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Time to take fundamental measures against heinous crimes
The latest in a series of shocking murder cases is a wakeup call for a worrisome trend in this society to make light of human life. The cruel crimes that took place one after another recently, horrified even the most jaded of people.
The suspected murderers took the lives of others on the slightest of provocations and even abandoned the corpses of their victims. They are human in face but brutes in mind. They allegedly committed murder too easily in a fit of anger or due to mental illness. What makes people sad is the crimes caused by hardships of life.
For instance, the case of a 36-year-old woman arrested for allegedly killing and dismembering her ex-husband of the same age at a holiday villa on Jeju Island astounded the people in terms of cruelty and alleged premeditation.
The woman named Koh Yoo-jung, whose face was made public by police, said she stabbed her ex-husband to death in self-defense after he tried to rape her, but police are not buying her claim. Officers confirmed that she was caught on CCTV hurling plastic bags into the sea from a ferry for seven minutes. She admitted parts of his dismembered body were inside the bags.
A murder case in Incheon also shocked the people. A man in his 50s was arrested on suspicion of stabbing his elder brother to death at a cafe in broad daylight. Furthermore, all four members of a family were found dead in their car parked on a road of Siheung, Gyeonggi Province. Based on the testimony by their relatives that the family had been up to their neck in debt, police suspect a family suicide pact.
Nothing is more precious than human life. Life cannot be exchanged for anything. Nothing can replace it. Homicide will only result in the merciless destruction of a family and eventually the community. Our society should work out fundamental measures against this dreadful trend before it is too late.
