#272: Korean True Crime Fan Commits Murder To Know “What It Feels Like”

0:02It's 3am in South Korea, May 27th of 2023, so literally like a month ago. A taxi driver pulls over to pick up a young girl and her suitcase. He pops open the trunk. He even offers to help her put it into the trunk, but she's like, no, I'm good, don't worry, it's not a big deal, I can do it by myself. She puts it in the trunk, closes it, slides into the back seat, and he glances at her in his rearview mirror. It's kind of late to be going on vacation, and on top of that, her destination isn't even to an airport, or a bus terminal, or anything like that. it's to the local park near the river but who is he to judge?

0:43What time was it? 3am Oh, okay I mean he was just thankful that it was a pleasant, polite, nice young lady rather than a drunk businessman which is typically the clientele at 3am He drives quietly to the park She directs him where to stop the car and she pays him She slides out of the back seat and hauls her own suitcase out of the back of the trunk Again, it looked really heavy really, really heavy She said, no, don't worry about it, sir. I can do it myself. I mean, the physical strength of the youth never cease to amaze this taxi driver. They say their goodbyes. And he watches with a little bit of curiosity as she practically skips into the park towards the grassy field.

1:23What a strange, strange girl. She looked like what? A middle schooler? A high schooler at most? She looked really young. I mean, what is she even doing alone at this hour? And where is she going with the suitcase in the park? He decides to take a smoke break right then and there. He honestly thought that she probably would need a ride back. I mean, no taxi was going to stop in the middle of the park for her to get onto the taxi. It's near the river at 3 a.m. I think nothing good can happen to a young girl roaming around looking for a ride at this time. So he's smoking it up and he looks up. It's been about, what, 15, 20 minutes?

2:01And there she is again. and he's just watching her as she walks out of the park towards him and her suitcase looks very light all of a sudden. Because, you know, earlier it was dragging on the wheels, it was kind of forcing her body to lean a little bit forward to pull it, and now, now it's practically flying around as she's moving it about. The girl asked him for a ride back. The whole energy seemed strange. It seemed like she didn't even notice that it was the same taxi driver and he kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror as he drove her to her destination. Something in his gut told him, this isn't right.

2:39Like something feels wrong. I mean, where would she have gone with that suitcase and why would it be lighter coming out of the park? Nobody just throws away their clothes in the park. She might be a middle schooler, but there is this energy about her. He would alert the police and they found that she had been transporting a victim's dismembered body from the victim's own apartment to that very park. The taxi driver had unknowingly transported human remains, dismembered human remains in the trunk of his car. He had sat in the car with a young baby-faced killer, not once, but twice. Wait, wait, he called the police just because how suspicious it was?

3:19They searched the grassy field in the park. Wow. This case has recently gone viral in Korea for a number of reasons. I mean, just the brazenness of the crime, the CCTV footage of the killer looking like a happy person. I'm going to show this to you. She's just skipping around with dismembered remains in her suitcase. She's got a cute little bob and it's almost bouncing about. People say it's so unsettling because she has this childlike mannerism to her, this energy to her. There's dismembered remains in the suitcase. But also the fact that the killer was stated to have an unhealthy fascination with serial killers and an obsession with true crime documentaries.

3:59She killed, dismembered, and disposed of a victim because she, quote, just wanted to see what it feels like to kill. As always, full show notes are available at RottenMangoPodcast.com, but this is a developing case, and as always, this is the information that we have as of now. Things could change, they could get worse, but I do think that we, I don't know if we'll get too much information considering the privacy laws in South Korea. Also, as per South Korean laws, the victim of this case and her family have chosen to stay anonymous. So throughout this case, we will refer to her with the alias of Hannah.

4:35And with all foreign cases, we had our Korean researchers work on this case to get as much of what we could that's out there and compile it in this video for you guys. So let's get into it. The victim, Hannah, was a young woman in her 20s. She was tutoring high schoolers in English. I would not say tutoring is an easy job, in South Korea, it's a very serious job. Parents are picky, over-involved, very diligent in picking the absolute perfect tutor for their perfect children whom they believe are entitled to be the next Einsteins. So it's a difficult job, but Hannah liked it. She was a university student at a prestigious school.

