loose with the team. So either way, I don't think that we should blame so-or at all. Ultimately, what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter how drunk Sora was or wasn't.

The night of August 10th, 2004, Sora was drunk and at around 2am, directly pulled her into a video room. This is already so shady. Video rooms in Korea are places where you can rent these small tiny rooms that have like a love seat. It's like a tiny little couch.

You watch DVDs and stuff. It's a quiet private room, and it's generally known as one of these places where teenagers go to rendezvous If you will since most likely teenagers can't afford like hourly motels yet Directly through her on the chair, and it was clear that she was unable to resist He assaulted her Just eight days later. He got soda drunk again

Drag it her to a motel room. Soda was clearly unable to resist. And he assaulted her. Just five days later, he dragged her into another motel room, strangled her, took off her clothes, and this time Soda was conscious enough to resist. And when I say resist, this was all of it was essay, okay? Soda was conscious enough to resist and made it clear once more, for the third time, this is not consensual.

She resisted physically and he threatened her, allegedly saying something along the lines of, I will break this glass soju bottle, cut up your face with it, and then use it to assault you. I will put out cigarettes all over your face unless you listen to me. He assaulted S Sora once more. Sometimes even punching her in the face, kicking her in the stomach and slamming her up against

the walls during the assaults. It's alleged that directly when to tell his buddies on set what he had done. Because you know, what a thing to be proud of, right? And they all decided, we're not going to go to the cops with this. No, we're all going to go to the cops with this. No, we're all going to commit the same crimes. Casting director Yang Tae-Gum allegedly locked Sora in an unknown motel room near the set. He dragged her into the bath, sprayed water all over her mouth and private parts with the shower head, took off her clothes later down assaulted her. He said to her, if you don't

listen, I'm going to throw you in my trunk and push you into the Han River." Side note, Soda was young enough that Yang Taegum actually went around telling his friends that she was his niece and that he was taking her under his wing in the industry. That's how old he was. It's alleged that he even forced her to go on a three-day staycation with him where he continued to assault and torture her for three days straight. Then it was claimed that they quote, passed her on to casting director Kim Sunmul.

He was working as a manager for the executive department of World Casting Net Company. October 13th of 2004, it said that Kim dragged a drunk and semi-conscious soda to a motel. While telling her, if you don't follow me, I'm going to kill you. He locked her in the room, pushed her down, and threatened to light her pubic hair on fire. Then he assaulted her, which he allegedly bragged about to casting director Kim Yo-won. That's his new name, by the way. He also changed his name.

It used to be Kim Do-hyeon. He was also married at the time of the assault, this new casting director. It's that he worked as a casting director and manager at the World Casting Network Company. In October 26, 2004, he got Sora drunk to the point of being barely conscious, dragged her to a motel room. She had woken up and she tried to run away, but he smacked her in the face twice and screamed, how dare you? You're a rag bitch. A rag is a really nasty word to call someone it's supposed to mean that they're used and slept with by everyone.

He continues, should I break your leg for you to listen? If you don't act right for me, you won't survive. I will carve out your private parts, behave like you did with the other directors. He assaulted Sora, allegedly, while forcing her to watch X-rated movies. Each time the assaults lasted several hours, and it said that they would make threats to Sora the entire time saying things like, I'm gonna kill your mother, I will kill your sister, I will set fire to your house with everyone in it. Some of them even took videos and pictures of the assaults and threatened to post them

all over the internet. In a very sick detail, it stated that some even threatened to assault her younger sister while they were assaulting her. And not even just that, the mental and emotional torture and humiliation continued on set. Now from these actions, nine other useless pigs were inspired to harass Sora. So the casting directors are going around telling everyone on set what they've done to her. And they're laughing about it and so 9 other predators. Decide, okay, let me try the same thing. They would grab at her on set, grow per.

