Boyfriend sentenced to 18 years in prison for killing father who opposed daughter's marriage - South Korea

On July 31, 2020, a court sentenced a mentally disabled man who killed his girlfriend's father because he would not allow them to marry to 18 years in prison. His daughter, who helped him commit the crime, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The incident occurred four months after the death of two men, A (male, 31) and B (female, 24), who are both intellectually disabled at level 3, at a facility for disabled people in Changnyeong County, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea, in December 2018.
After meeting for the first time, they developed a romantic relationship. Two months after they started dating, in January 2019, they visited B's father and asked for his consent to marry him.
However, their father, Mr. C (66), was against their marriage. For the next month, he tried to get Mr. C's consent.
However, they continued to be opposed, and feeling resentful, they came up with a plan to kill Mr. C as a means of resolving the issue. On April 5, 2019, Mr. A chose the murder weapon to kill Mr. C, and Mr. B paid him with cash.
The murder weapon was stored under a farm road drainage outlet near Mr. B's house. Two weeks later, Mr. A happened to meet Mr. C at a hospital. Mr. C told others, "That guy is taking psychiatric medication.
When A said, "You're crazy," he remembered that C had previously made derogatory remarks about his (A's) mother, such as "She's disabled. She's blind." This made A decide to commit the crime that night.
On the same day, after confirming that her father had fallen asleep due to drunkenness, B sent a message to A saying, "Your father is asleep, so please come over in a little while," and then walked around the house.
He participated in the crime by leaving the door unlocked so that Mr. A could enter the house when he arrived. Mr. A brandished a weapon he had hidden beforehand several times, killing Mr. C, who was sleeping.
They were subsequently handed over to trial on charges of conspiring to murder Mr. C. Mr. A and his lawyer argued that at the time of the crime, Mr. A was in a weak physical and mental state due to intellectual disability, but the court did not accept this.
According to the first trial court, on the day of the crime, Mr. A had prepared a change of clothes and gloves in advance, and after the crime, he told his girlfriend, Ms. B, "Keep quiet. I'll keep it a secret. I'll kill you.
"I'll do it on my own," he said falsely during the investigation. As a result, the first instance court sentenced Mr. A to 18 years in prison. Mr. B, who assisted Mr. A and participated in the crime, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The first-instance court said, "In this case, B assisted her girlfriend in killing her father, which was an antisocial and defeatist act that took the life of the father who gave birth to her and raised her."
The court found that the fact that B admitted to the crime and regretted his mistake, that he did not take the lead in carrying out the crime, and that he did not directly participate in the murder were favorable factors.
Both Mr. A and Mr. B appealed the sentences, claiming that they were inappropriate, but the second instance court dismissed the appeals, stating that "the sentences were too severe and cannot be considered inappropriate."
After that, Mr. B accepted the 15-year prison sentence, and Mr. A appealed, but the Supreme Court also ruled that "in light of the method of the crime and the actions before and after the crime, it is difficult to see that Mr. A was in a weak mental and physical state at the time of the crime."
and dismissed the appeal.