Mentally Ill Son Who Killed 87-Year-Old Visually Impaired Mother... Supreme Court Confirms 10-Year Prison Sentence

The son who killed his visually impaired mother in her 80s was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The court acknowledged that the defendant was in a state of diminished mental capacity at the time of the crime due to a mental illness he had suffered from for the past 10 years, but rejected the claim that he was in a state of complete mental incapacity.

According to the legal community on the 16th, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice No Tae-ak) recently finalized the original sentence of 10 years imprisonment for Mr. A, who was charged with killing a family member.

Mr. A was diagnosed with a mental illness at a hospital in late April 2013 and received outpatient treatment until February of last year. He had breast cancer and was visually impaired with a first-degree disability, unable to see, and his mother (87 years old at the time of death) was also physically disabled. Since his sisters did not take care of their mother, he was always dissatisfied with having to take care of her alone with great difficulty.

On the afternoon of March 27, 2022, when a church pastor, his sisters, and his aunt visited the apartment in Uiwang-si, Gyeonggi Province, where he lived with his mother, instead of comforting him, they treated him like a mentally ill person and tried to lay hands on him for prayer. In response, he strongly resisted, saying, "You damn bitches, I'll kill you all."

Determined to escape the situation of having to care for his mother alone, Mr. A decided to kill his mother that same evening. He repeatedly punched and kicked his mother’s face and chest while she was lying on the master bedroom bed, and then continued to punch and kick her on the floor outside the bed, causing her to die on the spot.

In the trial, Mr. A’s defense argued, "The defendant suffers from a mental illness and does not remember the situation at the time, but did not kill the victim. Even if the defendant did kill the victim, he was in a state of complete mental incapacity due to the mental illness, so the defendant should be exempt from responsibility."

Regarding the first claim that he did not kill his mother, the first trial court judged that based on Mr. A’s statements and behavior immediately after the crime to the police, it could be recognized that he intentionally committed the murder.

After being urgently arrested, Mr. A said in the police transport vehicle, "It was hard because no one took care of me, and after sending my mother to heaven, I was going to die too." When detained at the police station, he admitted to the crime, saying, "My family doesn’t take care of me, my mother is in poor health due to stage 3 breast cancer and cannot see, isn’t it like I’m in hell every day? I couldn’t endure it anymore, so I sent my mother to heaven with my fists."

In the police investigation, he also stated, "My mother died because of me. I was wrong, but I sent her off well. Everyone is trying to take the property."

The court pointed out, "There is no fact that the defendant claimed unfairness or that he was unjustly accused as the perpetrator during the police investigation."

The court stated that Mr. A, who had been receiving hospital treatment for nearly 10 years for his mental illness, appeared to have worsened symptoms due to stopping medication for about a month before the crime, which led to his shouting and causing a disturbance to his sisters and others on the day of the incident.

Additionally, the court cited as evidence of Mr. A’s crime that bruises were concentrated on the right side of the deceased mother’s face, and a corresponding injury was found on Mr. A’s left hand at the time of his urgent arrest. Also, despite knowing that his mother had died, Mr. A did not contact other family members or report to investigative authorities.

Regarding the claim of complete mental incapacity, the court concluded based on the psychiatric evaluation results that "it is difficult to see that the defendant was in a state of complete mental incapacity beyond diminished mental capacity at the time of the crime."

Based on the police investigation, the court judged that "the defendant appears to remember the circumstances before and after the crime sufficiently." The court also stated, "The defendant testified during the police investigation that he covered his mother with a blanket out of remorse and that he endured for a long time but it was too hard. It appears that he recognized the illegality of his actions and committed the crime, and it does not seem that he was completely lacking the ability to control his actions."

The second trial court and the Supreme Court also found no problems with the first trial court’s guilty verdict or sentencing judgment.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.