South Korea woman, 23, stabs & dismembers woman, 26, she met on tutoring app to feel what it's like
She even cut off her fingers to make identification harder.Belmont Lay |
A 23-year-old South Korean woman, who was obsessed with true crime, has been sentenced to a lifetime in jail for killing and dismembering a 26-year-old female tutor "out of curiosity".
Found victim online
Jung Yoo-jung found the victim, who was living alone and offered classes at home, after contacting 54 people, mostly women, on a tutoring app.
She came up with a detailed plan to meet the woman and kill her to "see what it was like", police said.
The victim was stabbed more than 100 times, even after she died in the frenzied attack.
“Jung was found to have premeditated the crime driven by a desire to kill someone after she became obsessed with murder from TV programmes and books," a police spokesman said, as reported by The Chosun Ilbo.
Jung was arrested in June 2023 in connection with the premeditated murder of a female tutor, the newspaper also reported at the time.
She will spend the rest of her life behind bars, a judge has ruled on Nov. 24, according to The Korea Times, Korea JoongAng Daily, and BBC.
She was arrested and convicted of murder, desecration and abandonment of a corpse.
Her sentence is accompanied by a mandatory condition that she must also wear a tracking device for 30 years.
The judge said Jung committed the murder despite not knowing the victim beforehand for "her own perverse reasons".
BBC reported that the victim was 26 years old and has never been publicly identified.
Jung has been described as an unemployed recluse who lived with her grandfather.
What happened: Posed as a mother and student
Investigators said Jung posed as a mother on the tutoring app and searched for someone to teach English to her bogus daughter.
She found the victim after contacting 54 people, who were mostly women.
She arrived at the woman's home posing as a young student and dressed in a school uniform, the outlet reported.
Even though she was already in her early 20s, Jung looked the part of a student with her dimunitive stature and bespectacled countenance.
A police spokesperson said Jung is short and the victim likely mistook her for a middle-school student when she had a uniform on, The Chosun Ilbo reported.
Stabbed victim multiple times
Jung entered the victim's residence and stabbed the tutor multiple times.
She then went to the supermarket to purchase bins and bleach before returning to the residence.
Jung then dismembered her victim, the police spokesman added, and even cut off the victim's fingers to make it difficult to identify her.
She then took a taxi to dispose of some of the body parts in the woods close to a river using a suitcase.
In order to make it look like the victim had disappeared, Jung kept the victim’s mobile phone, ID card and wallet, it was also reported.
However, the driver alerted police because of her suspicious behaviour after he saw the bloodstained suitcase.
Body parts were found at Jung's home and partial body parts were discovered in the woods, The Chosun Ilbo reported.
In the months leading up to the murder, her browsing history revealed she searched how to kill and ways to dispose of a body.
She also found books in the library on how to dispose of a body.
The crime "incited a general distrust" in the South Korean community, the BBC reported the judge saying, as it spread fear among people.
Jung begged the court for leniency, claiming that she suffered from hallucinations and a host of mental health issues, it was also reported.
She initially told the police that the victim was killed by someone else and she had only moved the victim’s body.
Later, she claimed that she had accidentally killed the tutor during an argument.
Following her arrest, she apologised to the victim's family.
