Man acquitted 2 years after arrest in partner's death

A man in his 50s arrested on suspicion of beating his live-in partner to death was acquitted Saturday, two years after the incident.

The First Criminal Division of the Jeongeup Branch of Jeonju District Court, presided over by Chief Judge Jeong Yeong-ha, found A (52) not guilty of assault causing death.

According to the indictment, the incident occurred around 10:17 p.m. on May 23, 2024, at a residence in Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province, where A and his partner B (50) lived together.

B was found collapsed in the bathroom with a severe head injury for reasons that remain unclear. She did not receive timely treatment and died of cerebral edema on June 18 of that year, about a month later.

On the surface, the case appeared to have no direct connection to A.

That changed when a new figure emerged. C, B's mother, who had been inside the home at the time, told investigators that her daughter had come out of a room saying A had hit her, and that B had then been found face-down and naked in the bathroom, unable to speak.

The sole eyewitness account accelerated the investigation, and A was brought to trial on charges of beating his partner to death.

But the case took a dramatic turn. The court reconstructed the events of that day minute by minute and concluded that the assault described in the indictment could not have taken place.

Phone records showed that A and B exchanged seven calls between 11:09 p.m. and 11:44 p.m. that night — directly contradicting C's account that B had collapsed and lost the ability to speak around 10:17 p.m.

A had also left the residence around 10:53 p.m. that night and did not return until 12:02 a.m. the following day, meaning all seven calls were made while he was away from home.

A consistently maintained that he had found B collapsed in the bathroom the following morning, and had assumed she was sleeping off a hangover, as she drank heavily every day.

The court noted that C had been diagnosed with unspecified Alzheimer's disease in 2022 and had an unclear sense of time. "Even if C's testimony is considered credible, it alone is insufficient to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant assaulted the victim," the court said.

The court added that the defendant's delay in calling emergency services after finding the victim could not by itself establish that an assault had occurred, and ruled: "The charges in this case fall under the category where criminal facts have not been proven, and we therefore find the defendant not guilty."