Appeals court keeps 20-yr jail term for teenager in kidnapping, murder of child

All News 15:51 April 30, 2018

SEOUL, April 30 (Yonhap) -- A Seoul appellate court on Monday retained the 20-year prison term for a teenager charged with kidnapping and killing an eight-year-old girl, while reducing her accomplice's life sentence to 13 years.

The Seoul High Court made the decision for the 18-year-old defendant and main culprit surnamed Kim. It lowered the sentence for her 20-year-old accomplice surnamed Park, clearing her of the collusion charge and finding her guilty of being an accessory.

The court also retained the earlier verdict requiring Kim to wear a location-tracking device for the next 30 years.

They have been charged with colluding with each other to kidnap and kill an elementary school girl from Incheon, west of Seoul, early last year. Kim later disposed of the body, part of which she had mutilated and delivered to Park in what they claimed was a role-playing game.

Kim has accused Park of masterminding the whole plan for the murder and insisted she did what Park had told her to do. Park has denied the claim.

The appeals court ruled on Monday that it's difficult to believe Kim's statements as the whole truth and said it is possible that she exaggerated the facts to minimize her sentence.

The court also ruled in line with the lower court's ruling that denied the defendants' argument of being "mentally weak" at the time of the crime.

In March 2017, Kim lured the girl into her place from a nearby park in Incheon, telling her that she'd let her use her phone as the girl was trying to call her mom. She strangled her to death in her home and hid the body on the apartment's rooftop.

In social media messages they sent to each other before the kidnapping, Kim reportedly told Park that she was going out "on a hunt" and Park replied by saying, "Too bad (for the little girl)."

The Incheon District Court gave the maximum sentence punishable by juvenile law for Kim and sentenced the accomplice to life, citing the cruelty of the crime and the defendants showing no remorse.

The case made headlines for the brutality of the murder and the young defendants' anti-social attitudes toward the crimes they committed. Kim's lawyer has insisted the defendant suffered from Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism, and multiple personality disorder, which the court refused to acknowledge.