Jang Yoon-gi, 23, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for killing a 16-year-old high school student in Gwangju.
The Gwangju District Court found him guilty of all charges, including murder in connection with attempted rape under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.
The court also ordered 30 years of electronic monitoring and barred him from working at institutions serving children, adolescents and people with disabilities for 10 years.
“The defendant is found guilty of all facts charged, and the prosecution’s argument that he should be permanently removed from society is reasonable,” the court said in its first-instance ruling.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty at his final hearing on Aug. 31.
The court, however, cited Korea’s status as a de facto abolitionist country, the absence of life imprisonment without parole to bridge the gap between life imprisonment and the death penalty, and relevant Supreme Court precedents.
The judges said they unanimously believed Jang should never be granted parole and that the sentence was intended to permanently isolate him from society.
Jang killed the student around 12:10 a.m. on May 5 on a pedestrian path in Wolgye-dong, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju.
He followed her in his vehicle and tried to force her into the car to rape her, stabbing her to death when she resisted. He also attacked a male high school student who rushed to help after hearing her screams, a crime for which he was convicted of attempted murder.
Prosecutors said Jang had prepared for the crime in advance. They amended the indictment during the trial to include evidence that he had prepared cable ties and left a rear door of his vehicle open before approaching the victim.
Jang’s defense argued that the cable ties had been purchased to organize computer cables and were unrelated to the crime.
His convictions also included stalking and raping a female co-worker two days before the killing and secretly filming a teenage girl’s body while serving as a social service agent.
Jang initially denied that the killing had a sexual motive but admitted to all the charges at his second hearing on July 13.
The case also exposed allegations that police had suppressed evidence of a sexual motive before referring him to prosecutors on a murder charge.
The National Office of Investigation’s special investigation unit said Sept. 21 that senior officials at Gwangsan Police Station had restricted the investigation and ordered investigators to remove or alter material pointing to a sexual motive.
Investigators said the officials sought to conceal the station’s earlier mishandling of a stalking report involving Jang’s coworker, fearing criticism that proper police intervention could have prevented the killing.
The police inquiry found no evidence that officials at the National Office of Investigation had intervened to suppress the case.
Prosecutors reached a different conclusion, indicting former bureau chief Park Seong-ju and three other senior officials on Sept. 2 over allegations that they improperly ordered separate investigations into the murder and earlier sex crimes.
Park denied wrongdoing, saying the instructions were part of normal investigative procedures.
Jang’s father, a serving police officer, also faced scrutiny after reports that he had discarded potential evidence belonging to his son, including damaged sex dolls and old mobile phones.
Prosecutors said they would examine Wednesday’s ruling before deciding whether to appeal.
shwang9@heraldcorp.com
