Father murdered by schizophrenic son, couldn't his death be prevented?
The SBS 'I want to know' broadcast on the 5th shed light on the surviving murder case in Namyangju with the subtitle 'The Murderer's Recording Method - Predicted Death and SOS'.
At around 11 am on May 6, a dead body was found in a flower bed of a multi-family house in Namyangju, Gyeonggi-do. This was the body of Seong-in Lee, in her 60s, who disappeared the day before the discovery. He left the house on the morning of May 5 and was found missing.
Lee's cause of death was a skull fracture and brain damage. His body was left with scars from being struck with a blunt weapon, which were traces of the murder. Police tracked Lee's cell phone and vehicle, which were not found at the scene, and arrested the suspect who was driving his vehicle five hours after the body was found. The driver who casually asked the police if Lee was dead was the son of Mr. Lee.
Police found his son's belongings and a number of records he left behind in Mr. Lee's vehicle. In particular, among the records such as cipher text, contents that seemed to foretell murder such as 'I'm sorry that I have to die' and 'Permission to kill, start to kill' were also caught and attracted attention.
Police said Lee's son's statement was inconsistent, but a diary full of his records found in a vehicle along with a blunt weapon found in the house, DNA, and CCTV footage, was adopted as important evidence.
A resident of the son who found Mr. Lee's body said he had a gut feeling that the culprit was his son. It turned out that Mr. Lee, who had been living with his grandmother for a while, stopped by to buy groceries for his son once. A neighbor said that the place where Mr. Lee's body was found was where his son always spent time alone. Relatives also foresaw this tragedy.
The brother-in-law of the victim Lee said there was something to check in the house before the scene of the incident was cleaned up. Mr. Lee, who lived in this house with his son until 8 months ago. The reason he moved was because he received death threats from his son. The victim, Mr. Lee, removed all the knives from the house, saying that his son was likely to kill him. But each time, my son bought a knife again.
And the brother-in-law of the victim Lee found knives believed to have been hidden by his son in the house. And there were gruesome notes written there. In addition, a number of notes were found throughout the house, suggesting that there must have been a threatening situation before the murder.
In fact, a month before the incident, the victim, Mr. Lee, felt threatened by his son's behavior and reported it to the police. However, at the time, the police said that they did not find any suspicion or danger in his son's behavior and just returned, and a tragedy occurred a month later.
He showed his son's notes, which were found to have had schizophrenia, to mental health specialists and asked them to analyze whether he was schizophrenic. In response, the specialist analyzed, "It appears to be a paranoid schizophrenia that addresses auditory hallucinations related to persecution. However, it is rare to take notes like this." Another specialist speculated that he must have been in a serious state, saying, "Overall, he is in a state of confusion to the extent that he cannot create a very systematic delusion. I can't see any sentences written according to the six-fold principle, but it is clear that he was in a great confusion, which is rare these days." .
If so, was it because of the symptoms of schizophrenia that the son killed the victim Lee? The production team asked Professor Kwon Il-yong to analyze his son's motive for the crime.
In response, Professor Kwon Il-yong understood the tools used in the crime at the scene of the crime and the process of the attack, and analyzed, "It is understood that the attack was not a planned crime, but an impulsive crime, as it was not a pre-prepared crime tool, but an object at the scene." He also noted that dropping the body to a flower bed and not cleaning up the scene to destroy evidence is a characteristic of unorganized crime in mentally ill people.
However, he said that this case was different from the murders of typical schizophrenic patients who committed impulsive crimes. Professor Kwon Il-yong analyzed, "It seems that he had planned the method of murder for a long time as he recorded his resolutions and resolutions in various places until he executed it."
In addition, Professor Park Ji-sun said, "The delusion about overseas travel became concrete and the passport was issued ten days ago, so it is highly probable that the accident was moved in such a way that it was the father who prevented the delusion and removed the father who restricts my freedom." His crime was the delusion itself. He emphasized that the core of the case is to remove obstacles in order to escape from reality and not just to record the crime plan, but to put the crime into concrete action for a long time.
And even though he was aware of his own danger for a long time, he regretted not being able to prevent the tragedy. In fact, Mr. Lee's son was a normal and healthy young man before enlisting in the military. However, after being classified as a soldier of interest in the military and discharged from the military, changes have begun.
Shortly after being discharged, the son was arrested by the police for spying on the woman next door. The father demanded leniency for his son to be hospitalized and treated in a psychiatric hospital, and the son continued to receive treatment at two hospitals for a year, and it is known that his symptoms improved.
So, my son worked as a delivery person at a restaurant in 2017, and at the time he was a sincere and trouble-free person. But one day, the son suddenly quit his job and started a riot, demanding money and a car from his father, and the son was once again transferred to a mental hospital. However, two months later, he was suddenly discharged.
According to the revised Mental Health and Welfare Act, which prioritizes the human rights of patients, the patient's own wishes were given priority for admission and discharge, and further treatment was impossible. Since then, Mr. Lee's son's violent and idealistic behavior has only gotten worse. As a result, the victim complained about the death threat of his son to his neighbors and to a psychiatrist and asked for help. The hospital advised him to seek help from the police if drug treatment was difficult, and a few days later, the father asked the police for help and reported his son.
