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By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Police Friday concluded that actress Choi Jin-sil hanged herself on impulse under the influence of alcohol.
The interim conclusion was made after an autopsy was conducted and her written memo and accounts of witnesses and friends were studied.
Police found a notebook in which the late iconic actress expressed her innermost feelings in a memo. In it she said, ``I am a loner being bullied… I can't breathe.''
Yang Jae-ho of Seocho Police Station said investigators have secured several pieces of evidence that her inner world had been shuffling between death and life. Sometimes she managed to get over extreme mental stress through dialogue with friends, he said.
Choi came home Wednesday night after she halted shooting for a pharmaceutical commercial. A day earlier, she reportedly received telephone calls from a woman whom she accused of spreading a false rumor that she (Choi) was a loan shark who lent 2 billion won to TV actor Ahn Jae-hwan, who was also found dead in his car last month. The accused begged for Choi's mercy and Choi reportedly cried all day long, which made her uncomfortable at the shoot the following day.
Choi kept on saying she was not a loan shark and that she would never want her children to hear that. She was worrying about it Friday, when her son was to attend a sports meeting. She reportedly said ``I cannot go there feeling like this.'' She was drunk when she got home.
Choi then called up a magazine reporter just after midnight Thursday and repeatedly told her that she wanted to die. She reportedly said, ``This is the last time I am calling you. Please take care of my kids.''
The two text messages her makeup manager received read like this. ``My dear, I hope you take care of my children if something happens to me,'' Choi seemed to have thought about killing herself before taking the fatal action, the police assumed.
The National Scientific, Criminal and Investigation Laboratory has yet to establish whether the suicide involved drug taking.
She will be cremated Saturday following a funeral.
Two copycat suicides were reported Friday, one day after Choi killed herself.
A 55-year-old Park was found dead around midnight hanging from an elastic bandage in the bathroom of her apartment in Haenam, South Jeolla Province. Another woman with the family name Lee, was found dead in the same way in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, Friday morning. Park reportedly suffered from depression, the same disease Choi had.
Police are worried over more copycat suicides following Choi's death.
The government and political circles moved swiftly to prevent such a syndrome. Health Minister Jeon Jae-hee Thursday urged people to think of suicide as a grave issue and not to follow it while Rep. Lim Doo-sung of the governing Grand National Party is seeking legislation to support those suffering from depression and to come up with a system to reduce suicide to the maximum extent.
``I hope the Werther effect does not affect anyone anymore. I hope the bill would bring hope to the desperate ones,'' the lawmaker said.
bjs@koreatimes.co.kr
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