The Supreme Court finalized an acquittal for a father in his 40s who was indicted on charges of killing his one-month-old child by leaving the child in a car trunk. The court determined that the father may not have known the child was in the trunk.
On the 30th, the Supreme Court's third division (presiding Justice Lee Suk-yeon) upheld the second-instance ruling that acquitted a person identified as A of charges of murder and abandonment of a body.
A was indicted on charges of causing the death of his son, born to B, a female coworker he had been seeing, by leaving the child in a car trunk in Jan. last year. B gave birth at a hospital on Dec. 29, 2023, and was found to have discharged the baby on Jan. 8, ten days later.
Afterward, B is said to have taken the baby out in a paper bag from a nursing booth in a hospital restroom. B left the baby in A's car trunk and abandoned the child there, according to findings. The baby reportedly died on Jan. 17 last year from hypothermia, among other causes. After confirming the baby's death, B was found to have abandoned the body on Jan. 21 in brush near a beach in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi.
Prosecutors first indicted B, then additionally indicted A on the view that A had conspired. A argued, "I heard that B put the baby up for adoption, so I did not know there was a baby in the trunk."
In the first trial, A was sentenced to eight years in prison. The court accepted, among other things, B's testimony during the proceedings that "A conspired," and found A guilty.
However, the appellate court found A not guilty. It said B's statements were unreliable, including because B recanted. The Supreme Court agreed with the appellate ruling.
Meanwhile, in a separate trial from A, B received a finalized six-year prison sentence at the Supreme Court in Jan.