By Wow here is something I have never heard of before happening in South Korea:
A 21-year-old man sexually assaulted his 40-year-old mother and killed her afterwards, fearing she would report it to the police, JoongAng Ilbo reported on Saturday.
The man, identified only as Jo, came back home around 2 a.m. on July 22 after drinking two bottles of soju. He approached his mother, who was sleeping at that time. “From a young age, I liked it when my mother hugged me,” he told the police.
Cho sexually assaulted his mother. When she put on her clothes afterwards, he thought she was going outside to report it to the police. He followed her to the bathroom and killed her, by hitting her head with an unspecified weapon, the newspaper said.
He attempted to bury her body in the house courtyard. He turned himself to the police after his younger sister and a friend declined to help him.
Jo initially told the police that he committed the crime “in a fit of anger” when his mother “ignored” him, not saying about the assault.
However, the authorities discovered sperm in the deceased woman’s body. He confessed to the sexual assault. [Korea Times]
I can only imagine how that conversation went with his sister, “Hey I just raped and killed mom, do you mind burying her with me?” Soju makes you do some wacky stuff, but I never heard of it leading to something like this.
10:55 am on August 1st, 2009 1
"Wow here is something I have never heard of before happening in South Korea"
I have never heard of a case like this in the US although I'm sure there have been a few. Certain drugs would be more likely than alcohol to induce such a bizarre rampage. I'm guessing the man had some undiagnosed mental illness.
11:02 am on August 1st, 2009 2
I agree with the above comment–I can't imagine anyone being able to do such a thing without having some sort of mental illness.
12:24 pm on August 1st, 2009 3
It's too bad many South Koreans go undiagnosed when it comes to mental illness or disorders. Society frowns upon them, military won't let you in and companies might not hire you based on this. They really need better mental health programs especially in Korea where things are moving so fast and can be hard to cope with issues. That being said, the Oedipus complex isn't new and murdering of Parents aren't new either. Of course it doesn't make the story less shocking, but I somehow got a feeling of deja vu when I read this.
12:57 pm on August 1st, 2009 4
Aside from the subsequent murder, this type of thing may occur much more often in countries all over the world and go unreported for obvious reasons.
I don't know that the potential for this could have been detected with a mental health evaluation. Remember the drunk American soldier how attacked that grandmother here in Korea? Would he have been diagnosed as mentally ill before his crime?
1:13 pm on August 1st, 2009 5
Sonagi, apparently he lived with his grandmother prior and not his mom. I'm pretty sure there is a long hisotry with this case.
3:58 pm on August 1st, 2009 6
This is what really baffles me. Countries like South Korea or Japan are really safe in terms of crime. Nothing compared to America. But whenever I hear something criminal out of these countries it's something astonishing. When I read this, I immediately remembered the case in Japan where an elementary student decapitated his/her classmate and left the head at the school gate.
Now I'm not saying that every instance of crime in South Korea is as astonishing as this but I somehow have the uncanny ability of stumbling onto things like this.
10:03 am on August 2nd, 2009 7
Augustus,if you care about the K or J ethnicity, the head decapitator's mother is Korean. Korean mother and Japanese father. Scary isn't it? Though they married and lived in Kobe city, the father was originally from a remote southern island, Amami where the villagers have known each other for millennia. Their kids naturally grow up happily by themselves going between homes, schools and beaches. Once married, the decapitator's father was clueless on how to involve with child rearing. The Korean mother was known to be a bizarre, aggressive individual in the school. She never ever said, "I'm sorry, how is he(she)doing?" Instead, she tried to give money to her son's classmates' mothers every time her son caused trouble. Her manner was something like a queen would do to her subjects. This is according to an article in ???? I remember?
10:10 am on August 2nd, 2009 8
"???"in the above post is "Bungei Shunjuu" in Roman letters.
1:18 pm on November 5th, 2009 9
1:20 pm on November 5th, 2009 10
10:46 pm on December 31st, 2009 11
Yep, mental illness is a major issue being ignored in this counry. Not only does society frown upn mental illness but the Government has no understanding of the implications of ignoring or underfunding the mental health system. 90% of suicides are related to mental health issues and we all know Korea's great record on suicide. Some major salughters on the subway or something of that nature will occur before the public and politicians bother to do anything about mental health in this county.
1:10 am on January 1st, 2010 12
This is old, but worth addressing. If I had a guess, it is because Korean culture puts a serious amount of pressure on the individual. Lots of duties and responsibilities which can often conflict. I have had Korean friends worry themselves into hospitals over all this.
Personally, I think this is a big reason crime is relatively uncommon in Korea. Unfortunately the system sometimes pushes folks over the edge. Because they have a lot of pent up stress and emotion they tend to go totally bonkers when they snap.
I don't know a whole lot about Japan but I understand there are similar issues there too. I actually find comparable Japanese crimes to be even more wheels off than Koreans!
1:15 am on January 1st, 2010 13
“From a young age, I liked it when my mother hugged me,”
Me too. But I always understood the concept of "boundaries"
.