Korean Teacher Laughs After Stabbing 8 Yr-Old Student To Death Because “I Want To Die With Someone”

It's not the same as it is in America. I mean for one when you step into this building It's four sometimes six stories tall and you turn to your right. The first thing that you see is a line of cubby just spanning the entire wall. You have to pick an empty cubby, slip off your shoes, put them in the cubby, and then you have to switch to indoor shoes when you walk in. You can't walk in with socks or barefoot. You need to slip on dedicated indoor shoes that you have to bring.

Then it's time for the daily stair walk. You head to the staircase, and then you walk all your way up to the designated room. Newer buildings have elevators for accessibility, but this one does not.

so once you get to the designated floor you just see one single hallway with rows on both sides of the hallway are these massive sliding doors that lead into these big rooms with rows and rows and rows and rows of desks lined up Every single person that you pass is wearing a knee-length plaid skirt or trousers and a blaze You find your designated spot. You start cleaning. There's no janitors. Everybody is responsible for your own designated area.

once you're done you look out the giant window and the building is almost in this u-shape that's centered around this courtyard It sounds like a large, sometimes terrifying building, but it's not. There's not that many entrances or exits. The halls are usually patrolled by the staff. Welcome to a South Korean elementary school. where it is rather difficult to go February 10th of 2025, so not too long ago, eight-year-old Hunter is one of the last kids to be picked up from the school.

When the adult comes to sign her out of her aftercare class, Hannah is instructed to walk down a flight of stairs to the front entrance. She's done this Monday through Friday. This is not a new schedule for Hunter. The front desk, the academy teacher who's picking her up, waits a minute, then waits two minutes, five minutes. Now it's getting weird. But maybe she stopped by the restrooms first before coming downstairs. Or maybe she forgot her book in another classroom.

The academy teacher waits a full 10 minutes before all hell breaks over. Because an eight-year-old cannot just go missing in the span of 10 minutes inside the school. How is that even possible? There's barely any entrances or exits that are not patrolled, even if she had run out.

she left her outdoor shoes so what she's just running away in her slippers additionally even if she was able to make it out of the school someone's gonna see her in the courtyard or the parking lot that she has to get through but nobody Teachers and faculty are all alerted that the eight-year-old Hunter is missing. They tracked down the teacher that Hunter was last with. She's so confused.

What do you mean? I was just with her. I mean, you guys called her out of the class after care, so I sent her downstairs. I mean, the stairs are just around the corner. She could have gone down the stairs, and then she would have been practically face-to-face with the front desk. So what do you mean?

So the front desk will call the classroom, say, hey, release, not release. Yeah, release this one kid. They're here for pickup. Then it's up to the kid to walk from the second floor down the stairs to the first floor and then get picked up from the main front entrance. But 10 minutes later, she's still not there. No. And now they're checking all the classrooms under the desk, in the teacher's break room, cafeteria, all the restrooms. Hannah is missing. She's gone.

But it doesn't make sense. How does she leave the building without somebody seeing her? By 5.30pm, the entire area is in lockdown. There are police cars, ambulances surrounding the entire elementary school. Neighbors are standing outside in their big puffer jackets. It's snowing. Their eyes are red from crying. Their hands are red from the cold wind. They're all huddled together.

If one of the neighbors stands there and does a full 360 turn, they're going to see massive apartment buildings surrounding the entire school. That's thousands upon thousands of apartment units that Hunter could be trapped in. Her phone location shows her in this area, so either she was in the school, she's lured into an apartment, she's in a car somewhere. We don't know. There's so many possibilities.

Authorities in Hannah's family are running around trying to find her and it's not until 6pm that night that two people are rushed into the emergency room. When was the pickup again, initially? 4.40pm. So it's been an hour and 20 minutes. Yes. Eight-year-old Hannah and a 48-year-old woman, a school teacher, are rushed into the ER, both suffering from stabbing.

The doctors, they're not given a rundown of exactly what happened. They're just here to do their jobs, which is to save these people. Eight-year-old Hannah does not make... She does not survive her injury. But the 48-year-old school teacher, she's alive. I mean, she's going to be okay. It's a very grim feeling. Some nurses are likely thinking of all the scenarios in their head. Okay, a knife-wielding madman snuck into the school targeting kit.

Maybe they killed eight-year-old Hannah and the teacher in an attempt to try and protect her was stabbed. Was the attacker after the child or after the teacher or after all the children? Regardless, it's going to be very difficult to tell the teacher that the student did not survive. When the teacher wakes up, all those concerns are gone. Because the 48-year-old woman, the school teacher, she sits up in the hospital bed and she starts laughing. Because she did it.

This is what it seems like she wanted. She wanted to kill the eight-year-old girl, and now she seems very content with what she's done. This is the current ongoing case of eight-year-old Hannah in South Korea.

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As always, full show notes are available at RottenMinglePodcast.com. Today's case involves themes of unaddressed mental illness and CA resulting in death, so please take some time if that's too overwhelming, and we will see you in the next one. This case is pretty recent and is South Korean, so we had our international researchers work on gathering the most updated information. However, there will still be updates after this episode goes up. We're gonna do our best to keep you updated.

So with that being said, let's get started. February of 2025. This app starts going viral in South Korea. It feels like every single person and their mother is downloading this app. It's not TikTok. The app is actually quite controversial. People are having full blown debates about the ethical implications of such an app. Are you really promoting stalking? I mean, since when did stalking and invasion of privacy become a mainstream thing that we just all accept now?

The app in question has a few features that's rubbing a lot of people the wrong way. The app not only tracks your live location, but it also tracks every single separate place that your phone has been in the past 24 hours. someone can go in and see at 2 30 pm you were at the doctor's office if you were out running 50 different errands that day the app is going to track all of that Do I see that or somebody else sees that? Somebody else.

Now let's say because you're out running errands all day long, your phone is on silent and you don't hear your best friend. or someone you love blowing up your phone, they can just click on an alarm sound and it'll ring an alarm bypassing the silencing features on your phone to make sure you and everybody else around you knows, hey, I was trying to reach you. Call me back.

It also monitors all the different apps that are being used on your phone, how long someone spends on each app, and the most intriguing thing, though, is the sound around features. Which sounds innocent enough, but a lot of netizens understandably find it one of the creepiest things an app can do. Think of it as live- Let's say I have phone A, you have phone B.

I'm the account holder. That means at any given point in my day, I can decide on my phone, on phone A, to click this little ear button on the app, and I can hear whatever your phone picks up. I can't reject it? No. so no matter if you're a thousand feet from me a thousand miles from me if your phone is at a cafe i can hear as much as the phone's internal microphone can pick up

Obviously, if the phone is in your jean pocket, it's going to be muffled a little bit. But if it's on the table, I could probably hear your conversation with whoever you're having and then conversations around the cafe. How is that legal? Like, forget about the personal side. Imagine you're in a private meeting. Yes. Somebody else can just secretly listen in like that? Yes, because parents have all the rights.

This is a parenting app. Phone A is used by a parent and they can live listen on their children's phones, whether they be at school or at a cafe or an after-school program. I can see why a lot of people call it a stalker app, but parents in South Korea, they start mass downloading this app February of 2025.

Hannah's dad already had it installed onto Hannah's phone for a few months by this point. She didn't know it existed. She didn't know it was on her phone, but she's eight. The argument that some people have is I think these types of parenting apps are a lot more heavily debated once that kid turns into a teenager

Because when you hit your teens, it's a lot more of a need for privacy. Although I do think that even an eight-year-old deserves a heavy amount of privacy. I wouldn't say heavy amount, but a good amount of privacy and not feeling like somebody is listening to them all the time. Wait, that is...

Kind of mind-blowing right now. How is that normal? Okay, I've seen lots of debates. I think as someone who does not have kids I'm not entirely certain I did talk to my sister who has two kids, but they're very young and she is She doesn't believe in apps like this. She thinks if you've already don't have that level of trust. However, I do see some people in Korea.

argue differently they say in Korea it's a little bit different because the kids are a lot more mobile so in America it's like you drive your kid to school or the bus picks them up then you pick them up and then you bring them somewhere everything is driven in Korea you see eight-year-olds taking the subway by themselves

so they're saying it might be more necessary for an eight-year-old I don't know the ethic and moral concerns of this it's hard for me to debate as someone who does not have children I personally feel like it's an invasion of privacy but again I'm not a parent so I wouldn't know Now, the argument here being is that Hannah is 8. It's likely that she would not have cared too much either way if it was on her phone or not.

her parents always knew where she was which was always at school or after school program or hagwon or the after school academy and then home on repeat five days a week like that's it except Monday, February 10, 2025. After school is technically at around 2 p.m. So the class ends at 2 p.m. Hannah is scheduled to stay in the after school program until 4.40 p.m. So almost three hours to get ahead on schoolwork, get her homework done, get prepared for academy lessons.

