Two Weeks Before Retrial After 20 Years... 'Jindo Reservoir Murder Case' Life Prisoner Dies

A man in his 60s who was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his wife to claim insurance money died of acute leukemia just two weeks before the first retrial.

On the 5th, Park Jun-young, a retrial specialist lawyer, announced that Jang (66), who was serving time at Haenam Prison in Jeonnam, passed away on the 2nd. Jang, who was transferred from Gunsan Prison to Haenam Prison last month to attend the retrial scheduled at the Gwangju District Court Haenam Branch on the 17th, was diagnosed with acute leukemia during an internal medical examination and was moved to a hospital where he received chemotherapy before he died.

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Jang was indicted on charges of deliberately causing a cargo truck to crash into Myeonggeum Reservoir (currently Songjeong Reservoir) at an intersection in Uisin-myeon, Jindo-gun, Jeonnam, at 8:39 p.m. on July 9, 2003, resulting in the death of his wife Kim (aged 45 at the time) who was in the passenger seat. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005, a verdict that was finalized.

The police referred Jang to the prosecution on charges of violating the Special Act on Traffic Accident Handling, but the prosecution applied murder charges, believing he killed his wife to claim 880 million won in insurance money.

However, in 2017, at the request of Jang’s family who claimed his innocence, a former police officer and lawyer Park reinvestigated the case and obtained a retrial commencement decision from the Supreme Court in January this year. Nevertheless, the suspension of Jang’s sentence execution was not immediately granted and was only issued on the day he died in the intensive care unit.

Unlike ordinary trials that end with 'no prosecution' when the defendant dies, the retrial of the Jindo Songjeong Reservoir murder case will proceed as a 'trial in absentia' despite Jang’s death.

Through Facebook, lawyer Park posted a tribute saying, "I explained the trial procedures to the deceased in the intensive care unit, but I did not expect him to pass away so soon," and added, "While receiving a not guilty verdict is important, I want to clear the misunderstandings about Jang in the world."

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