By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Police apprehended a 33-year-old woman Monday for beating her stepson to death.
The stepmother, identified as Lee, allegedly beat the five-year-old boy, Kwon, repeatedly over his whole body since September as he was not toilet trained. Her most recent attack led to his death, police said.
However, Lee denies the crime, claiming that Kwon had scars and bruises because he bumped into the bathtub, or was scalded from hot bath water.
Police asked the National Institute of Scientific Investigation to perform an autopsy on Kwon's body, and requested the prosecution to seek an arrest warrant for her.
Around 9 p.m. Saturday, Kwon's father found bruises on the body of the boy, who kept tossing and turning in his sleep. The father took him to a hospital but the boy died the next day from septicemia and possible internal injuries.
The father remarried Lee in August. Kwon, who was with his birthmother since the parents' divorce, had lived with the father and the stepmother since September.