A private paramedic who was dispatched at the time said that he recognized at a glance that Mr. Lee's symptoms were severe. And he thought that if the police arrived, the problem would be easily resolved. However, contrary to everyone's expectations, the police who arrived at the scene checked the doctor to see if he would go to the hospital with his son and just went back.
The police protested that forced hospitalization was impossible because no external problems such as assault or threats were found at the scene. According to the Mental Health and Welfare Act, he had no authority to forcibly hospitalize his son. It was the task of the Mental Health Welfare Center to discover and manage the mentally ill in the community. In response, the production team visited the local mental health welfare center and asked if they had taken care of Mr. Lee's son.
The answer, which was only answered after sending an official letter through the public health center, said, "It was not subject to management because family members or acquaintances did not apply for management registration, and without the patient's consent, no management or service is possible."
A relative who said he had inquired about welfare benefits for the mentally ill on behalf of his father was frustrated, saying that all procedures were blocked with his consent. In particular, the deceased's brother-in-law said, "My father did his best. He was in a state of giving up thinking he couldn't because he couldn't because he couldn't do it."
Without his consent, he could not receive hospitalization or welfare benefits, and his son was increasingly isolated in his own world. And the son's anger did not stop at the father, but also extended to his relatives. Relatives who were even threatened with harm were afraid of their son, but they also expressed regret, saying, "schizophrenia is difficult for an individual to handle."
If the son is recognized for his mental and physical weakness due to schizophrenia, the expected sentence is 10 years. He said that the tragedy of the Lee family was not over, asking who would embrace him, who would return to society at the age of 39.
On this day's broadcast, I met the people with schizophrenia and listened to their stories. Oh Jae-woo, who is hard to believe that he has schizophrenia, confessed, "In 1997, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a boarding school." Suffering from hallucinations and hallucinations that criticized him, he said that he suffered greatly from delusions of persecution and relationship delusions.
Se-hee Won, who said that the depression she suffered as a teenager worsened into schizophrenia, said, "When I close my ears, the sound becomes clearer, and when I close my eyes, the illusion becomes clearer. They chase me even though I know it's a fake. I feel like they came to catch me." remembered that time.
The two said that they are now maintaining their daily lives by overcoming hallucinations and delusions and getting a job. Seeing the memo left by Mr. Lee's son, Oh Jae-woo also sympathized, saying, "It's very similar to me. I also wanted to go abroad." However, he also said, "I thought you were a bad person. But I never thought of you as a bad person."
Won Se-hee said, "I hate myself so much. But I want to be special, and I'm not special. I feel that I can't do anything. I don't know that I don't have money, I don't have a job, I don't have a mental disorder. If people don't have money, I have confidence and pride. also fell," he speculated on his situation.
Director Cho Seong-nam of the National Justice Hospital, where mentally ill people who commit crimes are imprisoned, regretted that preventable cases continued to occur due to prejudice and neglect against schizophrenia. He also said, "The crime of schizophrenia and mental illness is 17 times safer than the general population, with 1/17 of the general population. They rarely commit crimes, but if they do, 80% of them are felonies, so this is dangerous."
Ahn In-deuk, who set fire to his apartment two years ago and stabbed people who were evacuating, killed five people. Ahn In-deuk's family did not receive any help without his consent. But two years later, nothing has changed.
Professor Baek Jong-woo of the Department of Psychiatry said, "Since the Mental Health and Welfare Act was revised in 2016, we have been very concerned. The direction is to respect human rights, but we are not prepared. We were concerned that there is a high risk of accidents, prejudice, and a vicious cycle if we are not prepared. I didn't know it would lead to such a serious result."
In addition, he said, "There are still two lines left in the law in our country. Be aware of self-inflicted harm. The duty is placed on the family. Hospitalization by guardians accounts for the majority, so patients and their families become enemies," he said. In the case of the case, he said that the burden was not passed on to the family, and the burden was borne by society.
In America's active community treatment 'Act', a team of mental health nurses, social workers, and specialists visits and manages the homes of mentally ill people every day, and it turns out that specialists visit and provide treatment. In addition, it was known that the team necessarily included a person with a mental illness and drew attention.
Those with schizophrenia cited isolation as an important message in Lee's son's memo. People with schizophrenia said, "The reason I wrote something is to leave a record so that someone can look at it." "It seems that no one around this person can help. He just wrote and didn't talk. People should help." I was sorry.
Oh Jae-woo, who overcame illusions and delusions, said he was lucky and was able to get out of the long isolation thanks to the active introduction of local welfare services when he left the hospital where he was admitted for the 10th time. With the help of a social worker, he gained experience in various businesses for seven years, and since last year has been working as a fellow counselor helping people with schizophrenia.
Oh Jae-woo said, "It's the most rewarding when I go out to work with a fellow three-party and see how he's changed. When I come, it says I want to die, but when it ends, I just walk lightly. Seeing that, I thought I saved that person. I didn't do anything. I I was just telling you about my experience, but it changed."
A son's memo that no one reads, a father's rescue request that no one listens to. The father, a day laborer, had no way to help his son as he wanted to escape from isolation.
Lastly, the broadcast questioned who the real murderer was, the father who always cared for and loved his son and gave up his future because of his son, and emphasized the need for more active support and effective systems for those with schizophrenia. did.
(SBS Entertainment News Editor Kim Hyo-jung)