Wife allegedly kills husband of 56 years with hammer

A 75-year-old woman in Wonju, Gangwon, was arrested for allegedly killing her husband of 56 years with a hammer.

The suspect admitted the crime, according to police, saying she couldn’t stand her husband’s verbal and physical abuse any longer.

Wonju police filed a pre-trial detention warrant for the suspect. A local court will review it as early as today.

The alleged murder took place around 6 a.m. Wednesday, police said, after the 74-year-old victim fell off a chair while changing a lightbulb in a bathroom in the couple’s house.

The suspect heard a loud thump and went to check on her husband, and he allegedly berated her, saying, “It’s all because of you!” The woman told police during questioning that her husband’s head was bleeding and his eyes had rolled back.

The wife said she feared he would have to be hospitalized for a long period, which might prove expensive. She said she didn’t want to have to be his caregiver.

“I’ve put up with him all my life,” she said according to police. “I have even had to go to the hospital several times after he hit me.”

She left the bathroom, found a hammer and returned to finish him off. Autopsy results indicated she had hit him in about 20 different areas all over his body, including his face and neck. The direct cause of the victim’s death was “multiple injuries.”

Police said he would have lived after falling from the chair had he not been attacked by his wife.

The woman dialed 119 and said her husband had been injured after falling from a chair. When police later arrived at the house, they found the hammer hidden in a room nearby, and the suspect came clean.

The couple’s eldest daughter was summoned Wednesday for questioning and said her mother had “suffered” for a long time because her dad had a “weird character.”

BY PARK JIN-HO, LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]