Tag: abduction

Korean Woman Acquitted of Switching 3-Year Old Daughter with Her Own Granddaughter Who Was Found Murdered

This missing child and murder case is totally bizarre and it is only a matter of time before this is turned into a movie:

A Gumi woman (C), surnamed Seok, arrives at the Gimcheon branch of the Daegu District Court in Gimcheon, southeastern South Korea, to attend a hearing in a case involving the deaths of two girls, in this file photo taken Aug. 17, 2021. (Yonhap)

A woman was given a suspended prison term in a retrial on Thursday in connection with the mysterious disappearance and deaths of two 3-year-old girls.

Reversing an earlier prison term of eight years, the appellate division of the Daegu District Court sentenced the 50-year-old woman, surnamed Seok, to two years in prison, suspended for three years.

The court acquitted Seok of charges that she had switched her 3-year-old daughter with her granddaughter of the same age years ago in the southeastern city of Gumi

The case first surfaced in 2021 when the mummified remains of a 3-year-old girl was found at the former home of Seok’s daughter, surnamed Kim. The girl is suspected to have died from starvation up to six months earlier.

However, it was only later found through DNA tests that Kim is not the mother of the girl, but her older sister. The child’s supposed grandmother was in fact the biological mother.

Based on the DNA results, prosecutors added child abduction and switching charges against Seok by alleging that the two women gave birth around the same time and that their babies were switched at birth. 

Prosecutors alleged that Seok had unloaded her newborn onto her eldest daughter to raise with her then husband. Kim had raised her younger sister by thinking that she was her daughter.

Seok, however, said she had not given birth to another child, insisting the DNA results are false. The whereabouts of the missing child remain unclear.

In previous rulings, the district and appeals courts had acknowledged the biological relationship between Seok and the dead girl, convicting her of switching the babies. 

The Supreme Court, however, struck down the verdict, saying the DNA test results cannot stand as evidence for Seok’s alleged switching of the babies. 

On Thursday, the appellate court sided with the top court, acquitting Seok of switching babies and only convicting her of attempting to dispose of the body.

Yonhap

What I don’t get is why Seok would switch the babies around the time of birth to just likely kill her granddaughter after the switch? If she was going to kill a baby why didn’t she just get an abortion? Also how did the daughter Kim not notice she had a different baby? The daughter was sentenced to 20 years in jail for killing the baby when she reached age 3 that uncovered this whole sorted affair.

Father Protests in Seoul After Children Abducted By Mother and Taken to Korea

This is a really bad situation and I had no idea that South Korea does so little to return children that are abducted:

John Sichi, a U.S. citizen whose children have gone missing in Korea involving an international abduction case of his children by his Korean spouse, stages a treadmill protest in front of Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, Nov. 30. Sichi is demanding the Korean authorities to enforce court orders that the children should be returned to the U.S. under the Hague Convention. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

On a cold Nov. 30 afternoon, when temperatures nosedived to minus seven degrees Celsius in Seoul, bringing with it the nation’s first cold wave alert of the season, John Sichi was walking on a treadmill in front of Dongdaemun Design Plaza in central Seoul. Undeterred by the biting winds, the U.S. citizen walked for nearly four hours.

Near the treadmill stood a placard reading, “Please let me see my children,” and a life-size cardboard cutout of his two kids ― a 5-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl.

People walking by approached him ― some with curiosity and some with empathy ― to see why a man would be walking on a treadmill in freezing weather. A woman handed him 10,000 won, probably assuming it was a fundraising campaign.

Sichi has been staging the treadmill protest since October in various spots in Seoul, in a desperate effort to find his missing children who have been allegedly abducted by his Korean wife.

His demand is simple: The Korean government should enforce court orders from both the U.S. and Korea that the children should be returned to the U.S.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.