Busan Infant Dumping Murder Case

The Busan infant dumping murder case was an incident in which, at about 4:06 p.m. on December 3, 2014, at the Molundae Comprehensive Social Welfare Center in Saha District, Busan Metropolitan City, a person with a developmental disability, Mr. Lee, dropped and killed Jeong Sang-yun, a 21-month-old infant, from the third-floor railing.¹²

According to the investigator in charge of the case, this is the first case in Korea in which a child was dropped and killed by a person who, to the degree that mental incapacity applies, was in effect a mass of protein in human form, incapable of bearing responsibility or functioning as a human being.³

Incident

Defendant Lee, who had a Grade 1 autism spectrum disability and was in a state of mental incapacity, did not receive any sanction other than admission to a treatment custody facility. Legally, the measure that could be considered, independent of this case, would be to hold accountable the person responsible for supervising and protecting the defendant, whose mental incapacity was clear, for negligence in supervision. However, even this was not carried out in this case. Moreover, since admission to a treatment custody facility is not a punishment, it is said that, literally, no one was subjected to criminal punishment as a result of this case.⁴

Investigation

Defendant Lee was investigated while detained under an arrest warrant requested by the police and granted by the court. According to the first-instance judgment, during the investigation he showed a tendency to be unable to concentrate, answered clearly only questions about his name and the school he attended, and was unable to answer any other questions at all. As a result, all statements were given on his behalf by his teacher at the special school and his mother.⁵

Trial

The prosecution regarded Lee not as being in a state of mental incapacity but as having diminished capacity, applied a murder charge, and requested eight years' imprisonment along with and an electronic monitoring order.