They would grab her hand, place it on their private parts. They would spy on her while she would be changing in the dressing rooms for other scenes. One of them even had the audacity to grow per and said, private parts, they would spy on her while she would be changing in the dressing rooms for other scenes. One of them even had the audacity to grow per and said, you're fat. If you want to sleep with me, you should starve today and lose some weight. I don't even. Another one tried to humiliate her by calling her a mop and taunting her that he knows. He heard from everyone about her hair situation down there.

Another one, Gropeter, and said, they are big, so the rumors are true, I like them. You should come live with me. It is the common belief that Sora descended into a psychological break and mental break from all of the torture that she endured in a very short amount of time, and she met with these people every single day because she was working like five different dramas. And when she wasn't being our worded and dragged to motel rooms, she was being assaulted on set just in the open. Like even just researching makes me sick to my stomach. So I can't even, yeah,

so I tried everything that she could. And this is the heartbreaking part. And I can't help but feel like this intense amount of the like pure female rage because let me give you a brief timeline of events. Director Lee assaulted her, August 10th, August 18th, August 23rd, September 5th, September 20th, on September 24th, Sora met with a therapist. October 6th, she was assayed by director TeGum. October 7th, assayed by director Kim. On October 8th, Sura met with another therapist. Then alternating

between the predators Yang TeGum, Kim Sun Moo and Kim Yo-won, it's alleged that Sura was assaulted. October 11th, 13th, 17th, 19th, 24th, 26th, 27th, and then November 7th. On November 9th, she would meet with another therapist. November 18th, she was essayed once more, and on November 19th and 26th, she would meet with a therapist again. Her medical staff at the time said in a recent interview,

I remember Miss Young as a special case patient who developed her disability due to excess stress in a short amount of time. Now, a lot of people also speculate that if Sora was drugged heavily during the span of the past three months, that could have intensely contributed to her psychological breakdown. Side effects of date rape drugs include memory impairment, impulsivity, anxiety, depression, stress, paranoia. And I'm not sure if she was drugged, we can't say that we have the exact evidence because you'll see why later, but I can see that to be,

because it's just so different from who Sora was for 30 years. And I don't even know the exact words to describe how Sora's mom felt, but she's still held out hope that Soda would recover. It's not going to be easy, she knows that, but we're going to do it as a family, and the police are going to get us justice. Soda is going to sue the perpetrators, make them pay for what they've done, and closure is going to be the first step to healing. In Korea at the time, the laws have

since changed, but in Korea at the time, let's say you're walking down a street and you witness someone getting essayed in broad daylight. You cannot, as an eyewitness, report it to the police. What? Only the person being essayed can report to the police. Like, what do you mean? Like, I can't call police? You can call them, but you can't file a report.

You can't push into motion, a series of events where the perpetrator, the R-Water, gets arrested. The police will be like, were you the one that was essayed? Okay, then all we can do is just stand here. The victim has to be like, hey, I was essayed. Yeah. Let me tell you the sick reasoning behind why. It's really bad. So back in the day, even if there were security cameras or eyewitnesses that caught the R-word or committing the physical, mental, emotional, violent, sadistic act of rape,

unless the victim themselves doesn't file the charges, law enforcement does nothing. And according to some brainless idiots back in the day, they said, no one can really know what happens between a man and a woman in private. That's why, unless the victim said, hey, I didn't want this, they won't do anything about it. Yeah.

Also, the statute of limitations for SA was just over one year, like just 365 days. So SOTA's mom helps sort of file a complaint December of 2004 against 12 officials from the entertainment industry for sexual assault and forcible harassment. Now obviously the entertainment company that they all worked for was alerted of the situation. The vice president, a man, fired the forecasting directors who was accused of sexual assault, but he stated, you know I talked to them, three of the four accused of sexual assault admitted to having intercourse, but they denied it was assault.

Mrs. Yang comforted Sora telling her, it's okay, the police are gonna look into it and once they discovered the truth, they meant the 12 men, they're gonna pay for what they did and you don't have to feel scared anymore. You don't have to feel paranoid. You don't deserve this. You have rights.

