An older woman sitting in a park, stock photo / Nattapat.J-shutterstock.com
A woman in her 40s who left her 70-year-old mother, suffering from dementia, naked and unattended for over an hour, leading to her death, was acquitted in the first trial but found guilty in the appeal. She was ultimately sentenced to 18 months in prison.
On the 18th of last month, the Jeonju First Criminal Division of the Gwangju High Court (Chief Judge Baek Gang-jin) announced that it had sentenced Ms. A (49), who was charged with persistent abuse leading to death, to 18 months in prison, overturning the first trial’s verdict of acquittal.
Here’s how the case unfolded. On December 9, 2021, Ms. A stripped her mother, Mrs. B, naked and sent her outside of their home in Jeonju, Jeonbuk, citing a bad smell. Despite neighbors knocking on the door to bring Mrs. B back inside, Ms. A remained silent. Mrs. B was left outside for about an hour and a half in temperatures of 10.6 degrees Celsius (51.08 degrees Fahrenheit).
Eventually, the frustrated neighbors called 112 (Korean emergency number), and the responding police officers took Mrs. B and visited Ms. A’s house. Only then did Ms. A open the door. About an hour later, Mrs. B’s social worker, who was contacted by the police, arrived at Ms. A’s house and found Mrs. B lying naked on the floor covered with a blanket. When asked why Mrs. B was naked, and Ms. A made the excuse that “she keeps trying to take off her clothes.”
The social worker turned Mrs. B over to check her condition, only to find that she was no longer breathing. The social worker immediately called 119 (Korean Emergency Medical Services), and Mrs. B was rushed to a nearby hospital, but she eventually passed away.
The National Forensic Service autopsy concluded that Mrs. B’s cause of death appeared to be hypothermia or acute heart failure but added that “death due to complications from diabetes or other underlying diseases cannot be ruled out.”
At the first trial, Ms. A admitted that “I did tell my mother to undress and go outside. But I didn’t abuse her intentionally.” The first trial court accepted Ms. A’s claim and acquitted her.
The prosecution immediately appealed when Ms. A was acquitted at the first trial.
The appellate court ruled, “The defendant caused physical and psychological harm to the victim to make her obey her orders by sending her outside of the house. This in itself constitutes an act of abuse.”
It continued, “It’s not that the victim suddenly had a heart attack without any other external factors,” and emphasized, “Considering expert opinions that ‘an elderly dementia patient with diabetes could easily die of hypothermia if left outside,’ we can sufficiently recognize a causal relationship between the defendant’s abusive behavior and the victim’s death.”
However, it added, “The defendant has had mental illness since her 20s and appears to have committed the abuse spontaneously in a state lacking normal judgment. It’s hard to attribute the responsibility solely to the defendant. We considered these factors in determining the sentence.”
By. Koo Hana
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