"Dead Younger Sibling Will Come Back to Life If Prayed For," Religious Leader Left Corpse Unattended for 2 Years

Police Dispatched After Landlord Report Leads to Discovery of Corpse
Court Notes "Consideration of Circumstances of Death and Prior Criminal Record"

A religious leader and a follower who left a corpse unattended for two years, believing they could revive the deceased through prayer, were sentenced to prison with a suspended sentence.

Judge Song Byung-hoon of the Criminal Division 1, Pohang Branch of Daegu District Court, sentenced religious leader A, who was charged with corpse abandonment, to six months in prison with a two-year suspension and ordered 80 hours of community service.

Judge Song Byung-hoon of the Criminal Division 1, Pohang Branch, Daegu District Court, sentenced religious leader A, who was charged with corpse abandonment, to 6 months in prison with a 2-year probation and ordered 80 hours of community service.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

In 2019, A proposed to follower B that he live in the same house as A’s younger brother. In June 2020, B witnessed A’s younger brother die at home for unclear reasons and informed A of the incident. Upon hearing this, A believed that his brother could be brought back to life through prayer and instructed B to leave the corpse as it was.

Subsequently, no funeral was held for the younger brother, and the death was not reported. It was only two years later, in June of last year, when the landlord of the residence reported the situation and police officers arrived that the corpse was discovered.

The court stated, "We took into consideration the circumstances leading to the death of A’s younger brother and the defendant’s prior criminal record." The court also handed down the same sentence to B, who conspired in the corpse abandonment with A.

Meanwhile, earlier on the 22nd, the prosecution abandoned its appeal after the court did not impose a prison sentence on a woman in her 40s who left her mother’s skeletonized corpse unattended at home for over two years.

C was arrested and indicted on charges of leaving the corpse of her mother, D (aged 76 at the time of death), in a skeletal state in a villa in Ganseok-dong, Namdong-gu, Incheon, from August 2020 until January of this year.

At the time, the prosecution demanded a three-year prison sentence for C, stating, "She did not report her mother’s death and improperly received basic pension and national pension benefits." However, the Incheon District Court considered the good relationship between C and her mother and C’s efforts to treat her mother’s diabetes, sentencing C to two years in prison with a three-year suspension.