You are the one, you did nothing wrong. Mrs. Yang's only hope comes crashing down when the police call her, asking her if she's got evidence that she wants to bring into the station. That sounds like they care, right? They're building a case, they wanna gather the evidence, and they wanna get the perpetrators. But then they sarcastically added,

what do you need like three, four trucks for evidence? We can send you four trucks for you to fill up. Oh my God. The investigating officer was obviously being sarcastic insinuating what kind of evidence do you have? You're making a big deal out of nothing. You think your case is so serious. You think we want to put our resources to your daughter who just sleeps around? case is so serious, you think we want to put our resources to your daughter who just sleeps around? Mrs. Yang ignored it because I mean she's thinking maybe this this investigator is weird maybe this is how he talks I don't know right maybe he's being genuine maybe he's a rookie and he's like no genuinely I don't know how many trucks evidence needs right so still thinking that law enforcement is going to be on their her side because I don know, that's their freaking job that they get paid to do.

She brings in boxes of material, boxes of evidence, and the detective slams his hand down on the desk, start a link Sora's mom, and he screams, do you think this is even a case? Because of how harshly the investigators slammed on his desk and started screaming at Mrs. Yang, everyone in the police station stared and turned and just looked. Nobody stepped in to help. Nobody stepped in to be like, Hey, cop, like get in the back. What's wrong with you? That's not how we do our jobs. No one. The other cops were just like, Oh, okay.

In hindsight, Mrs. Yang would say, this was the moment I should have dropped the investigation. Had I done that, both of my daughters would still be alive. The police discarded most of the evidence that was turned in by Mrs. Yang. They just threw it away. And understandably, she did not know how shady they were, so she didn't make copies of a lot of the evidence. Yeah. The police investigated for Is that legal? Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's probably one of those things where it's not legal, but what are you going to do? Call the cops on them, right? And if the government, like the state officials,

don't want to do anything, then the police did investigate, though. They investigated for over a year. And like heavy quotes on the word investigated, if you can really even call it that. The first thing that they did was bring in the victim and one of the accused perpetrators stick them in the same room without a proper partition. It was just one of those plastic see-through sheets that you see at cash registers when COVID was really bad. That was what was between them.

They were sitting at the same desk. So it was forced to sit close to a perpetrator. So close. She could hear his breathing. And the detective was getting agitated that he had to actually do his job. He had to actually work and investigate. Because now he's frustrated. The victim is stating this happened and the perpetrator, of course, is denying it, of course. And he says, here's a ruler.

Here's some crayons. Draw his private parts. We want it in exact millimeters. And he says here's a ruler, here's some crayons, draw his private parts, we want it in exact millimeters and he says we want the exact shade or we're not going to believe you. I don't think I have to voice everything wrong with this but it's just ridiculous even if they are being serious, which I personally think that there are a thousand percent trying to humiliate and ridicule and traumatize Sora further. But even if they're being serious, it's just dumb. I don't know what else to say. It's cruel and dumb. Even professional artists have references.

I mean, as someone who's been with the same partner and Mrs. Yang brings this up, like married couples, they can't even do this at gunpoint. Like, you would utterly fail. I would utterly fail. I don't know. Like, millimeters exact. Like Like what are you saying? And this is the most traumatic moment of your life. You're trying everything to block it out. Your brain is trying to protect you. And this is what the officer is telling you to do.

Like yeah, that would drive anyone crazy. In another interview, if you can even call it that, investigators told Sora she's, so this is interpreted in two ways. If we were walking down the street and a bird pooped on your shoulder, I might look at you and say Jezwapda, which means like, just like really bad luck. Like you got no good luck. Like you have such bad luck. It's a little aggressive. Honestly, I don't even think I would say that. It's kind of a little weird. But let's say we're walking down the street. Nothing happens to you. And I

look at you and I say, Tezota, it's commonly interpreted in Korean as your self-fucking foolish shit. So he was probably arguing, I was saying, no, she just has bad luck. But it's it's clear he was trying to say like your foolish shit. After she gave her testimony of being assaulted by 12 men. I'm going to give you a quick list of the things that the police did during the investigation. I'm sure there's a lot more than what I've just compiled, but even this is really, really bad. In order to drop a complaint, you have to sign an official document that states that you understand that you're dropping charges against the perpetrators or the so-called perpetrators.