5:14It worked well with her schedule and it made it easier for her to get a tutoring position to begin with. And she liked being able to help these grade schoolers get interested in English. She made the whole process fun for them and just wanted to be like a cool tutor. That was her genuine vibe. That's her goal. So in 2023, with all of the available apps out there, there is a platform for tutors. Tutors will sign up and they will be verified by the platform for having the specific credentials. They will verify with the school that they're a student. They will verify their transcripts, grades, everything to make sure that these tutors that are online are being advertised, their background checks.

5:52It's basically a tutor securing app that parents are obsessed with. Parents will go on there and they will look for tutors in every single subject for their elementary, middle school, and high school kids. The demand for English tutors was actually pretty high and the pay was fairly good. So Hannah had a lot of parents messaging her, inquiring about her services, including the mom of a middle school student who was, um, this mom was very adamant about hiring Hannah. Originally, Hannah declined this mother's offer because her house was so far away from Hannah's. I mean, she naturally wanted something closer because why commute if you don't have to?

6:27So she said, thank you so much. Like, I'm sure that your middle schooler will find a great tutor, but it's just too far for me. This mom really seemed to like Hannah, though. She even offered to send her daughter to Hannah's house, drop her off for these English sessions. Hannah kind of felt bad I mean the mom seemed really desperate for her daughter to have an English tutor maybe she had an exam coming up maybe she was the only tutor that seemed to fit the mom's profile it was strange but she found it hard to say no besides she really did like tutoring she really did like helping students May 26th of 2023 Friday right around dinner time so right around 6pm Hannah slowly gets her house ready because this is the first day that this student is going to come over and they're going to tutor in English together.

7:14You're kidding me. So she's cleaning up. Yeah. Cleaning up, wiping the table down, and she hears a knock on the door. She peers through the little camera and she sees a preteen student, a middle schooler. Kind of short bob haircut that's curled outwards, like how middle schoolers do it. It kind of stopped at her chin. Her glasses would make her cheeks look even rounder. And in many situations, I think most people would look at this face and think, oh, like what a cute middle schooler. She's got like cute little cheeks. And she's standing there wearing her school uniform. So Hannah opens the door and she's ready to start tutoring.

7:50There would have been no way for Hannah to have known that this little middle schooler that she had just let into her home was not actually a middle schooler. What? Cheung Yujang was her name. She was not a middle schooler. Yujang was not 12 or 13 or even 14 or 15 years old, but rather 23 years old. She could have potentially been older than Hannah. We don't know the victim's precise age. The middle school uniform that she was wearing was purchased at a thrift store. And underneath it, she was hiding a knife. Within minutes of entering, Yujang established that Hannah lived alone. She pulled out her knife and viciously stabbed Hannah.

8:37She repeatedly stabbed Hannah in the neck, only on like a particular spot slash side. That's what a lot of the reports said, which would later indicate to a lot of psychiatrists that she had researched where to stab. She knew what she was doing. She also stabbed the same area on the neck over 20 times. Once the 23-year-old pretending to be a middle schooler finished killing the victim, she relished in the satisfaction of a job well done. She would spend the greater part of the evening at Hannah's apartment, possibly pretending as if this was her own apartment even changing into the jacket that Hannah wore.

9:11Like she took a jacket out of Hannah's closet and wore it the rest of the night. The jacket that you see on CCTV camera is Hannah's jacket. CCTV cameras would catch this 23-year-old Yu Jung going in and out of Hannah's apartment going back and forth from her own place hauling cleanup tools and other times she would bring a suitcase which indicates that while everyone believes that this is a premeditated murder she was underprepared. But more shocking than that was that she was caught on CCTV looking very relaxed. She's taking taxis to and from Hannah's place to her place to the store to buy supplies.

9:47She's bringing around giant suitcases from her house to Hannah's house. She's going to a local store buying bleach, knives, trash bags. See, that's crazy to me because Korea, you're seeing there's camera every corner. Korea is like the city. I'm sure it's similar in China and maybe Japan. Like the city of CCTV. Yeah, right? Like how? What? Yeah, I don't understand either. Yeah, we're going to go down kind of a few conspiracy routes later, but it gets weird. She brings this suitcase and all these supplies back to Hannah's and she gets to dismembering the victim. She spends the rest of the night and into the early hours of the morning doing this.