The academy teacher then goes around and picks up all the kids from the neighboring schools and then brings them to academy. At 4.30. That's like 5. Okay, so there's more classes at 5 o'clock. Yes, and this is not just a Hannah's schedule. This is like the typical day of an eight-year-old in South Korea. You're talking heavily competitive job market in South Korea, like you start preparing when you're five.

So she's waiting for her hagwon teacher to come pick her up, and she's in the after-school program at the school. I will say that the three hours that she's waiting after class, it's less of a school and more so a transition class. It's not a free-for-all, but it's not active teaching. You're not like actively learning. You're probably doing your homework. That is where she is until 4.40pm. She is almost always the last one to be picked up just based on the academy schedule.

She is instructed that day. She's in that program that day, Monday, February 10th. She's instructed to make her way downstairs because the Hagwon teacher has come to pick her up. But that day, she just vanished. She's gone. The after-school program teacher sees her walk out of the classroom, and then poof, she's missing. Ten minutes later, everybody's asking her, where did Hannah go? And she's like, what are you talking about? She left the classroom.

Hannah's parents are alerted. They're freaking out. What do you mean she's missing? What do you mean? Hannah's grandmother who lives closer to the school she rushes over there and when Hannah's dad, Kim, gets to the school he knows this is not normal. By this point there's a few officers trying to help out and trying to help Hannah.

he's firm this is not normal this is not something my daughter does she's not overworked she's not overstressed like this is not normal the biggest fear is that she was lured off the school grounds into one of those thousands of apartment units just surrounding the entire building. But even that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. Someone would have seen something.

Kim pulls up the parenting app that he downloaded on Hunter's phone. Hunter's phone location shows that she is in this vicinity of the school, but they can't narrow it down even more. Basically, the app said she's either in the school or one of the 10 apartment buildings surrounding the school.

Kim tries calling Hunter. She's not picking up. He goes into the app He clicks on the little ear button the sound around feature and if Hunter has her phone with her He's gonna be able to hear whatever the phone picks up. He's standing outside in the freezing cold. He's trying to listen as close as he can

he hears something. He's trying to get away from all the people screaming behind his name so he can clearly hear the phone. And the first thing he notices, the first thing he tells everyone is, when I first heard it, I realized the sounds are not coming from the outside.

Inside. She's inside somewhere. This phone is inside in a building. It doesn't sound like she's outside. There's no car noise, no wind, no noise pollution whatsoever. So she's inside. But he cannot hear Hunter's voice at all. She's not talking. He hears on the other end, heavy breathing, labored breathing. there's just heavy breathing on the other end and it's not coming from hand

And I don't know if I've ever really given it thought until this point, but based on how little clues there are right now of where Hannah is, Kim realizes someone is with Hannah. Someone is heavy breathing.

He is certain that this is not Hunter. Because Hunter is 8 years old. Sure, you can say breathing sounds the same, it's just breathing noises. But imagine an 8 year old and a 40 year old run a marathon. Both of them are going to be heavy breathing at the end, trying to catch their breath. But it's going to sound different.

It's because the fact as adults age, the airway muscles, the cartilage becomes less elastic. You're going to try to catch your breath as an older adult and the airflow is going to sound more turbulent. There's actually medical reasons.

in your anatomy why your heavy breathing sounds different depending on your age and depending on your medical condition you're not going to be able to as quickly catch your breath as let's say an eight-year-old maybe there's even guttural throat noises that just cannot come from the vocal cords of an eight-year-old

Kim can hear it. But regardless, he is certain whoever is heavy breathing on the other line is not Hunter. It sounds like someone middle-aged just ran 400 feet, is winded. Why would someone be winded near Hunter? Where is Hannah? Why does this person have her phone? Also, there's these sounds as if someone is opening and closing drawers.

like you have a desk and you're just opening and closing drawers rapidly in quick succession like multiple drawers are being opened and then closed open it's like someone is frantically looking for something do we know how long has it been at this point when he started to listen about 20 minutes since she's gone missing. About 10, 15, 20-ish minutes. So very early on. Yes. Like she just went missing. Yeah.

Hunter's dad is frozen in the middle of what looks like hell has broken loose. There's police cars, there's officers, there's neighbors and teachers all screaming Hunter's name and he's just hearing heavy breathing. He brings his phone down and he presses the alarm button. If Hunter's phone is anywhere nearby, they're all going to be able to hear this loud alarm bell ring.

But instead, through the active sound around feature, he can hear someone quote, I could hear the sound of someone forcibly terminating alarms that I kept sending through her phone. Someone is like opening the zipper of Hannah's backpack and like clicking like he can hear like someone banging on her phone

So for an hour, Haner's dad is listening to this whilst also actively searching for his daughter, but it's not going to be him that finds his daughter. Haner's grandmother will be the one to find. Grandma Kim has been searching this entire school building for like the tenth time. She's going up and down every single floor, checking every single classroom, along with the other faculty members.

a lot of police officers don't even think that hannah is in the school building they don't even think that she's missing some of them are like maybe she's stressed out maybe she doesn't like hagwon she doesn't want to go to the after school art academy It just doesn't make sense. But it also doesn't make sense that she's in this school. There's not that many places that she could be hiding. There's barely any hiding spot.

Grandma Kim doesn't even know what to do. She's gone through every single floor, but it's not like she can just burst into a random stranger's apartment in all the neighboring apartment buildings being like, do you know where my eight-year-old granddaughter is? So she can just spend her energy going through the second floor again for the tenth time. This is where her granddaughter went missing. This is where she was last seen.

Grandma Kim searches the entire floor again. She's about to take a left onto the stairs that lead her back to the first floor when a small door catches her eye i mean the door has been there all along it's the audio video room every school has one it's usually like a soundproofed windowless room sometimes there's windows but there's shades blackout curtains

It's where the kids are taken if they need to watch a presentation on a projector or if they need to watch an educational movie. Instead of those rolling screens or like the projector screens in every single classroom, you go to the audio video. It's almost always locked. Because, you know, the last thing you want is a troublemaker getting in there, connecting to the speakers, blasting some curse words or music. But there is something about this room.

Grandma Kim reaches for the doorknob, turns it, and it pushes open. she swings open the door and it's dark the shades are drawn but the light coming in from the door she just opened from the hallway she can see that there's nobody in the room there's nothing amiss there's no desk that's overturned there's nothing Maybe it's intuition. Maybe it's being thorough. She sees another small door inside the audio room, which is probably a storage closet for all the gear.

she walks up towards it opens the door there's no light switch she can quickly find so now there's barely any light coming into the closet the hallway door is open a crack so there's some light but barely grandma kim uses the light on her phone and she just sees legs like large legs on the floor there is a woman a full-grown woman just laying on the floor She moves her phone up and the woman's face is covered in blood.

Grandma Kim is terrified. She's about to drop her phone. Every hair on her neck is standing up and is telling her get out get out in danger like you need to leave But she has to ask. She's trying to remain calm. Have you seen my granddaughter? Her name is Hannah No. Oh, she's conscious?

grandma kim runs out of the storage closet out of the audio room and into the hallway she's calling hannah's dad she's calling the police she's standing guard because she knows something's going on in that closet but hannah's dad already knows when he picks up the phone because

he heard his mom's voice. After an hour of listening to Heavy Breathing on the other end of the parenting app, he suddenly hears his mom's voice. Have you seen my granddaughter? Her name is Hannah. And a woman responds, no. Grandma Kim stands guard at the audio video room door in the hallway and she's like waiting for the police to arrive They get there in seconds minutes. It's like barely any time has passed

Maybe there's an attacker going around the school. She's terrified. Whoever did that to the lady might have done that to Hannah. Where the hell are they? Are they attacking more people actively? But also there was something about that woman. Grandma Kim sensed that she didn't seem scared. She didn't ask for help. She wasn't like, no, help me, save me, there's a killer. She didn't say any of that. She just said, no, I haven't seen your granddaughter. Why do you ask such a random thing?

Grandma Kim would later say, it didn't look like it was her own blood either. It didn't look like she was bleeding. It looked like she was covered in blood. Within minutes, police and Henry's father are surrounding the second floor audio video room storage closet, and the storage unit door that Grandma Kim had just opened and saw the woman on the floor, now locked from the inside.

Who the hell is that woman that she just saw? Usually every single school has that one haunted ghost story. There are ghost stories of long ago a student that was pushed off the roof. sometimes most sometimes it's not true and they now haunt the locker rooms or how the school was built on a cemetery and now there's always screams coming from the gym showers because that's where some of the graves were buried over

and then nobody goes after dark. There's always a ghost haunting the grounds. This elementary school in Daegu, South Korea, their ghost story is this one teacher. When she walks down the halls, everybody gets quiet. You can hear her before you see her.