You have to add a fingerprint on the document so you got to stick your thumb and ink. It's got to be like, notarized, right? One of the detectives smeared ink on Sora's finger and tried to get her to close the case, forcibly. Imagine the trauma of being a woman, a victim who has been taken advantage of physically, and now someone is trying to do the same thing, not in the exact same sense, but they're trying to have power over your body again. Like the trauma of that during another cross examination with another perpetrator, where for some reason, Sora was present, they basically forced her to be at every single cross examination in front of her perpetrators with no barriers in between them, and it was all spaced out. So they investigated for 13 months,

and I think once a month they would call her in. So every month, if she made any progress at all to get some closure and healing, she would be right back at the police station, face to face with one of her other perpetrators. She's not even just talking to the police about what happened to her. Once a month, she's meeting with her attackers face to face. And think about it, I say is incredibly destructive mentally. The victim feels like they are in a

position where they did not have power over their own bodies. And in that interrogation room, Soda did not, she was not able to face her attackers with dignity. She was not able to face, because you know, you hear stories of victims finally going to trial. And it's a moment that they can reclaim that power because they're in a position where no, you don't have control over me. You can never do this to me or anyone. She doesn't have that. Even the police aren't on her side. So think about how helpless, vulnerable she feels over and over again for over year.

A lot of experts said that this type of trauma would have probably left her feeling like she had been essayed all over again once a month for a year after her traumatic three months by the same perpetrators. During one of the cross examinations, the detective asked the perpetrator to describe the sexual acts that they engaged in,

because all the perpetrators admitted to what they did, but they tried to argue that it was consensual and she wanted it. The perpetrator described every single bit of the assault in great detail right in front of Sora and even made explicit noises to go along with it. Not once did the police stop him. noises to go along with it. Not once did the police stop him. By the end of that cross examination, Sora was crying and screaming. Her mom stopped it, took Sora home, where for days. She sat in a trans-like state, refusing to eat anything,

just laying there, staring at a wall. Even just by looking at her psychiatric treatment progress notes, Sora was clearly breaking even more from the police investigation. Side note again, Mrs. Yang blames herself for that, but I disagree, I think this is the police's fault clearly, right? I mean, in the treatment progress notes, the medical staff wrote that so that was reporting feeling heightened anxiety and nightmares after looking at the faces of her attackers again.

She said when she hears their voices, all she can think about is when they locked her in those rooms and did what they did to her. I mean, clearly, clearly things are not going well. After yet another traumatic incident at the police station, so that runs out, breaks free from her rom and runs directly onto incoming traffic right in front of the station.

All Mrs. Yang could hear with her heart thumping in her ears and all the car tires screeching and cars honking, and thankfully, they were all able to stop in time. So does survived. But it's just crazy. I think it's a global problem. Women and children are not being protected by law enforcement. SA crimes are not.

It feels like the vast majority of law enforcement just do not care. In 1998 in South Korea, a crazy verdict was given on an SA case. A minor was R-worded by another minor. And the verdict of that trial, okay, 1998. I know it sounds like a long time ago, but you think about this. The statement the judge gave was, the two parents of the two minors should let them get married. What? They were like basically they were insinuating that the victim's body was wasted since she was violently attacked by a criminal.

So she should just marry the criminal and live the rest of her life in utter fear and trauma. What? Yeah. Because if you're not a virgin before you get married, it's going to be rough for you. Was the sentiment. Court is dismissed. And just side tangent, okay? There is such a strong stigma around essay.

I mean, if I told you a man had been physically assaulted, mentally and emotionally tortured, and the perpetrator had inflicted biological terrorism on his body. We would not ask that man, were you drunk, sir? Sir, what were you wearing? Your basketball shorts were a little short, sir. Are you sure you didn't want to be terrorized like that, sir? But that's what essay is, it's assault, and it should even be categorized as bioterrorism.

