By Lee Kyung-min
An appellate court on Friday reduced the prison term of a woman who beat her husband to death because she suspected he was cheating on her.
The Seoul High Court reduced the lower court’s 10-year prison term for murder to seven years for a charge of manslaughter, citing a lack of evidence to prove she had the intent to kill.
According to the court, the woman, 65, surnamed Lim, and her husband, whose identity was withheld, 71, had been fighting since 2011 over his continued extramarital affair.
They frequently fought because the husband was suspected of regularly meeting a woman and giving her money. On the day of the incident ― Sept. 10 of last year ― Lim started beating the husband at 7 a.m. in their home in Guri, Gyeonggi Province, saying he was getting ready to meet the woman again.
She bashed him using a 50-centimeter plastic back-scratcher, a plastic broom, a piece of a broken wooden chair and a frying pan.
Lim stopped when her daughter visited unannounced at about 10:30 a.m., but restarted the attack when she left at 11:30 a.m.
The man died at 1:55 p.m. due to shock from blood loss. Lim fled after calling her daughter to tell her about the death. She was caught some 11 hours later.
The lower court found Lim guilty of murder, saying she was well aware her husband might die if she kept beating him.
“Ten days prior to the day of the incident, she had beaten him, which led to him being hospitalized,” the lower court said. “She even objected to a surgery that he needed, and she beat him yet again knowing that his physical condition had already deteriorated.”
However, the appellate court took into account Lim’s claim that she intended only to inflict bodily harm and not kill him.
“The plastic objects she used are not deadly enough to be regarded as murder tools,” the court said. “And Lim’s testimony is consistent that she did not intend on killing him. She also suffered depression while suspecting her husband cheated on her.”