It just echoes down the hallway and all the kids, these elementary schoolers, they step to the side because it's creepy. They press their bodies up against the walls to avoid her. She just walks down the center of the hallway with a box cutter in her hand. She pushes the blade all the way out and then pushes it back in.

The kid said it was really weird. Like, I mean, it's not threatening. She's not holding the box cutter up to people or wielding it around, but she just keeps fidgeting with it, like pulling the blade out, pulling it in. making the noise non-stop is this a story or this is the actual teacher this is the actual teacher that these kids in this specific school have said about this teacher

Oh, so it's not a ghost story. No, it's like she's the ghost haunting the hallways. She has this empty look on her face. These are what the kids are saying. She has these dark circles that just come down all the way into her cheeks.

In schools in South Korea it's very different from America where if you see other teachers in the hallway you might be like hi Mrs. Smith but you don't really do anything more and sometimes if you don't recognize a teacher you don't say anything but in South Korea you have to insight like you have to bow to every single teacher and so a lot of students will bow to her And she'll just look at you with a blank expression as if she's looking through you like she's a girl.

And then she's using this box cutter pulling the blade out pulling the blade in and then sometimes she's just walking around with you know those painters tape the blue rolls of tape nobody knows what she's doing with that blue tape she just walks around with a roll of blue tape in her hand

Other students would complain to their parents at home. I mean, she brings in this long stick to the classroom. It's like a long ruler stick that teachers use to point at the words on the board, but she likes to hit her podium with it. It's pretty it's pretty hard the parents are trying to reason with their own kids yeah well maybe you kids are crazy and she's trying to get your attention to get to get you focused no she swings it so loudly that we can hear the air whipping like it's not normal

They also tell their parents, I heard she even broke a computer in the teacher's office. Something about her is not normal. And the parents all think, well that's just, that's crazy, that's just a rumor. The weirdest part is she used to be one of the nicest teachers in the entire school. That is why she's the ghost story of the school. It's like one day she comes to work and it's someone else inside of her body.

She goes from being the nicest teacher, the best teacher, the one that would give you snacks, would never make you feel dumb for asking stupid questions, one of the most patient teachers, to just being a ghost that's haunting the hallways of the school. One student says, I don't know, she was very well spoken and super kind. I don't know what happened to her.

Within minutes, the police and Heiner's father arrive in front of the locked storage closet door in the audio video room and the police start kicking in the door. 20 times to finally get it open and when they rush in they turn on the light and they see the woman that grandma Kim was telling them about Middle-aged 40 something year old woman laying limp on the floor and next to her is A tiny little body covered in...

Hannah. She was placed deeper in the closet so Grandma Kim could not see her, but both Hannah and the teacher are laying on their backs towards each other, heads facing the same direction, covered in blood. Heather had been stabbed dozens of times in the left part of her neck arm and chest area as well as her back There were clear defensive stab wounds on her hands. It seems that she was trying to block the knife with her hands and the teacher has a self-inflicted wound on her.

Both of them are rushed instantly to the hospital, where Hannah is pronounced dead at 6.35pm. This is after one and a half hours since she had gone missing. Eight-year-old Hannah was stabbed to death by a teacher from her school. Inside the ICU unit, the teacher is laying there on an oxygen respirator, not allowed to have anything orally, not even allowed to drink water. And the second that they take the tubes out of her when she's stable enough, the teacher starts laughing.

That's what the nurses and the doctors have reported. Every single doctor and nurse in that room goes still because what the hell is she laughing about? So they all knew what happened at this point? Yeah. The police are guarding the hospital room and when they hear her laughter, they rush in to question her. None of this makes sense. I mean they clearly know what happened, but nothing else makes any sense whatsoever.

The teacher is a second grade teacher at the elementary school. She's not even Hannah's teacher. She's not even the after-school program teacher that Hannah was with. It doesn't appear like this teacher even had any sort of interactions with Hannah of a deeper length. why did she kill her no uh connection whatsoever no it's not like Hannah was and not that it would be called for or not saying it's an excuse of oh she was the troublemaker in the class but no like truly

And again, that's not an excuse, that's not a reason behind it, but it's even more bizarre considering the fact that there is truly no connection there. They don't even really interact with each other. At all. The teacher tells authorities when she's calmed down from her supposed laughing fit, it doesn't matter which child. It didn't matter to me. I just wanted to die with someone.

So I told the child leaving the care classroom, after school program classroom, I'll give you a book. You need to read this book. And then I got them in the audio video classroom. That's why I strangled her and stabbed her with a knife. It didn't matter which kid I took with me. I just didn't want to die alone. Within hours, this case is everywhere. It is one of the biggest cases in the news cycle in South Korea, but also international headlines, news outlets like BBC.

teacher fatally stabs eight-year-old in south korea cbs news teacher stabs eight-year-old student to death at elementary school in south korea cnn teacher accused of killing first graders school stabbing shock south korea but nobody not even in korea nobody knows who the teacher is They just know her to be a 48-year-old teacher from the school. That's it. Her identity has not been released.

Understandably, netizens start demanding for it. The public should have the right to know who the perpetrator is. People in Korea are commenting, personal information must be disclosed on this case. The identity should not be kept hidden. which I will mention in the very beginning before it was confirmed by authorities that the teacher did wake up and did admit to the stabbing. Again, she hasn't been on trial, so we can't say that she is.

guilty of first-degree murder but she did state that she did do it but there was brief confusion prior to that online about whether or not there was like a third party involved because people could just not wrap their heads around the idea that a teacher would stab an eight-year-old student So they thought maybe there was like a knife wielding madman inside the school that hasn't been caught. So why release the teacher's identity? We don't know for sure.

But once the teacher more or less confirmed that she stabbed Hannah, whether she'll take it back or not, we don't know, but people start demanding for the release of her identity. Netizens argue, and it's not like the public aren't guessing.

they're saying we're actually doing more harm than good by not releasing her identity people are pulling out random teachers names being like maybe it's this one this one looks 48 this one said she's 48 this one used to work in that school just pointing the finger at any other teacher

But the law in Korea works in a way that a seven-person deliberation committee has to go through the case, take into account all the aggravating factors, and finally they decide, we're going to release the identity. But the process is not over. They have to now alert the teachers.

they say you can appeal our decision or you can say go ahead and we're going to release the identity to which she immediately consents she consents yeah In a full month after the murder, the teacher's identity is revealed to be a 48-year-old teacher, 재환 명, Mrs. 명. There are two photos of her released, her professional headshot for school and her mugshot.

Her headshot, she appears to be a very normal, if even a bit conventionally attractive teacher. She looks younger than her age, in the headshot at least, with a bob cut to her chin and side bangs. She's got a pleasant insang, which means... I guess facial composition that Koreans tend to gravitate towards. it's like she doesn't have really angry eyebrows or very suspicious eyes I don't know these are all very arbitrary, stupid, judgmental things that some people go by in Korean standards

Generally her insang seems approachable. She seems really not which shocked a lot of netizens. Some netizens were commenting if they saw her on the street asking for help, they would help her, let alone if she was the teacher at their school. they would go with her into the audio video room a little back context for korean in town right if i'm correct it's big in korean culture like when you meet someone

You take in their first impression, their aura, their energy, their facial vibes, and then you kind of give a little vibe towards this person. Either it's good or bad. Yeah, so okay. First impression I feel like in American standards and I'm not promoting like the South Korean in song It's just something that I always hear my parents say or like Koreans talk about frequently

In American standards, when you meet someone, their first impression is usually based off of the conversation that you have or what they talk about or what they're interested in. In Korean standards, it's a mixture of that plus their facial composition and then just the energy and even the way that they're dressed.

so the yin song is not just good or bad it can be like oh she gives me a very soft girl impression or she gives me a very cool girl impression like she seems headstrong it's not like good or bad it's just like everybody has a different aura like she seems opinionated but in a fun way like it's kind of that Koreans believe that sometimes your facial composition could add to that. And it's actually very big in the culture. Yes. Very big. Yeah.

for them to give an in-tongue of someone, and then they see that this is the person who did this crime, now that's a conversation. Yes. So I think what a lot of people were expecting was a headshot of a teacher who just looks like an evil

mean vile like you just see her in the hallways and she looks like she came to work hating children i think that's the picture that everybody was expecting and she is that it's just that her headshot did not feel that So I think that just adds to the fact that netizens are even more scared in Korea.

