On April 21, 2020, at 0:53 a.m., a call was received to the police.
"My son drank alcohol and strangled his throat, and it seems he's dead. He can't breathe."
- Police report from Mr. A -
The police arrived at the scene where A's daughter's residence was within 6 minutes of receiving the report and found a middle-aged man weighing over 100 kg lying on the floor with his breathing and heart stopped.
“When my son was drunk and quarreled with his daughter and asked for another drink, he got angry and took out a soju bottle from the refrigerator and hit his son on the head. After that, he strangled his son with a towel and killed him,” said the victim's mother, A. Mr. confessed, and the prosecution applied the charge of 'murder' to Mr. A and handed it over to trial.
Could a 102 kg man have his 76-year-old mother die?
In the first trial, the prosecution requested the court to sentence A to 20 years in prison, but the court acquitted him.
The court of first instance wrote in detail about the suspicious circumstances in the sentence, and one question was whether a middle-aged man weighing 102 kg could be strangled to death with an ordinary towel commonly used by 76-year-old women.
Another thing we can't rule out is that the quarrel between a son asking for a drink and a daughter to stop drinking could not rule out the possibility that her mother made false statements to protect other family members that she did not appear to be motivated enough to kill her son. It was.
Second trial court "It was a troublesome case"
There is a person who died, but the person who caused the death is unknown. The second trial in this case was held yesterday (the 1st) at the Seoul High Court.
Mr. A, with white hair and a small body, stood at the defendant's seat with a calm expression.
The sentence began with the words of the presiding judge, "It was a troublesome case, and we apologize for the delay due to the infectious disease."
Based on the testimony of a forensic officer at the National Institute of Scientific Investigation who wrote the autopsy appraisal, the second instance judged that it is difficult to see that the defendant's statement that the victim was able to kill with a towel because he did not rebel and remained still has lost objective rationality.
He also revealed the motive for the crime.
Even if it is not because of bad feelings towards his son, it is not possible to have a normal social life, his health is not good, and considering his pity for his son who suffers from drinking only and worries about his daughter's responsibility if he died before his son, it is a crime I thought the motive or background of the murder was understandable.
Unanswered questions... On the day of the incident?
However, the court began to talk about the situation that night when the case occurred, saying, "Some of the questions raised in the first trial still remain unresolved."
"The premise of the indictment in this case is that before the defendant hit the victim's head with a bottle of soju and wrapped her neck with a towel, Mr. A's daughter had already left the house with her children, and until then, the victim was not different from usual. Regarding this premise, if it is difficult to believe the daughter's statement as there is only the statement of the daughter other than the statement of the defendant, then it is difficult to believe that the crime was committed after 12:30 p.m. (the daughter left) with only the accused and the victim It is difficult."
The court said that it was difficult to fully believe the statement of Mr. A's daughter, not only could not explain the situation in chronological order during the time she was at home before the incident, but also made statements that were different from the facts, such as call records that were objectively confirmed. I saw it.
I found it difficult to rule out the suspicion that there were only Mr. A and his son, the victim, at the scene of the crime on the day of the incident.
In addition, suspicions about the fact that the room was cleaned immediately after the crime, and that the victim must have collapsed on the broken soju bottle, had no wounds on the victim's back or body part that would have touched the floor, and there was only one shallow cut on the outside of the left calf also did not seem to have been resolved.
In addition, the court explained what principle the appeals court uses to judge the verdict of not guilty by the first instance.
“Unless the reasonable doubts raised by the first instance have been sufficiently resolved, the first instance’s judgment that the proof of the crime is insufficient on the basis of such circumstances alone should not be construed as guilty of misrepresentation of the facts, and that the indictment is not guilty. ."
The conclusion of the second trial, the Seoul High Court's 1-2 Criminal Division (Chief Judge Eom Sang-pil, Simdam Lee Seung-ryun) is also that Mr. A is 'not guilty'.
The confession of the accused or the testimony of the daughter cannot be used as evidence of guilt, and the conclusion that it is difficult to admit the charges in this case with the rest of the evidence submitted by the prosecutor was justified.
"An acquittal could be more painful"
The court said, "To the accused, the conclusion of the judgment may be strange. The accused may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened that day."
I tried to ask a question to Mr. A, who came out after being acquitted, saying he was a reporter, but I couldn't hear anything.
At the dawn of April 21, 2020, there is still no way to know what happened at the house of Mr. A's daughter in Michuhol-gu, Incheon, and what the substantive truth is. The sentencing was concluded with the court's conclusion that it was possible.
“If the confession of the accused is correct, it is not that I do not think that the court will not believe that I killed my son and that acquitting my daughter while suspecting it would be more painful than living for several years in prison. However, our verdict of acquittal is the principle of criminal trial."