A South Korean court on Monday found a woman not guilty of murdering her father after she spent almost a quarter century in prison.
The Gwangju district court acquitted Kim Shin Hye, 47, who was falsely sentenced to life in prison for murdering her father and disposing of his body in 2000, after a retrial. It cited a lack of evidence and unclear motive for Ms Kim to commit the crime.
Ms Kim’s confession, which led to her conviction over two decades ago, could not be used as evidence because she had retracted it, The Korea Herald reported the court as noting.
Ms Kim said she had lied to police to save her brother from going to jail. In spite of retracting her confession, she was sentenced by the Supreme Court in 2001.
At the time, prosecutors accused Ms Kim of mixing 30 sleeping pills in whiskey and giving it to her 52-year-old father at their home before killing him. She was also accused of abandoning his body on a roadside about 6km from their house in Wando, South Jeollah.
Ms Kim initially confessed, saying she had killed her father for sexually assaulting her and her younger sister.
She retracted her statement during the trial, however, and denied the charges against her.
“It is possible that Kim falsely confessed due to different reasons,” the Gwangju court said.
It was unclear if Ms Kim’s father had died from sleeping pills given by the defendant as the autopsy report didn’t indicate the man had taken any type of drug in a large dose, the court ruled, adding that the extremely high blood alcohol content of 0.303 per cent could have been the cause of death.
“Although suspicions remain over Kim urging her siblings to give false statements and over inconsistencies in her own testimonies, such circumstances alone are not enough to warrant a guilty verdict,” the court said.
After her release, Ms Kim told reporters: “I have many thoughts about whether it should have taken decades to correct something that was wrong. I deeply regret not being able to protect my father, who suffered so much and passed away.”