10:26She then stuffs unspecified parts of the victim's body into a suitcase and hauls a cab. And again, just seeing her with that suitcase out in the streets, just the way that she's walking is so nonchalant. She's almost practically skipping. People say she almost has this childlike demeanor, meaning that if we were to bump into her in the street, we would probably think, oh my god, I just bumped into like a little high schooler. Oopsie, sorry. Like, oh, she looks cute and innocent. She very much had a girl next door, sweet, innocent appearance that had viewers and netizens absolutely floored when they found out what was in that suitcase.

11:03Around 3 p.m., she puts the luggage into the trunk of a taxi, directs the driver to drop her off near a wooded area near Hopo Station. This is near like the Nakdong River, and reportedly the killer, Yujung, she loved going on walks in this park. This was her favorite spot. She gets dropped off by the taxi driver, walks into the grassy area, and starts scattering the remains of Hannah. Seoul University forensic professor would say that even the grassy location by the Nakdong River could have been planned. The tall grass by the water, it holds a lot of insects and disinfectants, like I'm assuming it's like pesticides, that would accelerate the decomposition of the body parts within a week.

11:45So if she had not been caught by then, there's a high chance the body would have been hard to recognize or even how to ID the body. Professor Yoo is quite certain that she knew about all of this, which is why she chose to go this far with the body and even get in a taxi to scatter the remains at this park. Perhaps her frequent walks around this park made her familiar with the area. It made her want to leave a body here. Now, it's all going according to 23-year-old Yoo Jung's plan, except the taxi driver. She believed the taxi driver would not be able to tell the difference between a girl traveling with luggage for vacation at 3 a.m.

12:21versus a girl traveling with luggage full of body parts. The taxi driver would call the police, and it was very quickly traced back to Yoo Jung. In a show called We Want to Know in Korea, it was revealed that another bystander actually saw Yoo Jung throw away this huge trash bag of bloody blankets, bloody leggings, before she walked away with her rolling suitcase. Again, just five hours later, she was arrested. Wow, that was fast. Now, side note, there was a rumor circulating that the taxi driver had gotten out to help Yu Jung unload her luggage from the trunk. And as he was trying to help her, he had touched the luggage and felt that it was wet upon impact.

13:02The rumor was that he got back into the taxi and you know how like the car lights turn on when you open the door? Yeah. And he briefly glanced at his palms and they were dripping with blood. That is a rumor from what I can tell. Someone anonymously came out and said that they were a colleague of the taxi driver and that didn't happen. He just noticed that the weight difference and where she was going and all these suspicious things added up for him to call the police, he did not see blood. He did not feel blood. You know, like for him to call the police, he must have some kind of... Like that gut feeling that you're like, I know I'm not going to be able to sleep at night.

13:35And it must have been so strong. And that must be really, really bad. I wonder if he's actually thinking, oh my God, is this a body? Yes. I did see a lot of netizens say the fact that it speculated it was a male taxi driver. the fact that a male taxi driver that has probably seen so much in South Korea, so many bizarre things at 3 a.m., 4 p.m., 5 a.m., you know, any time of the day. But this little girl with luggage unsettled him so much. Because I think it's one thing if a girl is driving and there's like a creepy man with luggage, we're already on guard. There's always this feeling of like, I always think something is wrong.

14:12But for him to be this upset and unsettled by what looks to be a middle school girl, it must have been bad. There must have been some sort of and I hate to say it like some sort of energy that she was giving off like some sort of weirdness that was happening. Yeah.

14:33So the police rushed to the field where they find the scattered remains and with the help of the taxi driver describing what she looked like approximately where he picked her up and where he dropped her off she was quickly located and arrested. Authorities asked her why would you do this? How could you do this? Who did you do this to? Because at this point, they did not have an idea of the victim. Now, upon arrest, Yujang seemed very calm and collected. She was young, just 23 years old, but when the police were questioning her, she didn't seem that alarmed. She just very calmly explained, well, the dismembered remains that you saw, if you must know, they were my baby.

