A woman referred to as ‘A’ (49), who kept her husband’s dead body in their house and received his pension for seven years, has been found not guilty of committing fraud. (Image : Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb 4. (Korea Bizwire) – A woman referred to as ‘A’ (49), who kept her husband’s dead body in their house and received his pension for seven years, has been found not guilty of committing fraud.
The Seoul District Court ruled that ‘A’ was not guilty, as the date of her husband’s death was not clear, making it difficult to prove she received his pension in an unlawful way.
‘A’, who is a pharmacist, was investigated by the police in 2014 for leaving her husband’s dead body in their house.
When the police found the body, it was on the living room carpet covered with a blanket, and the deceased was wearing clean clothes. Even preservative treatment was suspected, as the body was very clean.
The police estimated that the husband died at the age of 43 in 2007, but ‘A’ continued to claim that her husband was still alive.
Actually, ‘A’ and her child were said to have been talking to the body on a daily basis, leading an ordinary life with it.
The prosecution did not charge ‘A’ with abandoning the corpse, but indicted her for receiving 210 million won of her husband’s retirement pension.
The judge commented that the date of the husband’s death could not be established conclusively. The results of the postmortem examination only showed that the death occurred sometime before December 26, 2013, and prosecutors were unable to prove that ‘A’ unlawfully took her husband’s pension.
In addition, since ‘A’ had a decent amount income as a pharmacist, and could have received a considerable amount of insurance money if she reported her husband’s death, the court judged that it was unlikely the she had planned to commit the crime.
By M.H.Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