She caught chlamydia from her assaulters because you can spread diseases into the population non-consensually and with force. That's literally biological terrorism. After witnessing how her daughter was treated by the police for being the victim of violent sexual crimes, Mrs. Yang asks us this question. Is this really a country where you can raise a daughter? The number 18 in Korean can also sound like a curse word. 18 is Shippair, right? Which I'm not going to say the curse word in Korean. It's a little aggressive. But just imagine Shippair, but instead of the peas, you have a soft B. And it can mean, thank you.

In English, it seems a little more casual in Korean. It's a lot more passionate. It's a little more aggressive, right? It's amplified. Now, the number 28 is said to also kind of sound like the word f***ing in Korean. Soara jumped from the 18th floor of their apartment building on August 28th at 818 p.m. All the numbers lined up were 818, 28, 818. Soara chose that date specifically as a way to save Q to the world. Q to what the monsters did. And Q to the police that poured salt on her wounds and created new ones. And to the justice system that didn't even help her. And to every single person that shamed her for being a victim of a crime.

She said to them, Thank you. Mrs. Yang had to be tough for Sojung. She just lost her daughter, yes, but her youngest daughter just lost her older sister. Seo-jung was now 30 when Sora passed, and she just lived with this immense guilt. She cried to her mom that it was all her fault.

She was the one that suggested the two goby extras on drama sets. She said if she hadn't done that, they would have never dipped their toes into the industry, and she would still be here. She would be smiling alive, happy, healthy. And her mom told her, never think like that. Instead, let's focus all of our attention on the good moments we had before everything happened. So on the sixth night without Sora, Mrs. Yang and Sojung, they laid in bed together.

They had a picture of frame as Hora and between them. And they would alternate between crying and laughing. Sometimes they would start laughing and end up crying. And they were just reminiscing of all the little things that Seo-jung would do. All of the ridiculous fights that they had gotten into that seemed like such a big deal at the time. They were blaring each other's clothes. That's my pencil case. Mrs. Yang dozed off for a bit. And when she opened her eyes,

Soo-jung was still wide awake. She didn't sleep at all that night. And she said, mom, did Oni shower the day that she died? What do you mean did she shower? I don't know. I don't know what I'm thinking. Let's just all meet in 20 years, right? What does that mean?

I guess if 20 years is too early, we can all be rejoined in like 30 years. So Zheng got up and went to take a shower. She was in there for a very long time. That day, she would jump from the 13th floor of a building in Seoul. Her note to her mother read, mom I'm sorry, but I have to follow my sister, I just miss her so much. Mrs. Yang remembers that day with bitterness, not just because I'm sure it was one of the most traumatic painful days that any single human could experience, but

because she feels like she should have known something was going to happen, she says that she should have done something to try and stop it. She said, why didn't I think that my younger daughter would die too? Why didn't I save her life? About the shower comment. It felt like Seo Jong-won wanted to retrace her older sister steps the day of. And I know the comments and questions feel strange and hindsight,

and it's like, oh, didn't the mom notice that she was asking all these weird questions? But it's been six days since her past. I don't think Hwajong was displaying an abnormal amount of grief during that time. Imagine you just lose a family member. Your loved one is expressing grief, and you're like, well, I don't know,

you might try to do something, so let's stick you in a psych ward. Like you wouldn't do that. That could be a new breaking point for that person. Mrs. Yang was just trying to be there for her kids. So on September 3rd, 2009, less than a week after Sora died, Sojung passed away, and Mrs. Yang's life was in pieces. And the back-to-back deaths of their two daughters deteriorated Mr. Yang's health.

So apparently during Sora's fight for justice, Mr. Yang kind of faded in the background. He resorted to drinking a lot to try and forget his pain. He had a brain hemorrhage. He had been bed ridden. He could not get back up. The stress and the toll of the drinking and all of that, he didn't recover well from his hemorrhage. Studies have shown that psychological pain has the stress and the toll of the drinking and all of that, he didn't recover well from his hemorrhage. Studies have shown that psychological pain has such a profound effect on healing that even hospitals don't even really know how to adequately address it.

