The news of that day has passed, but its meaning remains with us today. "That Day, Today" reads the present through the records of the past. — Editor's note
On Oct. 25, 2024, a 33-year-old civilian defense employee was strangled to death inside a car parked in a military base lot in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province. The killer was Yang Kwang-joon, then 38, a lieutenant colonel-designate who had been in an extramarital relationship with the victim. Yang dismembered the body, dumped it in the Bukhan River, and then impersonated the victim to deceive her family and his unit. How was the officer's grisly crime uncovered?
Yang was an active-duty officer with the Cyber Operations Command and had been scheduled to transfer to a subordinate unit in Seoul's Songpa district on Oct. 28, three days after the killing. The victim was a fixed-term civilian defense employee whose contract was nearing expiration. At around 3 p.m. that day, Yang strangled her during an argument inside his car.
The appeals court found that Yang had been repeatedly threatened with exposure of the affair, had fallen into despair, and appeared to have considered killing her and prepared accordingly. Yang was married at the time; the victim was single.
His movements after the killing were methodical. That night, Yang dismembered the body at a construction site near the base, and at around 9:40 p.m. the following night he threw a bag containing remains into the Bukhan River in Hwacheon. Before the crime, he had searched on his mobile phone for methods of forging vehicle license plates, and he attached a fake plate to his car to evade surveillance cameras. Prosecutors cited as evidence of premeditation the fact that the base was on a shortened work schedule that day, with most staff having left by around 4 p.m.
'Process It as Leave' — Impersonating the Victim to Deceive Her Family
Yang tried to make it appear that the victim was still alive. The court found that he had simulated signs of her daily life for the benefit of her family. He is known to have sent messages to her family and acquaintances from her mobile phone, and to have sent a message to the unit asking that her remaining workdays be processed as leave. Deceived by this, her mother at one point withdrew a missing-person report.
The crime came to light eight days later. On Nov. 2, part of a body appearing to be a human leg was found in the Bukhan River in Hwacheon, and police identified the victim through fingerprints. The following day, police arrested Yang without a warrant on charges of murder, mutilation of a corpse and concealment of a corpse as he wandered in an underpass at Irwon Station in Seoul's Gangnam district. Yang admitted the charges without resistance, and the Chuncheon District Court issued a detention warrant on Nov. 5. The Gangwon Provincial Police Agency released his personal information in mid-November — the first such disclosure in the agency's history and the first for an active-duty military officer suspect.
Life Sentence Despite More Than 190 Letters of Remorse, Plus 290 Million Won in Damages
The central issue at trial was premeditation. Yang admitted the facts of the indictment but argued the killing was spontaneous. Prosecutors sought a life sentence on March 6, 2025, and on March 20 the Chuncheon District Court imposed life imprisonment, rebuking him for showing not even minimal respect for the victim's dignity.
The appeals court upheld the ruling, saying the mutilation and concealment of the body could not by their nature have been spontaneous but were premeditated follow-up crimes. On Dec. 4, 2025, the Supreme Court's Second Division, with Justice Kwon Young-joon presiding, dismissed his appeal and finalized the life sentence. Yang submitted letters of remorse seven times at the trial court, 136 times on appeal and 51 times before the Supreme Court, but they did not lead to any reduction in sentence.
He was also held liable in civil court. In late May this year, a single-judge panel of the Seoul Central District Court granted in full a damages claim filed by the victim's parents, ordering Yang to pay 145 million won each, or 290 million won in total. Yang's side claimed he had deposited 50 million won with the court during the criminal proceedings, but this was not accepted for lack of evidence, and his failure to make efforts toward restitution on the grounds that he lacked financial means also counted against him.
Two years on, the body was found and the suspect arrested within eight days of the killing, and both the criminal and civil cases have been concluded. It was a case in which a military officer killed a colleague, disposed of the body and even attempted a cover-up by impersonating the victim.
