True Crime (12) When fantasy became fatal

Human fascination with mysticism and the afterlife has endured for millennia -- from protective spells in ancient Mesopotamia to prohibitions against magic in the Hebrew Bible, from necromancy in folklore across cultures to the hysteria of the Salem witch trials, where more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft.

Today, few people would still believe it is truly possible to cast a curse or summon the dead. But in 2012, in South Korea, a small group of teenagers and young adults became engrossed in such ideas.

This episode examines how an online forum devoted to summoning spirits crossed the line from dark fascination into deadly action, culminating in the murder of a 20-year-old college student — once one of their own.

Seoul police on April 30, 2012, received a report that a man's body was found in Baramsan Children's Park at around 8:47 p.m. The body of the victim, surnamed Kim, was barely hidden by bushes and trees, and the subsequent investigation showed that the murder had occurred not even half an hour before the body was found.

Four people were ultimately held responsible for the murder, and were promptly captured by the authorities.

Two were caught just a day after the crime -- a teen couple: a 16-year-old boy surnamed Lee, who stabbed Kim repeatedly, and his 15-year-old girlfriend Hong, who helped lure the victim. On May 2, police arrested a 19-year-old man surnamed Yun, who played the main role in the murder.

A 21-year-old woman surnamed Park was found to have requested the other three to murder Kim, who turned out to have been her ex-boyfriend.

Aside from the heinous nature of the crime, the murder was the epitome of sloppiness and carelessness. They believed that the cleaning crew of the park would clean up the body and the blood, and brought the victim's bloodstained clothes back to their homes.

They planned to burn the garments when the time was right, but the police ended up confiscating the crucial evidence. They even forgot to take the victim's wallet, and discussed their anxiety in text messages, again leaving damning evidence.

While the murder itself was not captured on surveillance cameras, they were seen entering the park with the victim on cameras installed around the area.

Despite this, they somehow believed they had committed the perfect crime, as the teenage couple went to school the next day and took their mid-term exam.

Park was told of the murder by her friend, but she said she did not care what happened to her ex-boyfriend and warned the friend not to even mention him.

The case was clear-cut from an investigative standpoint: the culprits, victim, murder method and body were all right there.

But the question was why. Why did four young people conspire to kill a young man who did not seem to have done anything particularly wrong? What could he have done to deserve the repeated fatal blows, to have his body discarded like garbage?

A police probe would soon discover that their mutual hatred derived from their contrasting views on the supernatural -- a quarrel that started over their beliefs about what are known as “saryeong" (dead spirits), which took place in an online community.

The four perpetrators of the murder were devoted members of an online forum called "dead spirit cafe." Starting in the late 2000s, similar cafe forums drew in thousands of Koreans -- mostly teenagers -- captivated by the idea of summoning dead spirits.

Local Korean-language newspaper Hankyoreh, in May 2012, interviewed a high school student surnamed Song, who was a former member of a dead spirit cafe through which she was an acquaintance of Park. She explained that the members thought dead spirits were like guardian angels or pets, with posts on the cafe expressing emotional attachment to the spirits.

Song said the dead spirit cafes had become more extreme since she joined in 2011, with members sharing how to cast hexes or curses. Some posted that they wanted to kill themselves in order to become a dead spirit.

Park, a rare college student in a world mostly comprising teens, was an authority figure in the cafe. Park said she was "certified as a witch in the spirit world," according to Song.

The madness eventually led to Song leaving the cafe in January 2012, which in turn led to Park and the others cursing her in the chatroom.

Park and Kim met each other in an online game in March 2011. They started dating in January the next year, and Kim became acquainted with the teen couple Lee and Hong through Park.

In February, just one month into his relationship with Park, Kim posted on his blog a list of what he wanted to do with his new girlfriend, which included jamming with each other in a band, going to an amusement park, and falling asleep while chatting on a messaging app. He even joined the dead spirit cafe in an apparent attempt to share a hobby with his girlfriend.

But Kim was never a devoted member of the cafe himself, and he would eventually grow estranged from the group obsessed with magic and spiritual possession. In a small group that obsessively followed Park, Kim became known as an overbearing and arrogant older member who eventually hurt his girlfriend by dumping her on April Fool's Day.

Text messages revealed later showed that Hong told Park it was a good thing the relationship was over, and that she never liked Kim, a sentiment echoed by Lee.

Kim apparently grew furious at how his younger new friends treated him, talking behind his back and ostracizing him. Testimonies by his friends showed that he was an introvert who relied heavily on online friendship, and he responded in a petty fashion by bombarding them with hundreds of text messages littered with profanity for 18 days.