Because they're saying, of course, eight-year-old Hannah went with her. First of all, she's an authority figure, and she's in the school. This is a safe zone, typically. Obviously, in America, it's different right now, but also in South Korea, things are changing. but it's typically supposed to be a safe zone for students, especially to trust their own teachers. And then she looks so kind and friendly. People are saying, if I saw her on the street, I would have gone with her.

But others who just look at her mugshot say, oh, it's different. If you just look at her mugshot, she looks scary. And then others comment, well people say she looks scary, but she only looks scary because she did something scary. If ordinary people took a photo using their back camera right after waking up without washing their face, that's what her mugshot looks like.

To which others point out how ironic society is. So aside from her pictures, they were just saying like, we got her identity and all we want to do is judge her looks. Aside from her pictures, we know a few things about Myung. She has a son that is taking the college entrance exam this year. It's likely that she has recently divorced. And that's about it. That is all we know about.

I think that there is this natural yearning to know more about her, that netizens feel like there's gotta be something in her digital footprint or something that indicates that she's this sick, twisted, nasty little seed that has been left behind. Like, we gotta find something.

But all people could find was her thesis when she's getting her master's degree. In it, she writes about switching to a level-based curriculum to break away from the homogenized curriculum to help students pursue self-directed individual learning. She also writes, there is a quote, there is a saying, the quality of education cannot surpass the level of the teacher. So she fundamentally agrees with that saying.

that the quality of the education cannot surpass the level of the teacher. So teachers need to rise up and do more and be at the forefront of making sure the kids are receiving quality education and it falls on them. Which maybe she felt that genuinely years ago, but clearly not now. That's all people were able to dig up on Myung. And that, in a few days before allegedly killing Hunter, she choked a colleague.

Four days before the murder, at around 5.15pm, this is a random Thursday, one of the teachers at the school, let's call them Mrs. A, She's springing out of the classroom, one hand on her throat, the other hand grabbing the walls in front of her. She's running. She's stopping to cough.

I mean, it's not even a small cough. It's like she's choking on a grape. She runs to the teacher's offices. Thankfully, none of the teachers have gone home after class. They're working on lessons plans. Her face is entirely red. And she's like, Mrs. Myung, Mrs. Myung. And they're like, what happened? What happened? Mrs. A explains I was on the way out when I saw her sitting in the dark of a random classroom just like in the middle of the classroom crouching down

I noticed that she hadn't really been herself recently, so I slid open the door. I walked in, and she's sitting there motionless, and it was kind of creepy, so I stepped getting in a little bit closer. Mrs. Myung, are you okay? Suddenly, she reaches up, grabs Mrs. A's left arm, twists it behind her. back so she's like pinning her like a pro wrestling move Suddenly Mrs. A's arm is behind her in a very painful way. She's getting dragged onto the ground.

Myung starts grabbing the back of Mrs. A's puffer jacket, choking her on her own collar, and she starts freaking out. She's coughing, trying to scream. She's being strangled, and this is unprompted, out of nowhere. Mrs. A has one arm to try and scratch. Myung's arms off her neck. Mrs. A, she's trying to think quick. She's not trying to piss off Miss Myung. She tries to reason with her. Can you tell me what's going on? What's going on? Can you talk to me? Are you okay?

In a blank voice, she claims Myung just tells her, why? Why do only I have to be unhappy? What about all of you? Like this is an attempt murder. and then suddenly a vibrating noise. Mrs. A looks down. Myung's phone is vibrating on the table and she's trying to signal. Don't you need to pick that up? Your phone could be your husband. Please, don't you need to answer it? husband, we're divorced. When I go home, nobody's there. I'm all alone.

The teacher immediately reports it to the administration and the school. This is on Thursday. They deliberate and they decide to talk to Mrs. Myung on Monday about it and it is clear that Mrs. Myung is not ready to come back to the school. She was actually supposed to be on a six-month medical leave and came back after just 20 days. Prior to the incident of trying to strangle and kill her colleague, Mrs. Myung was known to have been one of the nicest teachers.

in the sense that normally she had a lot more patience with the kid. She's been a teacher for the past 20 years. She knows what to expect. She knows how to manage her emotions. In fact, throughout her 10 year teaching, she's consistently won awards of commendation and never had any complaints about her work. from colleagues, parents or students.

According to medical records, Mrs. Myung this whole time had been struggling with depression severely for the past five years. December of 2024, it was agreed upon by the school and the administration that Mrs. Myung would take sick leave for six months. she would focus on treating her depression. That's the plan everybody agreed on, especially because Myung's doctors wrote that it's going to take about six months of heavy intensive treatment.

They wrote to Ms. Myung's boss. The patient is currently suffering from severe depression and lethargy, requiring at least six months of stable care. But 20 days later, right before winter break, Ms. Myung just shows back up. just kind of startling everyone, especially because they had already filled her spot and she said six months is adequate time and now she's, what, back in not even 15 business days? How do you go from needing six months to suddenly feeling better in 20 days?

Myung argued that her depression symptoms improved enough in the past 20 days that she can resume daily life again. And here's a letter from the doctor. I find that that's quite alarming. So after she comes back there is winter break in Korea. So winter break is around mid to end December until late January in South Korea.

This is happening February 6th. She's assaulting her colleagues. So this is like right after winter break. So that week or two after winter break, students are saying, I don't know what happened to the teacher. she used to be the nicest kindest sweet teacher and now she's walking around with a box cutter now she's walking around with a blue tape she wasn't acting like this before her medical leave and then before winter break

She just comes back and she does not seem normal. So there are signs that the students were noticing. Yes, but it's not, she's not threatening anyone. She's not snapping. She's not screaming at people. She just seems mentally. I wouldn't even say it's unstable. It's hard to say because it's very easy for people to look at kids and be like, you're overthinking it. Not that I think kids are overthinking it, but sometimes adults have that reaction.

But she did choke someone out. Yes, February 6th, Thursday, she chokes out her colleague. Nothing happens on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Monday the 10th, the administrators tell Myung and very nicely considering she just tried to strangle her colleague. They very nicely tell her that she should probably take the rest of her sick leave. Instead of leaving the school or going to the doctor, Myung goes on to kill Hanul that after.

If that happens in the school, right? A teacher literally trying to attempt murder another teacher? Yes. I mean, I feel like there's got to be some pretty serious consequences follows right away, right? That's why a lot of people are upset with this case. There were so many warning signs.

After school on Monday the 10th, Hannah is sent to the aftercare classroom on the second floor. This is again not a new schedule for her. She waits from 2 p.m. to about 4.40 p.m. to be picked up by her academy teacher where she's going to take the Hagwon bus. that goes around picking up all the kids from the other different schools, takes them to the hagwon, and then after that, she's going to be picked up by her parents at the end of the night.

It's like a, so after school program is at the school. They just kind of take care of you. Haguan is like another teaching academy. So you go there to actively learn. It's like second school. Most kids will attend Haguan these days, even at eight years old.

In between that time, Heather's grandma thought it would be a nice surprise to go pick up her little granddaughter, take her home, get some snacks in her, and then just personally drop her off at the academy for her night studies. But Heather said, it's fine. I don't want to be a burden. She's texting her grandma. Besides, all the teachers here are super nice.

Eventually, Hannah tells her grandma that it's just her and the aftercare classroom teacher. All the other kids have left. But again, it's fine because she's about to leave soon. And just to clarify, the afterschool program teacher is not Myeong. It's a different teacher. It's not until 4.40 p.m. the academy teacher comes to pick up Hunter. She can't just text Hunter. She has to check in with the front desk.

Then the after school program teacher will release Hana out of the classroom where she's going to walk down a flight of stairs to the front desk. But instead of getting there, the audio video room door opens. Myung asks her if she wants a book. that she needs to read this book. Heiner gets a lord in and she is stabbed, strangled and stabbed to death.

The knife that Myung uses, she had actually gone by it that day. She told her other colleagues that she was going to stop by the restroom, but instead she walked out to the parking lot. got in her car drove about a mile to a kitchen supply store where she's seen on CCTV camera just leisurely walking into the store purchasing a knife a six and a half inch blade 11 inch knife She was even seen asking the clerks at the kitchen supply store if this is a good one, if the performance is good.

Then she stabs Hanler to death. It is believed that by the time that Grandma Kim came into the audio storage room, Hanler was dead, but she had not stabbed herself. So Myung was covered in Hanler's blood. What? she's covered in hannah's blood and a lot of people actually take that to believe she did not want to suffer

which we'll get into in a second, but there is a lot of premeditation here. A few days prior to Tyler's murder, it was seen on forensic analysis of her digital devices that she had been searching up things about murder weapons. tools to be used against other people, tools to use for assaults, things of that nature. She later does state to the authorities, I was just irritated just three days that the vice principal prevented me from teaching.

