A woman in her 40s who deliberately hit and killed a man in his 70s after being insured under multiple overlapping insurance policies was sentenced to a heavy prison term.
This woman had committed a similar crime 14 years ago, receiving a 9-year prison sentence in the first trial, but was acquitted and released in the second trial. The defendant argued that this was circumstantial evidence supporting the possibility that she did not commit a similar crime again, but the court viewed her past experience of deliberately causing a traffic accident to receive a large insurance payout without punishment as a factor that could have led to committing a similar crime again.
According to the legal community on the 23rd, the Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Lee Dong-won) upheld the original sentence of 20 years imprisonment for Kim (42, female), who was indicted for murder and violation of the Insurance Fraud Prevention Act.
The court stated, "There is no error in the original court's judgment that violates the rules of logic and experience or exceeds the limits of free evaluation of evidence, nor is there a misinterpretation of the law regarding the implied intent of murder, intent for violation of the Insurance Fraud Prevention Act, or joint principal offender liability."
It added, "Considering various sentencing factors such as the defendant's age, character, environment, relationship with the victim, motive, means and results of the crime, and circumstances after the crime, even taking into account the mitigating circumstances argued in the appeal, it cannot be said that the original court's decision to sentence the defendant to 20 years imprisonment is grossly unfair," explaining the reason for dismissing the appeal.
Kim was indicted for killing a woman in her 70s who was walking on a road in Gunsan, Jeonbuk, on September 11, 2020, by hitting her at a speed of 42 km/h. She received 176 million KRW from the insurance company for medical expenses, criminal settlement money, and attorney fees related to the accident.
The prosecution found that Kim deliberately caused the accident to receive insurance money due to financial difficulties. At the time of the accident, her ex-husband A, who was sitting in the passenger seat, had failed in the freight truck business from 2017 to 2018, leading Kim to file for bankruptcy and A to apply for personal rehabilitation, causing economic hardship.
After divorcing her husband in 2018, Kim raised four children as a single parent, receiving child-rearing allowances from the government, and started cohabiting again from March 2019. A had his driver's license revoked due to exceeding penalty points while working as a freight truck driver, was fired in August 2020 when this was discovered, and later made a living brokering used car sales.
Kim also deliberately caused a traffic accident in May of the same year to obtain 13.61 million KRW in insurance money and was found to have been insured under multiple overlapping insurance products.
In court, Kim denied the charges, claiming the accident occurred because she could not see well ahead. She argued it was an accident caused by negligent driving such as failure to keep a proper lookout, not an accident intended to kill for insurance money.
In fact, the black box footage of the accident vehicle recorded Kim repeatedly saying, "Ah, Mom, I spilled it," from two seconds before the accident. Kim claimed she was wiping a spilled drink while looking down when the accident happened. However, the court rejected her claim, reasoning that two seconds was too short a time to spill, clean up, and wipe the drink, and that if she had spoken with her head down, her voice tone or direction would have changed, which was not observed in the recording.
Also, considering the testimony of a witness who was in the vehicle at the time, who stated in court that Kim spilled the drink "at the moment of impact," the court found it hard to trust Kim's statement that she spilled the drink before the impact and thus did not see the victim.
Ultimately, the first trial court found Kim guilty of murder and sentenced her to 20 years imprisonment.
The court recognized Kim's intent to kill the victim based on evidence that she kept accelerating just before the accident and made no attempt to stop the car, and that the car's direction turned toward the victim's walking path. Given the economic situation at the time, the motive was sufficient, and there was evidence of collusion with A to defraud insurance money.
Notably, A was involved as either perpetrator or victim in 11 traffic accidents each in 2019 and 2020, with two days in 2019 having two accidents each. During this period, A received about 96 million KRW from insurance companies, more than twice his earned income. The court judged that Kim frequently experienced that deliberately causing traffic accidents did not result in significant criminal punishment.
The court stated, "The defendant chose an elderly victim who was likely to suffer serious harm if an accident occurred and whose life expectancy was limited, expecting an easy settlement with the bereaved family, driven by greed for a large insurance payout," adding, "This not only undermines public trust in insurance but also has a high potential to cause moral hazard."
Kim appealed the verdict, but the outcome did not change. The Supreme Court also dismissed Kim's appeal, stating, "There is no error in the original court's interpretation of the law regarding implied intent in murder."
Meanwhile, Kim had a prior record in 2009 of hitting and killing a 70-year-old man on a road in Iksan, Jeonbuk, and receiving insurance money. At that time, she was sentenced to 9 years imprisonment in the first trial but was acquitted and released in the second trial due to lack of evidence.
In court, Kim claimed, "I tried not to cause traffic accidents or commit insurance fraud based on lessons learned from past traffic accidents and trial experiences." She argued that having been sentenced to prison for an insurance-motivated traffic accident, she would not have committed the same crime again.
However, the second trial court considered ▲ that despite such a past accident record, Kim appeared not to have made efforts to prevent traffic accidents (referencing testimony from her mother-in-law about her rough driving and Kim's own statement about changing lanes without signals), ▲ that she received substantial economic benefits, including 390 million KRW in insurance money far exceeding the 50 million KRW settlement from the 2009 accident, which she used for apartment purchases and freight truck business investments, yet ultimately avoided criminal punishment, ▲ that despite deliberately causing a traffic accident on May 21, 2020, and receiving over 12 million KRW in insurance money, she only received a summary order with a fine of 500,000 KRW for violation of the Special Act on Traffic Accident Handling (injury), and ▲ that this case similarly involved an elderly female victim, concluding, "
Contrary to the defendant's claim, it is quite possible to interpret that the defendant, having learned from the past acquittal that proving intent in traffic accidents is difficult, deliberately caused this traffic accident using a similar method to resolve financial difficulties through insurance money. Such an interpretation, along with the defendant's economic situation, insurance subscription history, and the circumstances before and after the accident, is more reasonable."
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