In 2021, a 1-year-old girl died due to psychopath Yang Jeong-sik in Daejeon Metropolitan City

On June 15, 2021, a 20-month-old girl was sexually assaulted and murdered in Chungri-dong, Daejeon, South Korea, by Yang Jeong-sik, who posed as the girl's biological father. The incident is considered one of the most heinous cases of child sexual abuse in South Korean history.

On July 9, 2021, in Daedeok-gu, Daejeon, South Korea, the baby's maternal grandmother reported to police that she suspected child abuse by her son-in-law, and police responded to the son-in-law's home. When police searched the house, they found a cooler containing the body of a 20-month-old girl in the bathroom. 

The baby's body bore horrific signs of child abuse, and police immediately launched an investigation.The baby's biological mother, a 25-year-old woman named Zheng Mo, was arrested at the house. 

Her common-law husband, a 29-year-old man named Yang Jeong-sik, who was also the biological father of the deceased daughter, was already a predator who had extorted, imprisoned, assaulted, and body-cammed numerous socially vulnerable women (even before their marriage) and used their bank accounts to commit fraudulent crimes. 

After being released from prison on July 8, 2018, he scammed two women for cultural vouchers in December of that year, and on May 9, 2019, he scammed a woman on a second-hand trading site, using her account. In August 2019, he was sentenced to one year and four months in prison for fraud by the Daejeon District Court. 

During the incident, Yang left his phone at home and fled, but three days later, on July 12, he was arrested at a motel in Dong-gu, Daejeon, and detained on July 14. It was further revealed that Yang had committed thefts during his time on the run, including entering empty homes and leaving with shoes and stealing food.

The mother, Jung, who had already been arrested, was taken into custody on July 12 on suspicion of abandoning a corpse, and stated that her husband had beaten her to death for over an hour a month earlier because she was crying. Specifically, on June 15, Yang allegedly put a blanket over the baby, stomped on it with his feet, punched it in the face and head dozens of times, broke its thigh with both hands, and threw it against a wall several times. 

Ms. Chung, Yang Jeong-sik's wife and the baby's biological mother, looked the other way as Yang Jeong-sik continued to assault and sexually abuse her daughter, and even participated with her husband in the disposal of the baby's body, which was placed in an icebox and hidden in the bathroom. 

In response, the defense attorneys argued that Ms. Chung, the biological mother, was only slightly less intelligent than the average person, and that she was under a state of psychological domination where she was thoroughly tamed by her husband's assaults and threats, so she was unable to stop him and had no choice but to do as she was told.

Of course, given the length of Ms. Chung's relationship with Mr. Yang, the age of the victim, and the fact that the victim was the child of another man and Ms. Chung, rather than Mr. Yang, it is necessary to reconsider whether she was really under a state of psychological domination rather than mere duty defense. DNA tests conducted during the police investigation revealed that Yang Jung-sik was not the victim's biological father, and that Ms. Chung had secretly had a relationship with another man during her common-law relationship with Yang Jung-sik and had become pregnant with the other man's baby.

However, what is most obvious is that, as mentioned in the footnote above, Yang Jung-sik had already sent a baby born by another single mother to a single mother's center (blinded by money) and exploited the money, so it is ridiculous to say that he knew he was the father of the baby.Moreover, after the baby's murder, when the mother-in-law asked Yang Jung-sik about the status of her daughter and granddaughter via mobile phone, he did not answer her, but kept sending her texts saying that he wanted to have sex with her mother once. 

When the mother-in-law persisted and asked about the whereabouts of her daughter and granddaughter, she gave an unscrupulous answer that she would share information (about her daughter and granddaughter) after having sex with her mother. According to the testimony of the baby's maternal grandmother (Yang's mother-in-law), Chung and Yang first met in January 2019, and while they were dating, Yang became pregnant; Chung gave birth at a single mother's center while Yang went to prison for fraud; and after Yang was released from prison, Yang lived with Chung at his home for a while from January to March 2021. 

In April, the couple moved out on their own, and in June of that year, the murder occurred. Yang even lived with her mother-in-law before moving out on her own, and would molest her baby when she was away from home. Yang was further found to be a psychopath, scoring 26 out of 40 on the PCL-R test.

2.2. The trial

On August 27, 2021, the first trial in the case was held, which revealed that on June 15, Yang had covered the baby with a blanket and beaten him to death for more than an hour. Yang and Chung admitted to the charges at trial. 

The case was another in a string of high-profile child abuse cases, such as the Yangcheon-gu adopted child abuse deaths, so public outrage against both Yang and Chung was so intense that an angry passerby attempted to attack them as they were being led to the courtroom.On December 1, 2021, the prosecution asked for the death penalty for Yang, 15 years of sex drive medication and 45 years of electronic monitoring, and five years in prison for Chung. 

On December 22, 2021, at the first trial, the court sentenced Yang to 30 years in prison. It also ordered him to complete a 200-hour child abuse treatment program, to be restricted from working in child and youth-related institutions and facilities for the disabled for 10 years, and to wear a location-tracking electronic device for 20 years. The order to take medication for sexual urges was dismissed. Mr. Chung was sentenced to one year and six months in prison. 

Both the prosecution and the two defendants appealed, but due to the public outcry, both defendants withdrew their appeals, leaving only the prosecution to appeal.In the second trial, the prosecution sought the death penalty for Yang Jeong-sik and five years in prison for Jeong.  

On May 27, 2022, the second trial at the Daejeon High Court overturned the original verdict and accepted the prosecution's appeal of the sentence, imposing a harsher sentence than the first trial: life imprisonment for Yang Jeong-sik and three years in prison for Jeong. 

The court also ordered Yang to complete a 200-hour child abuse treatment program, be banned from working in child and youth institutions and welfare facilities for the disabled for 10 years, and wear a location-tracking electronic device for 20 years, while Jung was ordered to complete a 40-hour child abuse treatment program and be banned from working in child-related institutions for five years. 

Neither the prosecution nor Yang nor Jung appealed their sentences, which were affirmed. With the sentences finalized, Yang is serving an indeterminate sentence, and Jung is scheduled to be released in 2024.