A Accurate Criminal offense Obsession Leads to Murder

utilised with authorization from Busnan police

Sources that criticize our cultural obsession with real crime, or the media protection that feeds it, are likely to target on a several important details. It can retraumatize the victims and their family members. It can make folks who’ve performed horrific items seem to be awesome or desirable. It can shape our perspective of the planet into a dim, risky place and, if consumed to excess, affect our mental health and fitness. Seldom do critics specific worry that legitimate criminal offense will probable transform customers into criminals.

But this is exactly what a South Korean killer promises. For months just before she murdered her sufferer, she binge-viewed correct criminal offense demonstrates and obsessively browse genuine crime textbooks. And the additional murder media she eaten, the additional she wanted to consider it herself. On Might 26, 2023, she did.

The Murder Plot

On Friday, June 2, 2023, 23-year-old Jung Yoo-jung was indicted for the very first-diploma murder of a young woman higher education student with a side gig as a freelance tutor. The proof clearly shows that this was no spur-of-the-minute determination. Yoo-jung took some time to appear up with her murder plot. As she gorged on legitimate crime written content, she began looking into methods to commit a murder. For 3 months, she searched for ideas on useful, crime-connected topics these types of as “how to hide a useless human body.”

Yoo-jung trolled for a sufferer on the internet on Everytime, an world wide web web site that matched tutors with parents wanting for them. From what has been claimed, this application does an great job of screening the qualifications of tutors who utilize but doesn’t look at out the validity of the identities of pupils or mom and dad.

Yoo-jung took edge of this. She posed as a mum or dad looking for a tutor for her ninth-grade daughter, composing that she was on the lookout for an individual to train her daughter to speak English. She specifically requested if her daughter could occur to the tutor’s house for her classes. The chance to make money devoid of leaving property would enchantment to just about anyone. Who would suspect a young woman of nefarious intentions?

She located who she was wanting for a younger 20-some thing residing by yourself. She experienced all the qualifications that would impress a mom she even attended a prestigious university. Yoo-jung employed her on Could 24 and established up an appointment for her “daughter “to appear for a session two times afterwards.

She then remodeled herself into a teenager female who necessary tutoring. She acquired a schoolgirl’s outfit apparently, Yoo-jung is small and could move as a large schooler, particularly in her disguise. On May perhaps 26, she went to the tutor’s property and knifed her to death.

What Transpired Immediately after the Murder

Just after killing the tutor, Soo-jung went to a shop to obtain bleach and trash bags prior to returning to dismember the entire body. Authorities say that due to the fact Soo-jung did not push, she identified as a taxi and took some of the victim’s physique pieces in a suitcase to a remote woodland space by the Nakdong River. The taxi driver became suspicious about Jung carrying a bloody suitcase late at evening into the bushes. Right after dropping her off at property, he contacted the law enforcement. Law enforcement went to the place where Soo-jung experienced been and retrieved the situation. They discovered bloody clothing inside.

The police introduced her in for inquiries. Jung Soo-jung allegedly advised a spate of lies that transformed for the duration of the job interview. She initial mentioned she had almost nothing to do with the murder and that another person else ought to have carried out it. She then admitted to killing her sufferer but mentioned it was an incident throughout an argument. Last but not least, at her family’s urging, she came thoroughly clean. She mentioned she had planned the murder for months, picked a particular victim, and then carried out her program.

When law enforcement searched Soo-jung’s home, they identified a goldmine of compromising proof at Soo-jung’s, like human remains. They also found her victim’s mobile phone, ID card, and wallet. It is unclear whether or not she took these merchandise to make it glimpse like the young tutor experienced voluntarily disappeared or to retain “trophies” as a remembrance of her crime. Not remarkably, police have a tendency to embrace the sensible go over-up motive, even though a South Korean forensic psychologist who weighed in proposed much more psychological explanations.

How do we reveal this?

Law enforcement explained that, considering the fact that graduating from superior school 5 many years before, Soo-jung had been “a longer and a recluse” who lived with her mom and dad and was unemployed. She used hrs every single day observing accurate crime exhibits on Television set and examining correct crime guides she experienced borrowed from the library. Police feel that, at some issue, Soo-jung’s genuine crime fetish turned into investigate, and she began to plot the “great murder.”

South Korean forensic psychology professor Lee Soo-jung claims he suspects Soo-jung’s target decision of a lady about her very own age could have experienced to do with envy: “I consider we can say that Jung preferred to have what the tutor experienced, these types of as her social standing and tutorial track record, and that is why she chose the sufferer,” Lee claimed, pointing out that Jung possessed the victim’s ID card even just after dumping the useless entire body.

But why murder any person? Soo-jung insists curiosity motivated her murder. But curiosity alone is not a adequate motive for murder. I, much too, am curious about the felony thoughts and the motivations behind premeditated murder I’ve spent my skilled lifestyle learning them. I have talked to hundreds of murderers, seeking to recognize the dark fantasies or extreme thoughts that travel them. Still I’ve under no circumstances been tempted to sign up for them.

As significantly as real criminal offense turning a client into a legal, let us just say that, if that have been legitimate, I would have run amok many years in the past.

Could this murder be owing to mental health issues?

In her first court appearance on June 2, 2023, Jung Soo-jung instructed reporters she feels “truly sorry for the victim’s loved ones.” When requested why she did it, she replied, “I need to have been out of my brain.” Specified that she designed this statement just a 7 days immediately after she dedicated murder, what does this suggest?

If she is environment the stage for an madness plea, she has a long and bumpy road in advance. Demo judges in Korea have the ability to mitigate the punishment of a felony (from what I understand, up to fifty percent of the sentence) if the defendant has an mental disability or simply cannot don’t forget committing the crime because of to a psychological disorder. Police claimed Soo-jung has under no circumstances been identified or treated for a psychiatric affliction. Dependent on the little we know, there’s not much proof that she was psychotic when she fully commited the murder. If she had been, in her terms, “out of her intellect” on May perhaps 26, it is really difficult to picture what would have snapped her again into it in a 7 days.

And there’s evidence to advise just the reverse. The murder and dismemberment had been diligently prepared and executed. South Korean forensic psychology professor Lee Soo-jung termed the accused’s mindset “very unconventional.” He added. “A person ordinarily panics and results in being terrified when they get rid of somebody, even if they are a prison, but the scene [of Jung going to her home to get a suitcase to carry the dead body] displays no signal of stress or horror.”

Plainly, there was a little something amiss in Soo-jung. Why did her existence fundamentally end following higher school? Why did not she have any close friends? What prevented her from obtaining a career? We might or may possibly not get the solution to these questions as the courtroom system goes forward.

I suspect that Soo-jung experienced a void in her lifestyle that she was desperate to fill. I question who she blamed for that void. By yourself, isolated, bored, and frustrated, she invested her time escaping into fantasies that became significantly dim and disturbed. And, around time, those people fantasies morphed into exploration, scheduling, and murder.

It would be attention-grabbing to hear the viewpoint of people today who realized her. Is this anyone who, at some stage, experienced the capability for empathy and a ethical compass? Police usually are not relying on mates and family, even though South Korean law enforcement have publicly reported they by now have plans to have her evaluated to see if she is a “psychopath.”

The Base Line

People already battling with destructive feelings and residing in a fantasy world to escape an unsatisfied truth may perhaps be attracted to real criminal offense articles for unique reasons than most real crime consumers. Can it flame violent fantasies or give them tips about how to dedicate a crime? I would say sure.

But this does not implement to the vast bulk of us. There are valid and ethical explanations to feel diligently about our usage of genuine crime. But a dread that it will flip us from effectively-altered supporters into murderous fiends should not be just one of them.