Woman is decapitated by mother and brother

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Woman is decapitated by mother and brother

A 25-year-old woman in Siheung, Gyeonggi, was decapitated with a kitchen knife Friday, and her mother and brother were arrested. They told police they believe she was possessed by an evil spirit.

Both suspects turned themselves in 12 hours after the alleged crime last Friday, and admitted to charges of murder. They claimed they hadn’t eaten in several days, but didn’t explain why. A detention warrant was issued Sunday.

The female suspect, a 54-year-old housewife, told police that her grandmother was a shaman, and that she had planned on following in her footsteps before marriage. But the spirits didn’t inhabit her, she claimed, so she abandoned the plan and started a family.

Police said they would give her a polygraph test.

On Friday at around 6:30 a.m., the mother, son and daughter were in their living room, having spent the whole night awake chatting, said police. The son is 26 years old and works for a company. The daughter was 25 and unemployed.

The suspects claimed they had eaten nothing for four days, without saying why.

Tension escalated swiftly when their poodle, which they have had for five years, started barking loudly for no reason, the mother claimed.

Assuming it was possessed by a demon, the three took turns stabbing the dog with a knife and striking it with a baseball bat, eventually killing it.

When the three moved to a bathroom to clean up, the daughter’s hands started shaking. She moved toward the mother as if to strangle her, said the son. Thinking that the demon had exited the poodle and taken over the daughter, the mother and son forced her to lie down on the bathroom floor.

The mother stabbed her daughter’s neck with a kitchen knife, while the son beat his sister’s midriff and head with a hammer. Autopsy results indicated that the victim died due to neck and head injuries.

The son called his father, a 54-year-old shoe repairman who was working at the time, to confess the murder. The father called the police hours later and told them the suspects would turn themselves in.

When police arrived at the scene, the victim’s head was found detached from her body. Police are investigating when that occurred.

BY LIM MYOUNG-SOO, LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]
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