Woman with IQ of 74 extracted cosmetics, clothing costs from men — dating expenses topped W2m a day, court documents show

Court documents have revealed the motive and detailed circumstances behind the crimes of Kim So-young, 20, who was sentenced to life in prison on charges of killing two men and injuring four others by slipping drugs into their drinks.

Attorney Son Su-ho, appearing Monday on CBS Radio's "Park Sung-tae's News Show," walked through the 108-page first-instance ruling in Kim's case, explaining the sequence of events and the court's findings on motive.

According to the ruling, the court determined that Kim's primary motive was "material greed." Throughout her life, her behavior focused on obtaining what she wanted, and she displayed a lack of guilt and empathy, a self-centered attitude and marked impulsiveness.

"The court concluded that she used drugs to extract financial gain from men and, once she felt they were no longer useful, to avoid them and subdue them easily," Son said.

The ruling also detailed how Kim extracted financial benefits from her victims.

A second victim, who dated Kim for about two months, unilaterally covered hotel accommodation costs of around 4.5 million won ($3,340), along with expenses for daily necessities, cosmetics and clothing.

"This victim testified in court that he had spent more than 2 million won on a single date," Son said.

A third victim was a designated driver. He had exchanged contact information with Kim after being called to drive the second victim home when that man collapsed.

Kim pressured this victim into going to a motel, where she ordered 68,000 won worth of fried chicken, then drugged him until he lost consciousness, according to the investigation.

When the victim asked the next day where the chicken had gone, Kim turned the tables on him — threatening that he had tried to touch her at the motel that night — and extracted taxi fare from him, the ruling showed.

Son said Kim chose motels as her crime scenes because she exploited the nature of the space. "She created expectations — or illusions — that sexual relations were possible or would materialize, and used that to make unreasonable demands," he said.

However, the court determined that material desire alone did not fully explain Kim's pattern of crimes.

In her early offenses, she had already rendered victims unconscious with relatively small doses of drugs, and continuing those relationships could have yielded even greater financial gain.

A clinical psychology analyst at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office said Kim perceived men simultaneously as negative, domineering and threatening figures and as easy means of obtaining benefit.

The analyst added that "a combination of low cognitive functioning, a self-centered attitude and a tendency to avoid difficult situations led her to focus on relieving momentary discomfort and displeasure without any consideration for harm to others."

Kim's IQ tested in the bottom 4 percent of the population. Son said her score of 74 came with a clinical finding that she lacked the capacity for complex information processing and cognitive flexibility, making it difficult for her to devise meticulous, multifaceted plans.

Kim also scored 25 out of 40 on a psychopathy assessment. Son said she recorded the maximum score on the emotional subscale, particularly for lack of empathy and guilt, and that she regarded other people purely as instruments for getting what she wanted.

Kim was sentenced to life in prison on charges of drugging three men in their 20s with benzodiazepine-laced beverages — rendering them unconscious or killing them — in a series of offenses spanning from mid-December last year to Aug. 9. Both prosecutors and Kim's defense have filed appeals, and the case is now awaiting its appellate hearing.