15:13I delivered a baby at home, and I killed it because I don't want to be a mom, obviously. I'm young, I was going through a psychotic break, and I killed the baby and scattered the remains. I'm not sure how she thought that she could get away with a lie like that, because very easily you could pick up some of the remains. I'm sure that there are medical examiners that can give you, like, a brief, hey, that's not a baby's bone. I'm also not sure how she had so much confidence, even though this is so easily medically debunkable. I mean, her body doesn't even have evidence that she was even pregnant.

15:44So after arresting her, the authorities also found Hannah's ID nearby. This was left near the remains, along with some bloody clothes and other body parts. So now they know who the victim is. They go back to Hannah's apartment. They find more evidence of the crime. And they tell Yujang, like, that's not your baby. We know it's not your baby. Give us the real truth. That's when she starts complaining of stomach pain. She's like, oh, my stomach hurts. Oh, my God, I'm going to die. because she's in police custody. See, this is where the police are better than me because if you've committed a blatantly, like a blatant murder and you're telling me that your stomach hurts, you never told me that.

16:21You and your stomach can hurt for the rest of the interrogation. You're not going to die, okay? Why should I care about you when you don't care about human life? But because she's under police responsibility, they rush her to the hospital and surprise, surprise, she's lying. There's nothing wrong with her. So after the hospital debacle, The police bring her back into the interrogation room and they ask her about the events of the previous night. The police also take her phone and they start searching through it. And, you know, they just have so many questions. Did you know the victim? Did you target this victim?

16:50Why would you do this? How long have you been planning this? Are there other victims? Are you working with someone? She clearly was not being the most honest person. So the police, they start going through her phone. And we're going to come back to all of her lies. But let's go through the phone first. The police check her phone, hoping to get some answers. They found a colorful search history where she had searched online for tips on how to hide a corpse. She also had watched a ton of true crime documentaries, allegedly feeding off on... It said that she just really wanted to know what it felt like to kill.

17:27Yeah, we're going to get back to it. But something the police rarely see was that her phone was empty. Just like everything. Not like she had wiped her phone and deleted everything, but digital forensics revealed that Jung Yoo Jung, her phone, she was not in contact with a single person. She had no contacts in her cell phone, which I know some people don't save contacts, but she had no messages, no calls coming in or out, none, nothing. No friends, no family, no social media interactions. No one was contacting her. in this day and age of 2023 how nearly impossible is that she was truly almost like a ghost Jung Yoo Jung was born in 1999 very young she like a lot of people was born into a pretty volatile house her parents were always busy working they were too busy to take care of her she was sent off to live with her grandfather and he was the exclusive soul guardian throughout her entire childhood which I think is interesting.

18:34So in a lot of cultures and Korean culture as well, it's common for grandparents to move in and raise the grandchildren while the parents are busy working. But her grandfather was listed as her sole guardian. So I mean, that to me indicates whether her parents were divorced or they were not present at all in her life. If it was to the extent of negligence or abandonment, I'm not sure. But the fact that her grandfather was listed as her sole guardian, I think something must have happened with her parents. I'm sure it probably impacted her in some way to not have her parents around, to not having this loving dynamic that a lot of kids have.

19:07But I mean, it's been proven time and time again that a child's first example of a relationship is with the parent. So we don't know. It's just something to consider. Ultimately, we have no idea what happened, if anything, but we know that it wasn't the most stable home. Regardless, growing up, Yujang was regarded as a very specific word that I've never really heard in cases. Invisible. Not just quiet, not just shy, not just introverted, but invisible. Her former classmate said, if you said hi to Yu Zhang in the hallway, like if you waved to her in the hallway, she would never say anything back.

19:44She wouldn't even smile back. She wouldn't nod in acknowledgement. She wouldn't even weigh back. She would basically just ignore your existence. They said that Yu Zhang never spoke or replied to any of her classmates. So if you were a classmate and you were asking her a question and she knows you're asking her a question, the room is silent. and you go, hey, Yoo Jung, can you pass me that? She wouldn't even look at you. She would not respond to you. If it was an elder, like a teacher, authority figure, or even a neighbor, if they asked her a question, she would avoid eye contact and answer just yes or no.

