Image for illustrative purposes [123RF]
Image for illustrative purposes [123RF]

A woman in her 30s who killed her 3-year-old daughter six years ago and conspired with her boyfriend to dispose of the body has been sentenced to 13 years in prison.

The second criminal division of the Suwon District Court's Ansan branch, presided over by Judge Park Ji-young, sentenced the woman, identified only as A, to 13 years in prison Tuesday on charges including murder and abandonment of a corpse. The court also barred her from working at child-related institutions for 10 years.

A's former boyfriend, identified as B, who helped dispose of the body, received a 10-month prison sentence on charges of abandonment of a corpse and harboring a criminal.

"The defendant, as the victim's biological mother, forgot her responsibility to care for her child and committed an inhumane crime," the court said. "A heavy sentence is unavoidable given that she concealed the body for six years to evade accountability."

The court added that because of the concealment, the victim "was buried alone in cold ground for six years, unable even to stretch her small body, without receiving the minimum funeral rites that would have guaranteed her final human dignity even in death."

On B's sentence, the court said he "did not participate in the murder but took a leading role in concealing the body." It noted as a mitigating factor that he had acted out of concern that exposing A's crime could push her — who suffered from depression — to take her own life.

A was indicted in April on charges of strangling her then-3-year-old daughter at her home in Jeongwang-dong, Siheung, in March 2020, and conspiring with B to abandon the body on a hill in Ansan.

Investigators found that A had harbored resentment toward her daughter after her divorce from the child's father left her solely responsible for raising the girl.

To conceal her daughter's death, A applied to defer the child's elementary school enrollment in 2024. Earlier this year, she also brought B's niece to school on multiple occasions, presenting her as her own daughter.

Both A and B were arrested after the school reported its suspicions to authorities, and both acknowledged the charges against them during the trial.

Prosecutors had sought 25 years in prison for A and seven years for B.


husn7@heraldcorp.com