On November 2009, just two months after his youngest daughter's death, Mr. Yang would pass away too. And for a while, it felt like Mrs. Yang had no one, not even relatives. While Mrs. Yang wanted to put her life on the line and talk about the injustice that our family went through, her relatives were mad at her. Some of her own like closest siblings.

They were saying, why are you making our family look bad? You're filling our family with problems. They're gone. There's nothing we can do to bring them back. For a while, Mrs. Yang kept quiet and she harbored all this anger and pain by herself. She lost 81 pounds. It was just so quiet when it was time to eat.

And the air just felt so suffocatingly heavy. And she was just alone in that house. She went to all these doctors, got prescription pills. They were so strong that she ended up just sitting there drooling and crying at the wall. She felt like a shell of a human. She would stare at the wall or the TV all day feeling numb. So imagine, like a year of this, a year of being in a house where every nook and cranny is a remnant, a memory of your family that's all gone. She's heavily medicated, she can't even eat, she's losing all her family members and boom, the end credits to a new drama rolling and it's one of Sora's perpetrator's names listed as a director.

Because of these men, her daughters had become a handful of ashes, but here they are, living their lives as if nothing has happened. Some of them even had children of their own. Children. Mrs. Yang felt like she was going crazy. She even changed her name. Not because she didn't want them to find her anything, but it's an old superstition that your name can carry good or bad luck, and she said, maybe my daughters died because my name is unclean. She said she would have given up anything for her daughters. Her name, her life, anything.

And that is why Mrs. Yang started her one-person protest. She would demonstrate with a huge sign showing the names of 12 perpetrators who harassed and assaulted her daughter. Every demonstration a cop would come up to her and say, I'm a cop, I got a report that someone is defaming on the streets. The police are really worried about all the wrong things. Yet, defamation is a serious issue, but first of all, I don't think that this is defamation.

And second of all, if you were to tell me, is defamation worse than essay? It's really clear. During another demonstration, allegedly, one of the family members of the perpetrators came up to Mrs. Yang and tried to slap her in the face with his palm. It's like the brother of a perpetrator while swearing at her. One of the perpetrators even stated, I will make her a beggar by suing her for defamation. The next time she's on the street,

she's going to be asking for money and food. She did get into a physical altercation with one of the perpetrators. There is a YouTube video on her channel and she ends up fracturing her wrists because she shoved her during a protest. One of the wives of the pigs called Mrs. Yang and threatened to sue her for defamation. And when Mrs. Yang tried to explain to her the situation and how terrifying of a person that her husband was, the wife responded, I don't care what he did as a bachelor before we got married. Even the police officer that worked on the case and did, in my opinion, one of the worst jobs I've ever seen if you can even call it a job,

he also stated that he would sue Mrs. Yang for defamation. And this part is crazy, but Mrs. Yang went to see one of the detectives thinking, okay, maybe after five years, he'll apologize. After ten years, he'll apologize. Maybe he'll find himself, evasion somewhere and come to his senses. She showed him portraits of her two daughters and he insisted he doesn't recall a single thing. Doesn't remember them.

And he started filming her, threatening to sue her for defamation. In Korean, there's an expression, he who farts in the room and gets angry at everyone else for the smell. Mrs. Yang felt really depressed again. I mean, this is the evil, angry scum that her daughter had to deal with. In this band of six months, Mrs. Yang had lost her whole family. She lost her oldest daughter, her youngest daughter, then her husband.

And she said that she felt like she was always gasping for air and struggling to get a deep breath in. Imagine being in a constant state where you feel like you're half drowning all the time. The only reason that Mrs. Yang stayed for so long instead of joining her family, was because of one of Seo Jong's dogs. They still had a dog.

Seo Jong had brought home this tiny little puppy a while ago, and they named him Peepie, right? Which I feel like could mean a lot. I feel like he was a little rascal when they first got him, because the name sounds very rambunctious, like a little trouble maker. And she said he was the last one in the family. She said she felt a duty to make sure that at least one family member lived a long life under her care. She brushed his teeth every single day. She looked online for best meals to feed dogs, the dog ate better than her. She would mix milk into his dog food to make it easier for him.