Park wrote on her blog on April 10 that she wished Kim were dead. Kim's texts to Park, Lee and Hong were shared in their private chatrooms, with Park saying, "Can't we kill him? For real." Six days before the incident, Park said, "Just kill him. No one will grieve for him, anyway. I won't forgive him even if he apologized and praised me by kissing each of my toes."

"Break him down with spells and talismans. If he doesn't have faith (in magic), we must show him. A guy who doesn't believe in it must have his faith broken and crumpled."

Kim eventually grew remorseful about his outbursts against his former girlfriend and his younger former friends.

On April 24, he apologized to Hong and Lee and said his rage got the better of him. He called Park and told her, "I shouldn't have gotten mad at you. I'm sorry."

This apparently had some impact on Park, who said, "I feel like we shouldn't kill him. It feels like he's dying because of me. Should we just terminate his reincarnation?” Lee, however, was adamant and said, "30,000 murders occur every day. Nothing changes if it's 30,001."

Kim wanted to meet Lee and ask him to persuade his former girlfriend to quit the dead spirit cafe. He did not fully understand that Park joined the community on her own accord and was a key member, misunderstanding that she had changed because of the community’s influence.

On April 29, Kim told Lee he was going to meet him at Lee's home in Seoul, with a gift to apologize for everything that happened. The same day, Lee was asking around for a person who would assist with the murder, to which Yun -- who fancied himself "a problem-solver" -- responded.

Kim bought a computer graphics card as a gift for Lee. Lee asked Yun to prepare a knife and planned to stab Kim while Yun held him down.

Park was not actually present at the meeting, as Lee and Hong met the victim.

Kim left messages in a group chatroom with other friends about the situation, saying at 8:13 p.m. "(Going into) an alley. Somewhat shady." These were the last messages he ever sent them, as his friends were alarmed at how he grew silent after meeting with people from the dead spirit cafe.

Yun followed the three into the park, where he strangled Kim from behind with a wire while Lee stabbed Kim 10 times. As Kim begged for his life and forgiveness, Yun grabbed a metal pipe lying around and beat the victim to death.

"We have a date tomorrow, and you'll be in trouble if you're drowsy," "I want to sleep next to you tomorrow, you silly man. I love you, good night," were the messages shared by the Lee-Hong couple just after the killing, clearly oblivious and unfazed by the despicable nature of the crime that they had just committed.

Both the prosecution and the court made it clear that it was not an inadvertent act of violence but a planned murder, and pointed out that the defendants did not express remorse or make efforts to compensate the victim's family.

"Just because the victim sent profanities via text as a form of rage for being ostracized, the defendants murdered him, taking advantage of the victim's efforts to mend things between them. They did not kill (the victim) inadvertently but discussed what type of weapon they would use, and how to respond if blood got on their bodies," the Seoul Western District Court said in its verdict.

Lee and Yun, who directly killed the victim, were sentenced to 20 years in prison, while Park received seven years. Hong, whose crime was relatively light, was tried as a minor and was given a prison term of seven years short-term and 12 years long-term -- convicts who are minors can be released after the short-term period with good behavior.

All the rulings were upheld by the appellate court and the Supreme Court, and both the male culprits are still behind bars.

The four culprits and their families were ordered in a civil lawsuit to pay the victim's family 404 million won ($275,600) in compensation in 2014.

Most dead spirit cafes were ordered or advised by authorities to shut down.

The incident sparked a debate and concern over children and young adults who had trouble forming relationships with other people, and sought comfort in online communities.

A profiler at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency who interviewed Yun, Lee and Hong pointed out that all three had attempted suicide in the past. "Their thinking was, 'I know how hard it is. I can make it all right,'" the profiler was quoted as telling local media outlets, indicating that Yun -- a complete stranger to Kim -- wanted to step up to protect the young students who shared his pain.

Kim's response was also seen as a struggle to protect the relationship that he had formed, as he had very few friends and wanted to make amends until the end. "Rather than (the perpetrators) actually believing in the supernatural phenomenon, it appears that they used the dead spirit cafe for personal relationships and attachment," the profiler said.

Profilers who interviewed the murderers said that they were eager to talk to them, possibly suggesting that they were hungry for communication with other people.

Whatever the case, it seems that complicated emotions developed among the youngsters who sought comfort only in those who shared the same passion, as obsession spiraled into a bizarre murder.