After she got back from winter break, the teachers just didn't want her to teach. The vice principal didn't want her to teach children either.

they were asking her to do other probably paperwork around the building but i i'm assuming they didn't feel necessarily that comfortable quite yet with her having students when she's supposed to be on a six month medical leave but she comes back within like 20 days And now that Hannah is dead, Mrs. Myung is in the hospital and she claims this was my depression that led me to this.

One expert states, such extreme aggression is very difficult to manifest in depression. Stating that it's likely, you know, sure she could have depression, but there's something more. It's not the main cause to her actions. Like she's trying to play it off as it is. With one official explaining, the suspect experienced conflict in the home and at work. She had a deep-seated resentment. Her anger was redirected outward.

As for why specifically Hannah was chosen, Myung said, I didn't really have any interaction with her. I was just choosing the easiest target. She was going to be the last one in the school to come out of the aftercare classroom, and that's on the second floor. could unlock the audio video room that nobody really goes into. So she's saying it did not matter to her which student it was.

One expert believes that she tried to commit this whole thing with a colleague four days prior that she was trying to kill her colleague and then self-exit but it was impossible to do because There was no way that she could have done it to her colleague. The expert describes it as this is the type of person that subconsciously or consciously does not want to be harmed by another person.

So regardless of if she had intention to self-exit or not, which a lot of people don't even know for sure, it just seems like she doesn't want to pick someone her own size basically. They're saying if this was happening in a high school, it's likely that she wouldn't have been able to go after a student. E aí The criminologist continues, such perpetrators do not choose strong opponents, they just are worried that they themselves might be harmed if they attack someone strong.

Another expert states the depression that she suffered for the past seven years is not directly related to the crime. Depression is not linked and does not manifest in the form of murder. It is worth mentioning that there are speculations that Myung didn't even plan on murder with attempted self-exit.

some netizens speculate that she might have gone on to harm more people in the school or other students or colleagues but it might have been the parenting app that prevented her because the parenting app kept sending alerts which Hana's dad could hear Myung on the other end forcibly opening Hana's front zipper off her backpack to turn off the alerts and then the heavy breathing continued for about another hour.

Furthermore, when Grandma Kim opened the door to the storage closet, it didn't appear that Myung was injured, and even after that, she had the energy to lock the door. It seems like she tried to self-exit after she was found by Grandma Kim.

Adding to that theory is the fact that her injuries were not life-threatening but could be i mean they could be used as evidence that she is mentally unsound but they were not actually life-threatening really so it was like uh i mean it's hard to say because the intent could be there but human self-preservation self-survival could kick in It's hard to argue, but one other aspect of this theory is that according to Hannah's autopsy, none of her wounds showed any signs of hesitation.

So a lot of the times with sometimes stopping victims you'll see shallower shallower stab wounds and then it progressively leads into deeper stab wounds so you'll see like a varying level of depth of the wounds but they were all incredibly deep Many experts don't believe that fits the theory that she was so depressed that she harmed Hunter and then wanted to self exit. They more or less argue that if that were the case, there would have been some sort of hesitation mark.

Another criminologist interviewed on this case focuses on the fact that when Grandma Kim opened the door and asked Myung where Hanul was, she just straight up lied to her face. There was nothing to indicate that she was panicked or nervous. It's not only terrifying that she was able to maintain this calm demeanor, but also it's just a flat out lie of someone trying to cover their tracks. Not someone who had plans to self exit soon.

Soon after this crime takes all over the mainstream media news, Koreans, not just from the Daegu area, but Koreans that have traveled hours, they'd come to drop off chrysanthemum flowers. snacks at the school gates for Hunter. They had these little yellow umbrellas stuck onto the picket fence of the school so that all of the dolls left for Hunter would not get wet.

A local florist even gave out 100 chrysanthemum flowers, just hoping to raise more awareness and hoping more locals would go and pay their respects. the flowers. the dolls they're all left up for like an entire block around the school 400 this was this is even to this day a very big case in south korea i know in america we have lots of incidents and it's still very big cases but it almost feels like Certain people, not saying you or I, but certain people have...

Almost come to expect that a school is not a safe place in America, which is so dangerous and so vile and so depressing on its own But in Korea there really was not as many instances of this level of violence You hear a lot of stories of school bullies and there's that kind of interpeer violence, which is still not okay, but to have an eight-year-old killed on school premises. was really shocking, and even so to international audiences.

The first day of mourning for the funeral, Hunter's family received condolence wreaths from major businesses, local and national soccer teams. They all sent condolence wreaths for Hunter. According to someone at the funeral proceedings, there were a lot of members of parliament in the front paying their respects to Haner, including even the acting president of South Korea attended to pay his respects.

now president yoon was there no he is the suspended president so there is the acting president of south korea who attended to pay his respects now i will say this is where a lot of people just thought the case is now going to progress into the trial But for some reason, this case ends up just taking very bizarre turns and spiraling into something more than what happened and raising awareness so that this never happens again.

I was really even debating with the idea of not even including a lot of this in this episode, or really condensing it down, but the feeling that I kept getting while going through the online discourse and how the topic changed from Haner to gaming forums to just about everything that has happened.

In between, I mean, the overwhelming feeling is that we are still living in a world where a victim needs to be perfect, or at least near perfect, in order to deserve sympathy. It's a sick prerequisite society has, and this case, I think, is such a clear example of that.

In this case, it's not the netizens are finding fault with eight-year-old Haner. That would be even, for the internet, a new level of low. But it's the fact that some netizens, which are internet users, are going after Haner's father. Hannah's dad used to be a frequent user of a gaming forum which was known to be frequented predominantly by men where maybe 50% of the posts are fun and about games and the other 50% are joke

Probably a lot of women would not find funny. Netizens dug up old posts and comments left behind by Hunter's father, who we will refer to as kid. For example, one person would post a picture of writing, A cup weighs the same as a Mandarin. B cup weighs persimmons. C cups are apples. D cups are grapefruit. E cups are giant Asian pear. clearly talking about breast size and how much they weigh. Hannah's father comments, my girlfriend is a great fruit then.

If I knew that's how my boyfriend was talking about me on these forums, he would not be my boyfriend anymore. And while it's a rather derogatory comment that's just kind of uncomfortable, it has nothing to do with Hannah nor her murder. Because in any event, an eight-year-old was killed for no reason. What does her father's post from 2015 have anything to do with it?

a lot of netizens came out and a lot of korean netizens came out started to defend kim about it saying that's a full 10 years ago and yeah it's sexist he should probably reflect on that post, but it's not the most insane thing we've ever read. On top of that, even if the post was even more sexist, Should we really be bringing it up now?

Do we need to dig into everybody's past digital history? So every person, victim's father, victim, do we need to go down and find every single thing that they wrote from 2015? yeah that's so bizarre it just became a huge discourse of how we handle like a lot of the digital footprints of people and i do think it's very interesting that Lot of society and a lot of cultures still have this prerequisite that a victim's family has to be absolutely perfect in order to deserve sympathy

because these aren't even the same level like what does that even mean now this is not a great bar to set but regardless a more recent post was made in 2019 on a thread asking about contraception Hunter's father comments, use contraception well. If you're not careful, you're going to end up with two kids like me.

netizens felt this comment was clearly harder to overlook it's recent it has to do with his two kids it sounds like he doesn't want kids it sounds like he doesn't love his kids that's what a lot of korean netizens were trying to hint at Then another post pops up with a new allegation against Kim. An anonymous post with an accusation. Hunter's father borrowed $2,500 from an acquaintance of mine to donate to a female streamer and he never paid it back.

He's on welfare. He sent Hunter to the after school program with the government benefits and all he does. He doesn't even work. He goes and he spends all of his time in PC rooms watching female streamers playing games. He was even recently sued for harassing a PC room employee. Pay back the money you owe to my acquaintance, Hunter's father.

Netizens were really confused on how to feel about this random accusation because there's no proof provided but also someone truly like you would have to be so morally corrupt to even bring this up and make these accusations at this point in time some netizens were saying if you said this a year later But it's so fresh after the murder and you're writing these online. It's just weird. Like, what are you trying to gain from this?

Is this going to make him pay it back? Are you trying to capitalize off of the attention that Heinrich's case is getting? Because then you're sick for doing it for the wrong reason. Right now an eight-year-old has died. Does the acquaintances borrowed money that he consented to borrow to a friend? Does that have anything to do with the story right now? So why do you think all these people are kind of like attacking or coming up with these stories against him? I think

Not to psychoanalyze a whole group of people's reactions online, because maybe we're reading too deep into it, maybe we're not. But my Korean researchers were talking to me, and we had these discussions about sometimes...

