(That day, that time) Child abuse victim grows up and kills his parents

21 May 2000. A middle-aged couple was murdered at a home in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi (Gyeonggi) Province. The murderer was the couple's second son, Lee Eun-seok. The murder itself is against the ways of mankind, but the method of killing was too cruel to have been carried out between family members. He murdered his parents, mutilated their bodies and then dumped them. What was the motive of prisoner Yi's crime?

Lee Eun Suk was born in 1976 to a wealthy family as the second son of two boys. His father was a former military officer, and his mother was an elite who graduated from Ewha Womans University. However, the couple's way of raising and educating their children was not elite. His learning was slower than others, and his sluggish movements were invariably accompanied by verbal and physical violence. That was abuse.

The abuse that began in kindergarten continued through high school. Inmate Lee showed symptoms of social anxiety disorder, and school life was not easy. He said he suffered from bullying and violence at school, and had trouble socializing. Still, he excelled and entered Korea University. However, what came back from my parents was the cold words, "Didn't you get into Seoul University?"

College life was not going well either. Even when he enlisted in the military, he struggled with his introverted personality. His parents never visited him during the three years he served. He was discharged safely and returned home, but the abusive language that denied my parent's personality continued.

It happened 10 days before the incident. Inmate Lee had a violent argument with his mother. It was the moment when he, who had been obedient until now, rebelled against his parents for the first time. The quarrel that started with the loneliness that the couple had prepared an apartment for my older brother who declared independence in a way that was close to running away from home spread to the story of abuse to myself in the past. His mother told him not to bring up the past, and his father, who heard the story later, kicked him.

Realizing that he could not restore his relationship with his parents through dialogue, Lee fell into despair. After that day, he locked the door and shut himself up. In the end, he killed, wounded, and abandoned his parents. He was sentenced to death in the first trial, but his eldest son, who is his older brother, demanded leniency, saying, "I feel like I understand (my brother's feelings)." Members of the church he attended also filed a petition with the court. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by an appeals court. He is currently serving a life sentence in prison.

Lee Eun Suk was a perpetrator of honour killings and a victim of child abuse. When the incident occurred, society's anger was focused on the former and looked harshly at the latter, but later there was a continuing movement to consider the latter. A representative example is the book 'Was It So Difficult to Say I'm Sorry', published by psychologist Dr Lee Hoon-gu (former professor at Yonsei University), who met with Lee Eun-sook. The title of the book is his statement during the police interrogation.