20:16Outside of school, Yoo Jung never even left her home. Neighbors reported almost never seeing her out, walking around, hanging out with friends, going on walks with her grandpa, inviting friends over. Nothing. It's stated, and this is kind of random and super specific, but Yoo Jung hated talking to people but if she were at the convenience store and she was owed like a penny back in change most Koreans stated that they just wouldn't ask for the change they'd be like oh keep the change because they don't want to walk around with this penny they don't know exactly what to do with this penny it's just kind of a hassle Yoo Jung, the person who hates talking would ask for that penny back no matter what that was like the one time she was very vocal she's like give me my penny back which is fine she's entitled to it but people just thought it was kind of interesting to note Anyway, contrary to a lot of speculation, former classmates also stated Yujang was absolutely never bullied.

21:07So as far as we know, nobody picked on her. Nobody forced her to retreat into her shell and go unnoticed. Nobody verbally, physically hit her. Nobody bothered her because she wouldn't even wave back at you. It's like she would just float through her childhood like a ghost. This seems to be like a choice that she made for whatever reason. She would be so good at being unnoticeable that she could walk into a room and no one would look up or even hear anything. Her presence was unknown. She was unseen. She was unremarkable in almost every way. We have no idea if she desperately desired to talk or to say something or wanted someone to listen to her as if she was invisible and she didn't want to be.

21:50She just couldn't stop. Maybe her brain blocked that part of her life or blocked that part of her socialization. I don't know. or on the flip side you could argue that this was a choice she didn't like people this was her own little rebellion to not talk to people she was deliberately ignoring them but she did kind of unsettle her former classmates so they never bothered to get to know her but they reported that she would sit behind curtains alone so like imagine there's a curtain she would just sit behind it just like hiding herself but not really hiding herself because you would see that there's a human behind the curtain and then you would look at the shoes and then you'd be like why is yujang behind the curtain.

22:28Sometimes you would hear crunching noises from behind the curtain and she would just be behind the curtain eating snacks. A professor named Lee Soo-jung was interviewed about this case and as an expert in teen psychology and behavior, they stated that she had unusual behavior for a teenager. They said that adolescent ages are a time of pure curiosity of your peers. You want to know what your peers have to think, have to say about everything, how they dress. You want to get to know everyone your age. You have this like innate desire to understand them because you want to be part of your peers. This is not like anything we've heard.

23:04Yeah, this one's very weird. And it's going to get weirder. So far, it's weird, but it gets weirder. The professor stated that if they were to evaluate this type of behavior, they would categorize it as psychopathic tendencies and or behavior that is being displayed at an early age. So Yoo Jung puts in as much effort into her schoolwork as she does getting to know her classmates. Another thing that stood out to former classmates is that Yoo Jung was never angry. She was never upset. She was never depressed. She never had this like passion against everyone. Like, oh, I don't want to talk to any of you guys because you don't understand me.

23:38I stand out. I'm different. She never had that. She just seemed so utterly neutral about everything. So incredibly passively indifferent. And in hindsight, a lot of people said that might be scarier. But she still managed to graduate in 2018 from the Gyeonggi Girls High School. She had no clue what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, which, you know, is very normal. But she also had zero intention of trying to explore things and figure it out. After she graduates high school, Yoo Jung had no social outlet. She had nothing on her schedule that would force her to interact with people, with teachers, like high school did.

24:15Like, she doesn't have college. She has become totally disconnected from society the day she graduates high school. She would stay in her room all day, no connection with anyone. She would tell her grandfather that she was holed up in her room studying for the public government official exam. But it is clear Yujang used this as a delay tactic, an excuse to have in her back pocket if her grandfather ever noticed that she has no social life, that she's not getting a job, that she has no plans for her future. She would just milk the crap out of studying for this exam for the next five years. Every day, it was, oh, you know, Grandpa, I'm studying for the entrance exam.

24:51She was receiving financial support from her grandfather while she studied. He expected that she would pass, and afterwards, she would find a job. And she would get paid, and hopefully pay him back for all the hard work that he's done because he's a grandfather now. And I'm sure that there were even moments that the grandfather was proud of her because she never spent time hanging out with friends or just doing nothing. she was always studying. She seemed so dedicated to her studies. Now, if you think that he's in on it or gullible or that he should have known, it's a different generation. He didn't even know that you needed to have a college level proficiency in English to even qualify to take the exam, which Yujang was clearly not proficient in English.