“She insulted my parents...” Person in their 20s who killed their girlfriend turns out to have planned the crime to get her severance pay

[Financial News] The case in which a man in his 20s strangled his girlfriend to death at a villa in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province, last month has turned out to have been a planned crime targeting the victim’s severance pay.
According to legal sources on the 13th, the Cheongju District Prosecution Office indicted A the previous day on charges including robbery-murder while A was in custody.
A was sent to trial on charges of killing B, who had been living with A, at A’s home in Jincheon-eup, Jincheon County, on the 15th of last month.
Police had earlier charged A with simple murder and referred A to the Prosecution Office in custody, based on a statement that, “I committed the crime because B insulted my parents during an argument.”
However, a forensic examination of A’s phone later reportedly uncovered indications that A, who had been receiving debt-collection demands from loan sharks, had planned the killing to get B’s money.
Based on this evidence, the Prosecution Office pressed A and obtained a confession: “I committed the crime to get B’s severance pay.”
After the crime, A visited a telecom company’s retail outlet to transfer B’s severance pay to A’s own bank account. It was also confirmed that A later asked whether B’s phone could be unlocked or paid for items with B’s card.
Based on A’s confession, the Prosecution Office asked police to conduct a supplementary investigation. After questioning the suspect again, police charged A with robbery-murder and referred A back to the Prosecution Office.
Robbery-murder is punishable by death or life imprisonment, a heavier statutory penalty than simple murder, which carries a minimum prison term of five years.
However, people in the field are also voicing frustration with the procedure requiring the Prosecution Office, which lost its investigative powers after the abolition of the prosecution service, to ask police to conduct supplementary investigations.
A local prosecutor said, “As this case shows, even when the Prosecution Office uncovers new information, it cannot use it as evidence, leaving us in the wasteful position of having to ask police to conduct a supplementary investigation just to have it entered into the record. Delays caused by this problem meant the suspect was only just indicted on the very last day of the 20-day detention period.”
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