She brushed his hair every single day. She absolutely treasured him. He lived for 19 long years before passing away. And that is when Mrs. Yang decided, it's time for me to join my family. And she attempted to end things, but she survived. And she said in that moment, all she remembered was Hodong telling her the day before when they were laying in bed together, before she passed, her youngest daughter told her, mom, get your

revenge. I think if anyone can do it, you can. You're strong. And so now, that is what she's doing. She's going to get justice. She feels like that's what the only thing she can and will do as a mother, no matter how hard it is, no matter how lonely it is without her family. And it's been really f***ing hard, okay?

Mrs. Yang waged a lawsuit against the perpetrators, April of 2014. Now there is a part of this that I couldn't bring up earlier because I wanted to be wary of people thinking this was some sort of argument against Sora, but during the three months of Sora's torture, Sora purchased a ton of quote gifts for one of the directors. Nike shoes hats, tech gear, clothes, cameras, sunglasses, watch, gifts for one of the directors. Nike shoes hats, tech gear, clothes, camera sunglasses, watch, even gifted one of the directors like a thousand dollars in cash. Now this is a detail that I'm sure the perpetrators

would love to spin and be like, oh, she had a crush on me. But it was very clear that Sora was threatened. She could not say no to these people. They threatened to cut up her face, light her family home on fire, kill her own family, and assault her younger sister. So yeah, I don't think she personally bought these items because she very much enjoyed the company of these scumbags. One of the directors was even threatening her trying to get her to give him

the deed to their family home. These were all alleged in the lawsuit, but Soda's mom's case would be dismissed because the statute of limitations had already passed. Now remember how some of the perpetrators wanted to sue Mrs. Yang for defamation? Well, they did. They tried to sue her for over $100,000 stating that Mrs. Yang had ruined their reputations and made them lose out on work due to her one person protest that she would do in front of their agencies. Yeah, they would also alleged that Mrs. Yang was doing this all for money. Also, Mrs. Yang is in her 70s and she's a very beautiful person and they tried to argue that she's trying to make money off her daughter's death and get plastic surgery, which I feel like

tells us all we need to know about these pigs. Imagine your children passed because of essay and they're like, no, you're not doing this for justice. You're doing it because you want to look pretty. These are like caricatures of evil disgusting villains. Also, they tried to argue that it was consensual and that they were just so so attractive and Sora even offered to pay for the motel fees herself. Thankfully, the judge dismissed through their lawsuits in the trash can where it belongs and stated, I cannot help but feel deeply frustrated and sad at the disastrous failure of public power.

As a person in charge of public power, I expressed my deep apology and sincere consolation to the mother. The judge read out a two-page paper about the failure of justice and deemed Mrs. Yang not guilty in defaming the perpetrators. But still, the principal that they even filed defamation charges, she felt like the perpetrators were trying to kill her daughters twice. But Mrs. Yang's revenge had just begun. She wanted to reveal the inside story of the death of her two daughters to the world. I mean, she feels like she needs to. This is what her youngest daughter told her to do before she passed. She's doing this for her kids. She started a petition for the blue house, which is like the White House of South Korea.

As of March 2018, more than 200,000 people have signed the national petition to the Blue House demanding a reinvestigation into this case. Now back in the day, if you got 200,000 signatures in one month, the Blue House would at least have to address that petition. That essence changed because of the new president. He like doesn't even want to look at it. No way. Yeah, it's really bad. So she had 200,000 signatures. This was the 23rd Blue House petition

that was formally addressed by the Blue House of South Korea. They said that they were going to reinvestigate. But in 2018, when the police began reinvestigating, the frustrating thing was because of how poorly the case was handled in the first place, in the first time when it actually happened, like right after, there wasn't a ton of evidence leftover. Like I said, the police basically trashed everything.