It appears that when a case is pointing out an issue that is too big Force these people to even grasp or understand or it feels like as a citizen of the country This feels like too big of an issue for me to even make an impact Then we might as well just find fault in the people bringing up the issue is kind of the feeling or I would hope that Koreans are not I mean this is a small group of Koreans bringing this up by the way like most Korean netizens are like hey you people are insane for even

talking about stuff like this like why are you bringing this up why are you going and digging into his old gaming forum but that small group of people i don't know what their problem is I don't know So if you're wondering how the social discourse went from anger towards the perpetrator to people digging up old posts from the victim's dad and people almost seemingly trying to find dirt on him, I was also really confused.

but this case really is frustrating in the sense that when you look for discourse in Korea about this case you see it go from all about Hannah and how to prevent this from happening in another school to lots of online messy allegations and opinions about the victim's father. If you go on American, like English sources of this case, you're not going to find any of that. You go to Korean sources, you're going to find at least half the comments are bringing up Hanar's father.

In some videos, it's like 90% of the comments. talking about Hannah's father and I was talking to my Korean researchers and they said again most Koreans are on Hannah and Hannah's father's side it's just not like the small handful the small group of people that hate her father for whatever sick reason They're so loud. They're so vocal. So most of this seems to stem from a series of interviews that Hunter's father does after Hunter's death.

Hannah's father does a series of press interviews, which makes sense considering this is one of the more talked about cases in the news cycle at this point. Some netizens decided to find fault with some of the things that he says or more so the way he says those things in the interviews for full transparency i do see how there are moments where his tone or his words he chooses might come off strange if you're not being sympathetic

But I think a lot of Korean netizens have lost the plot. I think they're trying to twist his words and find some way to find fault in him. And I don't know what they get out of doing that. Maybe it's easier to blame her dad rather than thinking about how the education system can be fixed. for both teachers and students because that feels like too big of a problem.

also who knows nobody knows anyone's true intentions but given what we have the interviews of the dad i don't know how people are painting this insane picture of him being one of the most evil people in the world people are making it seem like he's worse than the perpetrator

See, that's crazy, right? Yeah, every little thing he says has been picked apart, and yes, again, I can see how some of them come off strange when you don't really factor in the nuance and the the context of the situation but keep in mind this is a man that has never been on the news he was just plopped into mainstream media in the span of 48 hours and all the major news networks are shoving cameras in his face demanding him to make a statement

at the same time that the most horrific incident of his life has just happened. he has had no time to process his grief to consolidate his emotions he's just trying to share with the world his experience so that this never happens to another kid He asks in the first interview, please just take 10 seconds to pray so that Heather is happy in heaven.

Thank you so much. He bows almost 90 degrees to the reporters, but a lot of netizens, some netizens, okay, I don't want to say a lot, but it sounds like a lot because all the comments. Some netizens are upset and they're saying that he keeps asking people for things. He keeps demanding. We give 10 seconds of silence. He then also asks journalists at the end of their articles to write, Hanner who became a star. We love you. Let's create Hanner's Law.

So he's trying to create a law, and we're going to get into that because that's also controversial. But in another part, he states, I sincerely ask government officials, please create Hunter's Law so that there won't be a second Hunter. As I asked yesterday, I would appreciate if journalists would include the phrase, Hannah, adults are sorry, we love you, at the end of your videos or articles.

Now I think that this is more done in American news outlets. You don't really see this being done in Korean news outlets. citizens being like, hey journalists, could you please include this at the end of your article? And I think the way that he's bringing it up is very to the point, which a small group of Korean netizens felt very upset at his quote-unquote demand. They're saying he's demanding too much. Like, why is he going around demanding 10 seconds of silence?

I think the feeling that they were trying to convey, I don't know, is that we were going to give 10 seconds of silence, but because you demanded it, we don't want to give it anymore, which is just such a strange sentiment to have. But they're very upset by it. And they're also commenting things like the schools and teachers should feel sorry. But why do all the adults in Korea need to apologize? We're not the ones who did this.

Other netizens get quite harsh with their comments writing, What is this? The dad almost seems excited. And why are the adults of Korea sorry? We're not the ones that force you to send your kid to aftercare class. So now they're shaming him for sending his kid to aftercare class programs after school because most parents are double working parents, like they're dual income parents.

They don't have the time to just watch their kids like most people in Korea send their kids to after-school programs. Other comments, don't generalize the actions of one insane evil teacher and her crimes to the entire adult population of the nation. We feel bad, we feel grief and heartache, but why do I have to apologize?

Wow, that's so bizarre. Yeah, it's like not that personal, but it's, I mean, again, I don't... I was debating on whether to even include this in the episode, but because it's such a prevalent conversation in South Korea, and it's happening in all the Korean articles, they're like fighting in the comments, in every single article about Hannah, I think it's a great time to...

try to understand why stuff like this happens. They also point to another moment where he tells the journalist to write, honey, we love you. Honey, we're sorry. And in their articles, I guess the next day, they hadn't included that. So he asks again in a press conference, why doesn't anyone write it? Among from what I've seen there was nothing written. So a lot of people are upset that he's reading the articles and calling out the journalists for not including what he requested.

Then there's another moment where he says, the biggest issue in South Korea right now is the case of Hunter. I don't know why it had to be my daughter and why this is happening. Then he excuses himself to calm down before he continues in the interview. So he notices, he's like, okay, I need to calm down. Could I just get a moment? I think his words are completely understandable. He is a parent who just lost his child. And this case is massive in South Korea.

But some South Korean netizens recently, I mean, they just didn't like what he said. Hannah is the biggest case. It's like the only big issue in Korea right now because they're saying recently their president was impeached. So there was a lot going on in the political world that impacts all the nation's citizens. Some netizens got really offended by his words, which I just think is...

Have some nuance and your life would be easier. Someone comments, I thought it was a police official giving a briefing, the way that he's saying this is the biggest issue and we should care about it. Others are even speculating. Is this really the biological father? He seems like he's not commemorating Hunter but rather fulfilling his own selfish desire.

Like desire of what? Some people, okay. I'm trying to also... see why certain things are happening to try and maybe give a perspective clearly i don't know what it's like to be in that situation but i do think that there are moments where i have been in front of a camera and i felt really uncomfortable to the point where I don't know why my face is not matching certain words I'm saying I think it's like I'm nervous I'm like shaking I'm

I just don't know how to feel like the adrenaline. And I think at certain points in his press conference, His voice is fast-paced, he doesn't seem sad, emotional, and there's almost like an inflection in his tone that's alert and hyper. And people are taking that as he's so happy to be in front of cameras. Yeah. Others point out a different moment when Hunter's dad is just talking about what it must have been like for his little daughter in her final moment.

He says, the sound of me triggering the alarm on the parenting app. How much pain must Heiner have been in? She was stabbed dozens of times. If someone had just listened for that sound, my Heiner would have been... in a lot of pain but she wouldn't have become a star now he's saying if someone had heard it maybe she would be alive yes she would have been in pain because she had she would still have to heal from the stab wounds but she also wouldn't become a star so the way he's saying it is like

it's like very complicated like obviously he doesn't want his daughter to have passed on but then also the idea of her trying to heal from those stab wounds would have been a lot but people are just taking the part where he says she wouldn't have become a star as like oh my god he wants fame he wants his daughter to be famous

He also continues, now this adds context. The crime could have happened to anyone, but Henry became a star first for her friends, for the elementary school students who will live in Korea in the future. That is how I will think about it. That's a huge part that has been taken out of the context by some of these Korean netizens. One sentiment that Hani's father has held since the beginning of all of this.

that had it not been Hannah that day it would have been another kid that teacher was not gonna stop until she killed a kid that is his belief that's a lot of people's beliefs he finds comfort in the fact that he could try to see it as his daughter saved another child

she became a star and the reason he uses star is not like she became famous Hannah's name means sky in Korean so it's like so a lot of people are saying she's now in the sky and then she's a star in the sky so he's saying it in that sense and not fame

And it's very clear. Everybody knows the word sky in Korea. If these netizens can type out their hateful comments, they know what the word means. They know what her name means. So clearly the context is there, but they decide to just bypass it and they're like, he's obsessed with becoming famous. So it sounds like clearly there's a lot of like crazy people, but also a lot of these sounds like they feel like his reaction doesn't match with what they think. A victim's father should.

act like or say in these type of situation and now they are having a moment of like casting their own whatever on this father meanwhile like I'm always sitting here thinking about I could never imagine what I would be doing if I'm in that I have no clue what I will say, how I will act. It's one of those situations where I feel it's very easy for people to say things like people respond to shock and grief in different ways, but then when they see it play out, they don't like it.

