A man in his 30s who brutally killed his napping mother has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. The Cheongju District Court's Criminal Division 11, presided over by Judge Kang Seong-hun, handed down the sentence Wednesday to the defendant, identified only as A, who was indicted on charges of patricide while in detention, and ordered five years of probation.
A is accused of killing his mother, identified only as B, a woman in her 60s, at their home in Goesan-gun at around 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 2 last year, striking her dozens of times with a hammer and other objects while she slept.
During the police investigation, A told investigators he believed God would protect his mother and that he could revive her even if she died. He later changed his account at trial, saying he had moved to Goesan to escape his mother's nagging, but she had followed him there and continued to nag him, which drove him to commit the crime.
A had been living in Gyeonggi Province and for the past three years had been traveling back and forth to Goesan with his family as he prepared for a rural lifestyle.
The court acknowledged that A's mental illness had influenced his actions, but ruled that "the motive for the crime as stated by the defendant does not appear to warrant any special mitigating circumstances." It said it did take into account, as a factor in his favor, that family members had petitioned for leniency.
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