The court sentenced Jang Jae-won, 27, to life imprisonment on charges of raping and murdering his ex-girlfriend.
The 11th Criminal Division of the Daejeon District Court (Presiding Judge Park Woo-geun) on the 22nd sentenced Jang, who was indicted on charges of violating the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes (murder, including rape), to life imprisonment and ordered him to wear an electronic location-tracking device for 30 years. The court also ordered 10 years of public disclosure of personal information and a 10-year ban on employment at institutions related to children, teenagers, and people with disabilities.
Jang was indicted on charges of threatening and raping his ex-girlfriend, identified as A, at a motel in Gumi, North Gyeongsang, at about 6:58 a.m. on July 29 last year, and fatally stabbing A with a weapon in an alley of a dwellings area in Goejeong-dong, Seo District, Daejeon, at about 12:10 p.m. the same day.
He also confined A at the motel and was found to have filmed the victim's body with a mobile phone.
Immediately after the crime, Jang fled but was urgently arrested within a day. Just before the arrest, he attempted to poison himself and received treatment at a hospital. The investigation found that Jang committed the crime because he believed A did not accept his feelings and ignored him.
Jang is also accused of pushing A against an exterior wall and assaulting her in June last year, saying he was angry. During the trial, Jang's side argued that because the rape and murder occurred at different times and places, they should be viewed as concurrent offenses of rape and murder, not as the crime of murder, including rape, but the court rejected the claim.
The court said, "Even if there was a temporal and spatial gap between the rape and the murder, the intent to kill already existed at the time of the rape," and noted, "The killing occurred before the victim's difficulty resisting immediately after the rape had dissipated, so it cannot be seen as an independent murder carried out by a new resolution of the defendant."
As for the reasons for sentencing, the court said, "It is hard to fathom the fear the victim must have felt, and the bereaved family will live with pain that can never be healed," and added, "The defendant had multiple prior offenses before this crime, showing a markedly deficient awareness of the law."
The court continued, "To prevent members of society from feeling anxious about unforeseen crimes like this case, we must establish the principle that crimes infringing on others' lives must pay a price," and emphasized, "There is a strong need to separate the defendant from society to block the possibility of reoffending."
When the life sentence was handed down, Jang caused a disturbance, such as trying to leave even as the court read the remaining orders, and was restrained by a corrections officer.