They ruined all shots at a proper investigation, then and in the future. The police commissioner even stated that because of the statute of limitations had passed and the complaint was withdrawn while Sora was alive they said basically it looks like a re-investigation won't be possible or at least they won't produce any results really. Mrs. Yang said, I never dreamed that there would be 200,000 people. I thought it would be incredible if we got 100,000 people to sign. I just want to thank everyone.

I made small citizens with no power and I want to thank everyone just for knowing. Thank you, thank you so much. I'm glad I'm alive. There is no way to repay even a little of what we wanted from our children, but 200,000 people now know, and I will keep going until 50 million people in Korea

know everything, for as long as I live. The state offered to pay for her daughter's funerals. So August 28th, 2018, she held a joint funeral. Mrs. Yang said, Q to the state for not doing anything. August 28th 2018. She held a funeral. Yeah. And of course, I can't conclude this episode without talking about the dark reality of the film industry. Mrs. Yang met with the ministers of state to try and get the men fired from their positions in the industry as casting directors and one of them, the minister sympathized with her but stated, the system in our country and the police is that we focus

on evidence. He apologized when Mrs. Yang started crying. She was devastated and she said, three people are dead. Isn't that evidence enough? A lot of people echoed this sentiment. Moms came forward and said, you know, when our daughters said they wanted to get into the industry, I would tell them, don't stay for too long though. That means something eventually happens to you. It's just a matter of time.

An anonymous assistant performer said that working in the industry for the past 10 years, still harassment occurs frequently on sets and everyone put the stars, like the lead and the supporting roles, everybody else, they have to hold their breaths on set and hope that it doesn't happen to them. A Young-Jin Committee survey revealed that only one out of 27 cases were dealt with legally. About half the cases were just swept under the rug so the victims wouldn't have to lose their livelihoods.

Four people assaulted Sora. Nine people harassed and assaulted her. Three people physically assaulted Mrs. Yang when she tried to get justice for her daughter. They hit and shoved her down. Twelve separate predators and three violent criminals. And the tragedy is that as of right now, not a single person that played a role in this horrific case has been punished.

Many of them are still working in the industry. As of 2020, one of the perpetrators worked on the drama dating is annoying, but I hate being lonely. Mrs. Yang rallied everyone to protest and boycott and NBC, one of the biggest networks in Korea, reportedly terminated their contract with the perpetrator, stating that they were unaware of this incident. So they fired. Then May of 2023, the drama lovers came out. Lovers. Another perpetrator had worked on

set. NBC banned them from accessing any future production sites and stated since they were hired by a third party that they were unaware at the time of the incident, they stated that they will actually terminate the whole contract with that third party company in question to exclude any possible participation of a perpetrator moving forward. Also, this is really scary, but apparently one of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the

first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of the first of. So please click the link in the description for Mrs. Yang's YouTube channel to get updates. I am hoping to meet her if I go to Korea soon,

so I can give you guys updates there as well. And Mrs. Yang stated that she's going to continue to follow the perpetrators for the rest of their lives and continue to expose them. If the courts cannot punish these men, their crimes will be known to the public. That is her goal. She is in her 70s now and she works out every single day to stay very fit and healthy so that not only can she protest every single week, but a lot of these perpetrators are a lot younger than her. And she said her goal is to outlive at least one of them, so that she can dance on his grave. She said, this is a country that does nothing for its daughters. The police even put my two

daughters at risk. There is nothing we can do but talk like this. And there is something that I really want to tell women like my daughter. You should live and not die. You must never die. You must live. Even though 14 years have passed since her daughters have left, whenever Mrs. Yang is walking on the street and here's a girl scream, Oh ma, she still turns around. And that is the story of the Yang sisters in South Korea. Please leave your supportive comments for Mrs. Yang. In the comments, we're going to translate them a bunch of them for her. And I know that she would love to see her support.

And hopefully we can meet with her and protest with that she would love to see her support and hopefully we can meet with her and protest with her when we're in Korea next but let's just keep this story out there please please go to her youtube channel even if you don't understand korean I don't think you need to understand the pain that she's gone through to watch these videos to engage with her content please and let me know your thoughts and please stay safe and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Bye!