I think I would be a little bit more understanding of some tiny bit of netizens. If there were a lot of suspicious elements of the case where it feels like maybe the father had involvement, but it's like so cut and dry. Like, why are we even doing this right now? It doesn't even make sense. Some netizens have painted this narrative that he is someone that loves being famous and loves being on TV writing. He seems so excited now that he's getting attention.

Or no matter how I look at it, he doesn't seem sad. He just seems like someone who's enjoying the situation and wants to look good to reporters and entertain them. It is sufficiently bizarre. and quote, the father was unique from the beginning of the situation. Rather than feeling sad about losing a child, he's specifically demanding certain words be used at the end of articles, demanding the nation give 10 seconds of silence.

It's bizarre. Rather than taking care of his wife and his other daughter, he's just doing all these disturbing interviews. Now one thing to note is that he says that the police were barely telling him updates on this case.

he was finding out about it online. I mean, it seems very natural then that he would constantly be reading articles, waiting to see if the police are going to release more information. That's why I'm saying it's not that strange that he noticed that the reporters didn't include that at the end of the article.

he straight up says i haven't been told anything about the investigation process by the police i asked the detective supervisor and the news articles like this are coming out i said detective supervisor what are these news articles please tell me the investigation status and they won't

Another thing to add to all of this is some netizens said that he's been very demanding. He's demanding idols, politicians, police officers show up and pay respects to Hannah. He's demanding nations pray for 10 seconds. I think these are all requests. They're not demands. But most netizens They can see how angry he is with the police. The reason that he's, quote, demanding them to show up at Hunter's funeral, and maybe this can enlighten those nasty netizens that hate the father for no reason.

he says quote the police officers investigating hunter the prosecutor who came to see hunter not a single one of them came to pay respects on top of the fact that nobody's telling him information about this case he's saying it's just confusing you know many ordinary people i don't even know have come from all across the country citizens of korea have come to pay respects to hanar and i think side note pay respect Maybe to some people sounds demanding, but that's like what you do at a funeral

You pay respects, but he's saying like, you know, they came to say hi to Hunter They came to show their respect and send her off like he's using these types of terms three police officers unrelated to the case they can They hugged me and they cried with me. They said they were sorry that they couldn't protect Hunter. There are people like that, but how can those in charge of the case not come to pay their respects?

Someone should be stationed here to inform me in real time as I'm the one who needs to know the news the fastest. But why do I have to learn all about the investigation through news articles? Of course, I don't know if the articles are true or not. All citizens will know about it through the news articles and I don't even know if it's true. So another thing to note, there have been lots of fake news spread by some journalists.

saying that Heinle's father had mentioned he wanted to meet with the perpetrator one day, how he wanted to meet with the perpetrator's family one day, to which he all put those rumors to rest. But that's why he's even more frustrated. He has to learn about his own daughter's investigation through media outlets.

And some of them are reporting false news about him that he knows is false. So now everything that comes out about Hannah, he's like, I don't know if that's even true. And the police won't talk to me. Not only that, they won't even pay their respects to the eight-year-old girl who was killed. Like this is crazy. He's like expressing frustration. But some netizens have complained saying he's asking to be treated like a VIP.

they're saying most officers do not attend victims funerals it's just not in protocol and some say his tone comes off very entitled writing rather than being angry at the perpetrator he's angry at all koreans that did not come to pay condolences That anger is stronger for the father. It is very bizarre. Or another comment that reads, The dad is unusual. He is counting condolences rather than focusing on getting justice.

Others argue that it's reasonable to be upset. I mean, learning updates through the media, the fake news, it makes sense. And even if it doesn't make sense, he's a grieving father. One big part that Korean netizens have also been ripping to shreds into Hunter's father is at the end of one press conference, he tells the reporters,

I should wrap this up. I won't be taking any more questions. There's really nothing else to film right now. I've done all the interviews. I'll conclude for now. Reporters, please go upstairs. We prepared meals for you. Go upstairs and eat. his tone sounds from what netizens say it sounds very light

Now, side context, in another interview inside the funeral home, he says, reporters, the serving staff are coming out a bit late, but you really don't need to give monetary gifts. Please put down your cameras and pray for Hunter. Put down your cameras, go greet her.

help her go beautifully and please make sure you eat i'm sure everybody's having a hard time right now when the serving staff come please eat before you go this is the last meal our daughter hannah is treating you guys to the reporters right she's like your niece right eat your niece's last meal and head home. Thank you, everyone.

Some netizens comment, are there any other questions? Like quoting him, are there any questions? I'll conclude for now. Reporters, please go find food upstairs. It feels like he's a third party rather than a bereaved family member. Others comment, he excitedly tells his heroic tales and then he says he prepared meals for reporters. It's like a press conference with a celebrity's manager. Maybe I like to overthink someone's emotional state.

but it feels okay again i don't know i can't read minds but from what i can gather one thing to know culturally is in korea when you go to a funeral there typically is food served and you're supposed to eat it's like one last meal And then you do give monetary gifts when you walk in to pay condolences to the family. So it's like, you lost a family member. You're probably taking off work. You probably had to pay for this funeral. Let me help in any way that I can, monetary-wise.

Perhaps... he saw reporters crying because this is an emotional case that a lot of Koreans were affected by. I'm sure a lot of these reporters have young kids. Maybe he saw some of them emotional when the cameras were off. It's not like they're recording each other. Maybe he saw them all trying to donate and he's like, no, please. Don't donate. Truly, like, I didn't ask you to come here to donate. I just wanted you to send Hunter off.

Like, I just wanted people to draw attention to this case so it never happens again. And then maybe he's trying to lift up spirits because the reporters are also emotional. Like, even him saying, you know, she's like, your niece, right? Like, this is one last meal from your niece. It almost sounds like he's trying to be like, it's okay, everyone. We're all going to get through it. But the fact that a lot of netizens, they just end up taking it. Such a weird way.

It's just very complicated and I just don't think that we know anything about it and it just feels like if we're not seeing the perfect picture of the perfect victim's family. A lot of people are losing sympathy, which I find to be really disturbing. he also says in another interview i don't know politics i want the highest officials in our country to come see hunter i want them to listen to my story directly i want to receive that promise that is why i requested it

I think he is justified in his anger. I mean you could argue that he's very smart about trying to get action and laws passed immediately. He knows if he requests and pressures politicians to show up and listen to his story, they can't just ignore him, act like they didn't see it. But I think the way that he words it, I guess rubbed some netizens the wrong way. They just did not like it. The acting president did it.

Now, which leads me to the next point of contention in this case, the proposed 100 law. Handler's father is working on a law being passed that would make it so that teachers with mental health issues will receive necessary treatment and need to be cleared in order to continue teaching. The newly proposed Handler's law would change

teachers psychological tests the way that they're evaluated and would force mandatory leave if there are any signs that a teacher is mentally unfit. In order for Myung to come back to school 20 days into her sick leave, she had to have a doctor's note. So they wrote, yes, she's good. She's good after 20 days. That is kind of strange. People are saying that is very strange. Additionally, children in after-school programs would be required to have hand-to-hand pickup.

So instead of letting her go out of the classroom, walk all the way down to the first floor, a teacher would have to escort her from the classroom and hand to hand pass her off to whoever is picking her up. That is what the bill is so far proposing. In concept, the law would create a system in which teachers will be allowed mandatory leave when struggling with their mental health.

protecting teachers, protecting students, and even the Deputy Prime Minister has gotten behind the proposal of the law saying we will establish measures to make it mandatory to confirm the possibility of normal work upon reinstatement. with most netizens agreeing that something needs to be done. Like clearly something needs to be done. and for this case specifically they think this happened on school grounds

She choked out a colleague four days prior. She was on medical leave. They knew about her depression. Like, clearly something needs to be done. Heinrich's family probably needs to be compensated as well financially for everything that they've lost.

but it's just for this specific case, yes, something needs to be done. However, the Heiler Law is highly controversial. Also, keep in mind whatever people are saying about the haner law is not about haner she did absolutely nothing wrong and this portion of the discourse is not even necessarily about her or what happened to her but rather the discourse of what will happen if this law is put into effect.

this is not an excuse this is not reasoning from young she deserves the highest level of punishment but a lot of people are really worried about this bill being passed many netizens think it's not well thought out enough like we're rushing into it they also believe it's only good in concept

First, they point to the invasion of teachers' privacy. It would create situations in which the law could be easily used against them and their mental health becomes very intertwined with their working ability, which could actually further exacerbate their mental health. Obviously not Myung. She should not be at work. But for other teachers who are like, okay, I want to seek treatment for my mental health, but I'm scared the school will find out, and then I will be placed on mandatory leave.

