The mother, who was arrested on charges of killing her two infants and storing their bodies in a refrigerator for several years, is transferred to the prosecution from Suwon Nambu Police Station in Gyeonggi Province on June 30, 2023. / Korea Times file

The Supreme Court upheld an eight-year prison sentence for the mother involved in the Suwon refrigerator infant case, where she killed her two newborn children shortly after birth and hid their bodies in a freezer at her home.

The Supreme Court confirmed the lower court's eight-year sentence on Friday for the woman who was convicted of murder and concealment of corpses. The court said that the lower court had made no error in its judgment regarding the charges of murder and corpse concealment.

She gave birth to a daughter in November 2018 and a son in November 2019. She strangled each child the day after giving birth, either at her home in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, or nearby, and concealed their bodies in black plastic bags in the freezer compartment of her kitchen refrigerator.

The horrific crime was uncovered during an audit of unregistered children. In May of last year, the Board of Audit and Inspection discovered 2,123 cases of children with birth records but no official registration between 2015 and 2022, and reported them to health authorities.

When Suwon city officials attempted to investigate the woman's refusal to cooperate, police launched an investigation. She confessed to the crimes but argued in court that the charges should be reduced to infanticide, a lesser offense since she killed her children a day after their birth.

However, the court rejected this argument, pointing out that she had entrusted her other three children to the care of her family, indicating that she was not suffering from a disturbed state of mind linked to childbirth.

The trial court noted that while alternatives were available, her difficult situation likely influenced her actions.

Following this case, health authorities began a full investigation into unregistered children. Of the 2,123 identified, it was confirmed that 249 children, or 12 percent, had died due to natural causes or fell victim to criminal acts. The infanticide law, criticized for its leniency, was abolished in August last year, and a "protected childbirth system" now allows mothers in crisis to give birth anonymously.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.