On November 21st, the Seoul High Court upheld a lower court’s decision to send a woman to prison for killing her stepdaughter through repeated force feeding. On numerous occasions, the woman fed the ten-year-old girl rice with spoonfuls of salt on top, in addition to forcing her to eat food waste and excrement. The girl eventually died from complications related to excessive salt ingestion.

Netizens were enraged by the facts of the crime and by the relatively light sentence of ten years in prison, especially coming so soon after the case of another stepmother killing her stepdaughter in Ulsan earlier in November.

Article From Newsis:

Stepmother sentenced to ten years in prison after she was convicted of killing her daughter by feeding her heavily salted rice.

Judges of the Seoul High Court (presiding judge: Kim Dong-oh) on November 21 gave a ten year prison sentence to a 51-year-old women, surnamed Yang, on charges of child abuse and murder of her ten-year-old stepdaughter Jeong, upholding a lower court’s ruling and its sentence.

As for her biological father, identified as Mr. Jeong, 42, the high court found him not guilty of negligence relating to Yang’s mistreatment of his daughter, confirming the lower court’s verdict.

In their verdict, judges said, “testimony from the deceased’s older brother are detailed and are consistent with autopsy findings, and he has given consistent testimony from the start of the police investigation up to his statements in court, disproving Yang’s claim that his comments were unreliable.”

“The autopsy findings and the late Jeong’s abnormal behavior while she was alive provide sufficient grounds for the conclusion that the stepdaughter died of salt addiction,” judges added.

“Defendant Yang had abused the stepdaughter and her older brother for an unbelievable period of three years,” the verdict said, “Nevertheless, Yang has displayed no shred of remorse and persisted in making excuses. That’s why a heavy punishment has been given to her.”

The verdict said, “As for her father, Jeong, charged together with Yang, the lower court’s ruled that there is insufficient evidence proving his alleged negligence of the abuse. We finds the ruling legitimate,” upholding his innocence.

Yang was charge of raising Jeong’s children since their marriage. Yang is reported to have violently abused her stepchildren and forced them to have eat excessively.

In particular, for approximately one month beginning in July 2012, Yang compelled the stepdaughter to eat cooked rice, dosed with three spoonfuls of salt, 2-3 times per week. When her stepdaughter threw up, Yang forced her to eat the vomit. Yang is also known to have compelled the stepdaughter to swallow food waste and excrement.

The abused stepdaughter eventually died from a salt addiction-induced disorder in August of 2012, leading to the prosecution of stepmother Yang on charges of homicide.

Previously, the lower court delivered a sentence of ten years in jail to Yang, saying, “Yang’s abuses are inconceivably grotesque, and the sufferings of the sibling are beyond description.”

Comments from Daum:

짱님:

The stepmother should be forced to eat salted rice. In prison, I’m sure she will eat warm food with no complaints, how unfair.

달땡이:

How insane is this woman? We don’t need to keep scum like her alive.

냥이네:

She should be punished by making her eat salted rice.

고양이장수:

I think this happened because the law is not enforced enough. Disclose her personal information to the world and feed her salt until she dies.

현금매수:

I hope that the older brother will get even with her by forcing her to eat salt after she is free from the prison.

Sbdyrchssha:

I believe that other prisoners will take the law into their hands against her.

Comments from Naver:

picm****:

Lawmakers need to make sentencing more realistic. Just ten years in prison for this human garbage who committed such a horrible crime. It makes no sense. Sentence her to 100, or 200 years, just like in the United States.

ryun****:

How could she be human? What could that stepdaughter have done? How could this have happened, it’s so sad

zoom****:

Well, now I see that feeding feces and beating someone just brings a sentence of ten years behind bars. A guy who attacked Park Geun-hye with a knife was sentenced to ten years in jail. I see the sentencing is the same. [Note: On May 20 2006, Park Geun-hye, then the leader of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) suffered a knife attack when she was at a campaign stop in support of a GNP candidate for Seoul mayor. The assailant was sentenced to ten years in jail.]

asne****:

Ten years? too short! The dead child should have lived 90 years more. Give a heavier sentence! all the more so for criminals who did horrendous things against powerless children.

ilmi****:

It appears evident to me that this incident is a premeditated murder against helpless child. The ten-year prison sentence seems too short.

n466****: