A man in his mid-30s was sentenced to 27 years in prison Thursday for killing a roommate in January and dumping the body near Dumulmori in Yangpyeong-gun, Gyeonggi Province. The victim's remains were not found until early this month — nearly six months after the killing — leaving the family unable to hold a funeral until recently.
Judge Oh Byeong-hui of the 14th Criminal Division of Seoul Northern District Court sentenced Seong, 35, to 27 years in prison and ordered him to wear an electronic monitoring anklet for 15 years.
Seong was indicted on charges of beating and strangling his fellow delivery worker, a man also in his 30s with whom he shared a home in Gangbuk-gu, Seoul, on Jan. 13, then loading the body into a rental car and abandoning it near the Namhan River at Dumulmori in Yangpyeong-gun.
Police and fire department crews conducted more than 90 searches before finding the victim's remains on July 1 near a bridge pier at Yongdam Bridge in Yangpyeong-gun. The body was severely decomposed, and the victim's identity was confirmed only after DNA analysis.
Seong's defense argued at trial that he had only applied a headlock to quiet the victim and had no intent to kill, and that the time of death differed from what prosecutors alleged.
The court rejected those arguments. The panel said the evidence indicated that Seong had attacked the victim after the victim failed to clean up leftover food properly, irritating him, and noted that Seong had a history of threatening acquaintances with statements to the effect of "I'll kill you," finding sufficient motive for the killing. The court also acknowledged dolus eventualis — the legal concept of reckless indifference to a likely outcome — finding that the victim had already been in poor physical condition from prior assaults and that strangling a vital area of the body made death entirely foreseeable.
Seong appeared in court wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and a white mask. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back throughout the sentencing and walked out of the courtroom without any visible change in expression after the 27-year term was handed down.
In explaining the sentence, the court said Seong had seized the victim's mobile phone, wiped it, and sent a text message to the victim's mother posing as the victim, claiming he had gone abroad for work — an attempt to permanently conceal the crime. The court added that by abandoning the body, Seong had caused the victim's family severe psychological suffering by denying them even the ability to hold a funeral. Taking into account his attempt to flee the country and other factors, the court said his culpability was extremely grave and imposed the 27-year sentence.
On the electronic monitoring order, the court said the results of a recidivism risk assessment and Seong's prior convictions for violence supported a finding that he posed a risk of reoffending.
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