Also, the law would make it easier that a student could report a teacher for being mentally ill, which many have stated would kind of be inappropriate for a minor student to determine whether a teacher is mentally fit or not to begin with. but they could also report a teacher for being mentally ill and it would instantly trigger a series of actions that results in the teacher forced out of work and potentially their job being put at risk. Let's be real.

the reason that this is concerning is teachers in south korea and i'm sure like teachers everywhere they're underpaid overworked in south korea though they're not they're typically the victims of abuse The teachers. They are typically bullied by students and students' parents.

In a Korean classroom, it's safe to assume the student holds the most authority because if a student lies and accuses a teacher of doing anything to them, the parent can file a formal complaint and almost always the school takes the parent's side. One interview on the street, citizens were asked how much authority do teachers have in South Korea. They said, I think absolutely not. If a teacher tries to do anything in an attempt to teach,

parent doesn't like it they can get a complaint and it's almost to the point where they can't even actually educate students anymore. The authority of the teachers at this country has hit a rock bottom. I think there's something seriously wrong with the education system. Others state that they have read news stories where female teachers have their own personal Instagrams that parents will go out of their way to stalk. I mean nobody asks you to go find your kids teachers on Instagram.

And if the teacher goes on vacation or goes out to dinner with friends on the weekend and the parents don't like what she's wearing, they will file a formal complaint and the teacher will be reprimanded. at school for what she does off hours and like side note knowing korean culture i bet it was like a modest dress with two inches of shoulders showing Another citizen on the street says, it's like the teacher's personal life should not exist.

South Korea right now because the education system is so competitive, a lot of parents feel that their kids can make no mistake. It's also my kid first, my kid first. It's very a selfish system where if the kid is not doing well in that class, maybe it's the teacher's fault. Let's move the teacher out of there and get a new teacher in so my kid can do well, even if all the other kids are doing great. I don't care, because it's about my kid.

So even in China too, right? Like the weight of the education is like... everything for these Asian parents. Like they will do anything. for their kids to go to the best school or the best kindergarten or even like you know like it's crazy because my aunt is a teacher her wife when a parent thinks that their kid is not doing well they will do whatever it takes

Even if it means that let's get this teacher off to get a different teacher. Let's get her fired. Yeah. So I can totally see that happen because how much weight they put on the education. Yeah. And just last year, there were widespread teacher protests.

teachers Parents will accuse teachers of child abuse if they even restrain a violent student There are videos of students slapping teachers in class Or if a teacher tells a student they're disrupting the class to be quiet, they can be accused of emotional abuse.

One example, a teacher took away reward stickers because the student with the reward stickers tried to attack another student with a pair of scissors. So they took away the reward stickers because you don't get a reward for being violent. and formal complaints were filed by the parents, which then in turn the administration reprimanded the teacher.

teachers are saying they don't even feel safe to teach at this point and within a span of a week in 2024 multiple teachers in south korea self-exited a few of them on school drawing attention to the very broken education system as well as over a hundred teachers have self-exited in the past five years in South Korea.

One of the victims who self-exited had been bullied by parents at the school for just trying to teach and discipline the kids. She wrote in her diary that every time she even enters a classroom, She feels, quote, my chest feels too tight. It feels like I'm going to fall somewhere. I don't even know where I am. The 23-year-old has PTSD from entering a classroom because of the bullying she faced from the students.

She was found dead in her classroom by which triggered a 200,000 teacher protest in front of the National League. One teacher was commenting on a news report. Look at this, the teachers are not here to protest for a race or for a better system to benefit themselves. We're just asking that the government protect teachers from unfair situations that are brought upon by students and by students' parents.

We Korean teachers only want the right to teach that's it without worrying about things that have nothing to do with education. That's all we want. With another comment reading, I worked in a Korean school once and it was so bad. Teachers quit every year and had meltdowns in the bathrooms. Some students would even falsely accuse teachers to get them in trouble out of spite.

And plus, we talked about a lot, like when you're under, what, 14 or something, like there's literally no consequences for anything. So the kids just go crazy. So people are saying, yes, the teachers if they're not mentally fit, they should not be around students. And especially for this case, but like...

Future cases, if they're showing any violent tendencies, if anything is happening, yeah, they need to be either let go, fired, in jail, in a mental ward, something. Something needs to happen to them. They're not safe for society. But this law leaves a lot to be open. It's like a further restraint on these teachers.

With one comment reading, I hope this act will be used properly and not abused by some brat spoiled bully kids who are a menace in their homeschools and society. I mean, I hope the kids who should be protected are protected by this act. But you don't know how to make sure of that. There's going to be people who are going to use it to their benefit.

Also, there are concerns that there might be a lot of stigmatization against mental health if a teacher is out on medical leave because some action triggered her to be forced on a forced medical leave because someone saw her unfit. You really think they're gonna let her back? Like, these are the types of parents we're dealing with that took away reward stars because your kid is a violent offender. You think that they're gonna let her back? Any of these teachers are gonna have their jobs back?

I'm sure we can put into place a law, but it just seems like...

Conceptually, it's great. And nobody is criticizing Hunter's father. He's not a lawmaker. This is not his job. Something happened and... his main focus is making sure this doesn't happen to another kid it is up to the lawmakers however to revise it and word it and to add clauses in a way that it also protects the teachers but it doesn't seem like they're doing Also, even the hand-to-hand drop-off, a lot of teachers are kind of upset by this because the fact that

These programs were put in place where a lot of parents could pay, I think it's like $60 for 11 weeks of the after-school program, which is like no money at all, honestly, when you think about child care and like staying in a program. The government's not hiring more teachers. That's what they promised when they implemented these after-school programs in schools. They said, we're going to specifically hire after-school program teachers, but they don't.

So the teachers that come in at five, six in the morning and teach all day, they do after school programs. And then after that, they have to revise their lesson plans, grade homework, and then do the, like they're working 14, 16 hour a day. and so they're like now you want to add more teachers to do hand-to-hand drop-offs and pickups and like it's like you want to protect the kids Because you don't want the teachers to be mentally unwell.

But it's also the system that's causing teachers to be mentally unwell. So if you just fix that, not saying Myung would have not committed the crime. She, I think, would have probably committed a crime regardless of her occupation, regardless of where she was working. But still, it's like all the other teachers, it just seems very complicated. And then this discourse of what happened to Hunter goes off the deep end once more when a far-right political commentary cartoonist

It's a loaded job title. But he posts a whole online article asking, is a child's death an achievement? He writes they always want to create things like this. Does it make them feel better to have a law named after their child? Is the child's death their only achievement? which is an insane thing to even say, but it did make this whole situation even worse because now we are one step further away from Hannah's death and trying to enact change.

Because of his far-right political standing, the comments section turned fully into a right versus left fight. And again, it's like we have lost the plot once more. But one netizen does point out, and I do agree with this, again, regardless of...

how one feels of if the Heiner bill is going to help or hurt the system. I do think that there's lots of changes that could be made to it to benefit the teachers and the students and the parents and have a better educational system. But one thing to note is, quote,

i admire that hannah's dad wants a lot to enact to help educators with mental illnesses whether you think it's going to work or not but the fact that he wants to help them rather than punish them what he and his family have been through that takes tremendous heart It is really sad to see that Hannah's entire life has become overshadowed, first by how she passed, and then also by netizens digging into her dad's past.

all of these different conversations that are now being had. A lot of Hannah's classmates have tried to keep her as she was in her memories. Everyone says she was a really bright girl, and that even at eight years old, this is the age where people start testing boundaries but haner just did everything with a very positive

She never complained in school. She never complained about her extracurriculars. She was always excited to take on more. She loved soccer. She joined this local soccer club and she was so enthusiastic. she was actually so good she would play with people that were older than her and she would call them 언니 so the 언니's would tell her we gotta go to 회식 which is like After work. dinner company dinner which normally adults hate

But she's like, I gotta go. I gotta show up and show them that I support the team. And she was just always so excited to try more and to do new things. And she would just like run full speed.

soccer but also when her parents would pick her up from her after-school program people always remember seeing her run full speed straight towards her parents and just almost tackle them with a hug And many of her friends and family have sent her off with well wishes saying, just like your name, play happily in heaven without fear to our honey, to our sky, who departed on a happy heavenly journey.

As for Myung, she is now facing, um, She's facing murder charges, but South Korea hasn't technically abolished the death penalty. But considering it's been almost like 30 years since their last execution, it seems the likelihood of her facing capital punishment is slim, but a lot of Korean netizens are calling for it, for capital punishment. Nevertheless, she is facing life imprisonment for kidnapping, luring and murdering a minor under 13.

and that is where the case of Hunter from South Korea is I know in a lot of the English sources and media, there wasn't a lot of discourse of everything that was happening afterwards, but what are your thoughts? It just seems like it's spiraled into a lot of different things. Let me know, be safe, and I'll see you in the next one.