'Suicide Made': digging for the truth or a witch hunt?

The late singer-songwriter Kim Kwang-seok / Korea Times file photo

Documentary suggests alternative fact about singer’s death

By Kang Hyun-kyung

The late singer-songwriter Kim Kwang-seok is back in the spotlight two decades after his life was cut short in 1996, owing to the recent documentary that raised suspicions about his death.

In “Suicide Made” (2017), Lee Sang-ho, director and a journalist who investigated the singer’s abrupt death, claims Kim was murdered and refuted the results of early investigation. Lee points to Kim’s wife, Seo Hae-soon, as the prime suspect.

The case was closed in 1996 after the police concluded depression had led the singer to take his life.

Lee raised suspicions surrounding Kim’s death to support his murder claim. Kim was found dead a day after he told his “unfaithful” wife Seo that he would file for divorce. Seo called the emergency line 119 to ask for help 20 minutes after she discovered his body on the staircase inside their Seoul home. Seo was the first person to find him dead and her brother, who has 10 criminal records including a homicide, was also at the scene of the accident.

A forensic doctor performed an autopsy and concluded the singer committed suicide.

Lee, however, claimed the investigators made a hasty conclusion.

“Suicide Made” has attracted some 100,000 viewers nationwide since it was first screened on Aug. 30, fanning suspicions about Kim’s death.

People who were close to Kim described Seo as an unfaithful and ethically-flawed person and claimed the Kim couple had a troubled marriage because of the cheating wife. According to them, Kim was Seo’s second husband as her first marriage ended for an unknown reason, but she didn’t disclose this to the singer prior to their marriage.

Seo allegedly had an extra marital relationship with a Korean-American man identified only by his surname Lee, an allegation she denied.

Kim and his wife visited New York for his two-day concert at the Merkin Concert Hall in Manhattan on Nov. 23 and 24 in 1995. During their stay there, Seo disappeared for three days.

“Kwang-seok and I were on our way to New York from Philadelphia as he took me to New York for his forthcoming concert. We got an urgent call from New York and heard his wife was missing,” Kim’s friend said in a Facebook message which was reposted on the website of NYCB Radar, a Korean language website about cultural events, food, shopping and people in New York.

Upon hearing the news, he said Kim panicked. “His wife and the Korean-American man Lee disappeared together and returned to New York days later. What I heard is that the guy called Seo in the parking lot of the hotel (where Kim and his wife stayed) and they were missing... The guy claimed he is Kwang-seok’s high school alumni but Kwang-seok told me he didn’t remember him.”

Kim’s friend went on to say he belatedly learned about his friend’s death, which came six weeks after his New York concert, and heard a rumor about Seo from his friends in New York that she visited New York again months after Kim died and spent time with the Korean-American man for a while before she returned to Seoul.

“I knew Seo was a woman like that. But regarding the allegation that she killed her husband and daughter, I don’t know whether it’s true or not,” he wrote.

The reporter contacted him twice for comment, but he declined.

In September, director Lee and Kim’s brother Kwang-bok filed the suit against Seo for allegedly abandoning her sick teenage daughter and left her to die. Her daughter Seo-yeon died in December 2007 from acute pneumonia. The rationale behind their legal action against Seo is that once the police embark on the investigation about her regarding the allegation, this may lead to a fresh truth holding the key to detangle Kim’s suspicious death.

Their legal action over the death of Kim’s daughter came as the statute of limitations for the singer’s death ran out as the case was closed 21 years ago. There’s no new hard evidence that can reverse the results of the earlier investigation and this made it impossible to nudge the police to reinvestigate Kim’s death.

Director Lee dared Seo to take legal action against him if she believes he defamed her or spread false information about her through the documentary. Seo responded she would shoot a similar documentary to discredit the journalist, but has not taken any legal action against the journalist so far.

Seo has been under investigation by the police about whether or not she failed to provide proper care for her teenage daughter before she died. She denied the allegation and claimed as a mother she did her utmost to provide the best care for her daughter while she was alive.

“Suicide Made” has generated mixed reactions from those who watched or are familiar with the documentary.

Pop culture critic Lim Jin-mo, a close friend of the late singer, said the film was “quite convincing.” He said back in 1996, Kim’s death was a shock to those who knew him.

“Lee’s documentary summarizes what had been said among those who were close to Kim about his death,” he said in a cable TV program. “There was a rumor that he was murdered, and it has never gone away so far. His friends like me couldn’t believe he took his life. I met with him a couple of months before he died but there were no signs or clues that indicated he would commit suicide sooner or later.”

Seo herself was partly responsible for prompting the public to harbor suspicions about her.

Some people sympathized with suspicions raised by director Lee about Kim’s death after they watched Seo’s bizarre demeanor on TV. Her testimony during media coverage was not consistent and she didn’t look like a woman who had lost her husband and only child. Her face displayed no pain of loss, albeit she lost them many years ago.

She went to Hawaii to sign a contract to run a grocery store there, days after her daughter died on Dec. 23, 2007. In the contract, the Korean-American man Lee was identified as her husband.

Seo denied her marital status and insisted she lives alone and he just helped her out while she was getting settled.

Kim Kang-ja, a retired senior superintendent, said judging Seo by her current attitude to determine whether or not she played a role behind Kim’s death could lead one to reach misleading conclusion. “She’s confident maybe because she didn’t do it,” she said. “Even though Seo did it 21 years ago as the documentary implied, Seo is supposed to act like she is innocent and had nothing to do with her husband’s death.”

Some people are critical about director Lee. According to them, raising suspicions 21 years after the singer’s death without hard evidence is in no one’s interest and the documentary only sparks a witch hunt.

Oh Yoon-sung, a professor of criminology at Soon Chun Hyang University, said time is on Seo’s side.

“The case was closed 21 years ago and the people who were involved in the investigation will not sit back if someone is trying to discredit the results of their investigation,” he said. “There’s a forensic doctor who performed an autopsy of Kim’s body and the certificate is available. Seo also receives legal support from her attorney and knows it would be hard for the police to overthrow the results.”