By Kim Rahn
A student at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) killed himself by jumping off his apartment building in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, at 6:35 p.m. Sunday.
It is the second incident in two months for the prestigious science university to lose a student to suicide.
Police said a passer-by found the body of the 19-year-old sophomore, identified as Kim, at the garden of the apartment complex and reported this to the police. He told police that after hearing a loud thud, he looked for the source of the sound and found Kim lying on the flower bed, bleeding.
A written note was found in his room, in which he said he was sorry to his parents and sister and that he wanted to give his belongings to her. He signed his name at the end of the note, police said.
Kim’s parents were in Seoul at the time and the sister was also out after having eaten lunch with him at home earlier in the day.
“In the note, he didn’t express any grudge or disappointment. He just said sorry to his family,” a police officer said.
Kim graduated from a science high school and was temporarily taking a break from school since last Wednesday.
Police are investigating the motive behind the death. They are ruling out the possibility of murder. They say it is unlikely that he committed suicide due to difficulties studying, as his school records were good.
In January, another student, Cho, killed himself at the school campus in Daejeon by taking a large dose of sleeping pills. Cho, the only student from a vocational high school accepted into KAIST, was stressed by his inability to catch up with his studies.