After 24 years behind bars, convicted S. Korean father-killer seeks to clear her name
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SEOUL – A 47-year-old woman claiming to have been wrongly jailed for patricide for more than two decades is seeking to clear her name in a retrial, with a verdict expected to be reached on Dec 18.
The Haenam branch of the Gwangju District Court in South Korea will hold a sentencing hearing on the case in which Kim Shin-hye is challenging the Supreme Court ruling that sentenced her to life in prison for the murder of her father and the disposal of his body in 2000.
In the retrial, the prosecution has requested the court sentence Kim to life in prison just as before, but Kim’s attorney is claiming her innocence. Kim has been behind bars since March 2000.
Kim’s father, who was 52, was found dead at a bus stop in Wando-gun, South Jeolla province. The police found no traces of physical trauma on the body, but they did find traces of alcohol and sleeping pills.
Kim’s uncle, the victim’s brother-in-law, reported to the police that Kim drugged and killed the victim. Kim confessed to the killing in the initial investigation, claiming her motives were her father’s sexual abuse of her and her sister, and payouts from multiple life insurance policies belonging to the victim.
But Kim later reversed her statement, claiming that she had lied in order to prevent her brother from going to prison. Kim said her uncle had told her that her brother appeared to have killed their father, and he would go to prison without her intervention.
Kim also said that her initial claims of sexual abuse had been a lie.
Despite the verdict by South Korea’s top court in 2001, it was belatedly alleged that irregularities occurred during the police investigation of Kim. She claimed that the police searched her home without a warrant and coerced her into confessing.
The initial case was built mostly on Kim’s confession and circumstantial evidence of her father’s multiple life insurance policies, three of which had been cancelled at the time of his death. While the police said the victim was drugged with sleeping pills in a drink, they did not find the drink, the pills, or traces of the medication inside any of the equipment Kim confessed to have used in her purported crime.
The court in 2015 decided on a retrial, although it neither acknowledged Kim’s innocence nor suspended her punishment. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
