Wife sentenced to 10 years in prison after killing husband for having an affair

Daegu District Court (Daegu District Court)

A 58-year-old woman was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday for the murder of her husband and the attempted murder of his extramarital partner.

The trial was presided over by Judge Eo Jae-won in the 12th division of the Daegu District Court.

The convict was found guilty of the premeditated murder of her husband (58), whom she stabbed several times as he was sitting in a massage chair at 10:45 p.m. on July 8.

At 9:50 a.m. the next day, the woman stabbed her husband’s mistress (53), after pretending to be a customer at a hair salon owned by the victim in Suseong-gu, Daegu.

The police caught the woman as she attempted to flee from the hair salon. The body of her husband was found in a police search of the couple's house.

The woman admitted to the crimes during the police investigation, saying she was enraged when she found a receipt for 12.4 million won ($9,300) for a trip to Switzerland. The husband had booked the trip for himself and his mistress, according to local media reports.

The woman's lawyer claimed that she felt betrayed by her husband's actions, despite the sacrifices she had made for her family.

The woman had been an English teacher at a local middle school, but was forced to quit her job to care for their child.

However, the woman was forced to take a job as a housekeeper and work in a restaurant to make ends meet and pay off debts after her husband's business went bankrupt.

The woman reportedly knew her husband had been in an affair with the hair salon owner since 2015, but the husband just told her that someday he would return to the family.

In 2022, the husband promised his wife that he would end his eight-year extramarital affair and asked her to make a 100-million-won loan in her name on his behalf.

She forgave her husband and got the loan for him, only to find herself in the same situation in June last year.

While planning a luxurious trip to Switzerland, the husband neglected treatment costs for their ailing son, the woman argued.

The woman's sentence was mitigated in consideration of the struggles she endured for her family, please from the woman's two children, and the fact that her murder attempt on her husband's mistress had been unsuccessful.

By Lim Jae-seong(forestjs@heraldcorp.com)