“You Don‘t Have to Be Pretty” - The Mystery of the Death of a Young Bride

‘Smoking Gun’ deals with the ‘Mystery of the Death of a Young Bride’ who was unjustly killed without any explanation.

At 9:50 PM on March 18, 2010, a fire broke out in an apartment in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do. When the firefighters arrived, the flames had already died down. In the bedroom, a woman was found dead, naked and curled up on the bed. Her husband, Kim Yang-gu (pseudonym), left the house just before the fire started. We began the investigation with the possibility of homicide and arson in mind, but we couldn’t find any clues. So why on earth did this woman die in such an unusual position that day?

The deceased woman is Bopha (pseudonym), a 23-year-old Cambodian woman from Kim Yang-gu‘s third marriage. An insurance company employee who went to collect her life insurance money questioned Bopha’s position of death and requested a reinvestigation. There were many suspicious things about her husband, Mr. Kim. After a subsequent reinvestigation, a shocking fact was revealed. On the day of the fire, Kim Yang-gu had given his wife sleeping pills to make her unconscious and then committed arson.

It was even more shocking that Kim Yang-gu was known to have planned all of this from the beginning. When he was introduced to Bopha through an international marriage information company, Kim Yang-gu said, “I don‘t need looks, please introduce me to a weak and small woman.” From the beginning, he had chosen someone who was easy to deal with. Lee Ji-hye was astonished, saying, “Most people want their marriage partners to be healthy, so the thought of finding someone weak is chilling.” Ahn Hyun-mo was also furious, saying, “It’s so vicious that he did this to his devoted young wife just for money.”

The sad story of the young bride‘s death, who married into a strange land and met a painful death, can be found on KBS2’s ‘Smoking Gun’ on Tuesday the 12th at 11 p.m.Lee Seul-bi, Donga.com reporter misty82@donga.com