Sydney taekwondo instructor gets life sentence for murdering student and parents
SYDNEY (AP) — A judge sentenced a Sydney taekwondo instructor Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing a 7-year-old student and the child’s parents.
Kwang Kyung Yoo, 51, sat with his head bowed as Judge Ian Harrison said he would never be eligible for parole.
Harrison said Yoo was motivated by jealousy he felt toward the family’s financial success.
Harrison told the Supreme Court of New South Wales: “I am satisfied that the level of culpability in the commission of these offenses is so extreme that the community’s interests in sentencing, sentencing, protection of the community and deterrence can only be met by the imposition of a life sentence.”
Harrison said there was no reason for Yoo to kill the boy or his family in February last year.
The child’s parents cannot be named because state law prevents the identification of child victims of crime.
Yoo and his victims were all born in South Korea.
Yoo admitted to all three murders at an earlier hearing. He had no previous criminal record.
Yoo strangled the boy and his 41-year-old mother at the Lion’s Taekwondo and Martial Arts Academy in Sydney’s west. At the time, he was tens of thousands of dollars in debt and was behind on the academy’s rent.
He took the mother’s Apple watch and drove his luxury BMW car to the family’s home, where he stabbed the child’s 39-year-old father to death.
Yoo, who was injured in a fight at home, went to the hospital and told medical personnel that he had been attacked in a supermarket parking lot. Police arrested him at the hospital.
After his arrest, Yoo was unable to explain how he planned to take the family’s money and later expressed his regret.
The former instructor, whose students called him Master Lion, did not look at the victims’ family and other supporters who were sobbing in the courtroom after the sentence was announced.
“These murders were horrific and violent, senselessly cruel and cynical acts, committed without a trace of human compassion,” the judge said.
While the crimes were planned – with Yoo surveilling the family’s home in advance – he made no attempt to hide his crimes from CCTV cameras at his academy or conceal the bodies.
At his sentencing hearing in November, the judge heard Yoo lied about meeting richest Australian Gina Rinehart, qualifying for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, owning a luxury Lamborghini car and living in Sydney’s wealthy eastern suburbs.
He was sending emails to his own wife, pretending to be important people, to impress her. He sometimes used the title professor.
Harrison said Yoo told a psychologist that his lies got bigger as his wife and students asked more questions.
The judge noted that since childhood, Yoo has been burdened with unrealistic expectations from his parents and South Korean culture about the level of success he should achieve.
Yoo was handed a box of tissues as the judge explained his deep remorse for the pain and suffering he had caused.
In a letter to the judge, Yoo said he was “held captive by sin” and wanted to give himself to Jesus Christ.
“I wish I could turn back time so this wouldn’t happen,” Yoo wrote. “I pray every day for the people I hurt.”
Yoo’s lawyers argued that he should be given a minimum non-parole period rather than a life sentence with no possibility of release. The maximum sentence for a person convicted of murder in New South Wales is life imprisonment; The standard non-parole period is 20 years for the murder of an adult and 25 years for the murder of a child.
