Wando family autopsies detect sleeping pill use: police

An autopsy on the family of three that were found dead last month in a submerged car found that they had taken sleeping pills, police said Wednesday.

Officials at the Gwangju Nambu Police Station said they were recently notified of this from the National Forensic Service, although the NFS is currently conducting additional analysis to determine the amounts that the family took.

Ten-year-old Cho Yu-na and her parents went missing in Wando-gun, South Jeolla Province, in May and were found dead inside their family car, which was salvaged off the coast of Sinji Myeon in the region on June 29. 

It had been reported that the police reached a provisional conclusion that the parents had deliberately killed themselves and their daughter. A police analysis of the black box footage from the family car showed that the parents had shared a few words while their car was parked near the Songok Harbor for an hour, before they drove the car into the depths.

All three had died of drowning, the autopsy found.

Police investigation following the family’s disappearance revealed that the parents had about 150 million won ($114,810) in debt, and that the father had lost a considerable amount of money due to the recent cryptocurrency crash. It was also found that the parents had been receiving treatment for depression for the past two years.


By Yoon Min-sik
(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)