Student part-timer commits suicide after being raped by boss

Many netizens said Tuesday they were moved by the death of a female college student who was reported to have committed suicide after being repeatedly raped and sexually blackmailed by the owner of a pizza restaurant where she worked.

Police arrested the restaurant owner, identified only by his family name Ahn, on charges of raping the 23-year-old student.

The student, surnamed Lee, was found dead in a sedan owned by her father on a hill, Suseok-dong, Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, at 5:10 p.m. on Aug. 10.

In a suicide note discovered in the car, Lee said: “What happens on TV actually occurred to me. I felt humiliated, pained and insulted. He has continued to blackmail me.

“Therefore, I will die. I will die to tell the truth. Please post what I suffered under him on the Internet. Help me, my friends. Police officers! Please investigate this case and give him a death sentence.”

Ahn, 37, had frequently asked her to provide sex, a police spokesman said. On Aug. 10, he made a similar demand. After she rejected him, he forcibly took her to a motel and took pictures of the student naked.

He told her that he would show the pictures to her family, the spokesman said.

Her death ignited an outpouring of outrage from netizens. Some of them posted pictures of the man on the Internet, denouncing the atrocities he committed against her.

Many netizens said what angered them most was that Ahn took advantage of his position as restaurant owner to rape her. Moreover, they said, he ceaselessly told her that “I want to make friend with you. If you avoid me, I will kill you,” according to the police.

The deceased student had a brother two years older than her. A friend of her said: “Her elder brother passed away in a traffic accident eight years ago. She missed him every day, but she showed few signs of sorrow. She tried to do more for her bereaved parents.”

She worked as a part-timer to make pocket money, after entering a university in South Chungcheong Province. She received 600,000 won to 700,000 won a month from the pizza restaurant owner for nine hours of work a day, the spokesman said.