This image is not directly related to the article. [Getty Images Bank]
This image is not directly related to the article. [Getty Images Bank]

A case in which a couple in their 40s and their two young children were found dead at an apartment in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, last month is drawing renewed attention after allegations emerged that the deaths may have been murders rather than a family suicide.

According to police, the couple fell from their apartment building in Yonghyeon-dong, Uijeongbu, on July 17 and were pronounced dead. Officers who checked the family's unit found the couple's two children — ages 12 and 8 — also dead inside.

A suicide note written by the husband, citing financial hardship, was found at the scene. The case was initially treated as a family suicide.

However, a recent episode of MBC's investigative program "Silhwa Tamsadae" raised a different set of circumstances.

An anonymous tipster who said they had seen photographs from the scene told the program they came forward because they believed "the children and the wife deserved justice," adding that one person appeared to have had a limb severed before the fall. The lower portion of one leg, below the knee, was reportedly separated from the body.

The tipster also said the wife was found wearing only underwear and was visibly pregnant at the time of discovery — details they said were inconsistent with suicide.

An acquaintance of the wife said she had been expecting to give birth in September.

Residents said they had heard arguing coming from the apartment before the incident. One neighbor called police after hearing a woman screaming about five hours before the deaths were discovered. Officers responded but could not locate the source of the sound and left.

Large amounts of blood found throughout the apartment have also raised questions. A worker from a cleanup company brought in to clear the family's belongings said, "This is a murder scene. It is not a suicide."

Profiler Bae Sang-hun told the program that the volume of blood suggested "at least an artery was severed and spurting," adding that "someone who sustained injuries of this severity would not have been able to jump on their own."

Oh Yun-sung, a professor in the department of police administration at Soonchunhyang University, was equally blunt. "This was a brutal killing — there is no other way this much blood could have been shed," he said. "This should not be packaged as a 'family suicide due to financial difficulties.' They were murdered."

Because both the suspected perpetrator and the victims are dead, police are likely to close the case without further investigation, citing no grounds for prosecution.


paq@heraldcorp.com