A string of cases involving parents killing their children have recently shocked the nation, ringing the alarm on the dangers of broken families and mental vulnerability.
On Sunday, a mother in her 30s stabbed her two children to death in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, after reportedly suffering from depression.
Her husband told police that he had found his wife bleeding from self-inflicted wounds on her neck. The 13-month and 3-week-old sons were found on the bed stabbed in the neck multiple times.
They were taken to the hospital but only the mom survived.
Meanwhile, parents who were on the run for three years after allegedly killing their teenage daughters after three family suicide attempts were arrested at a farm in Busan earlier this month.
They told police they were burdened by debt.
“The murder of a family member indicates that basic family values are broken,” said Kwack Dae-gyung, a police administration professor at Dongguk University.
Experts called for increased support for struggling families.
“Other family members should help those who are struggling. And before a situation gets worse, those in trouble should see an expert or a counselor,” said Kim Mi-yeong, director of Seoul Home Clinic.
Earlier this month, a mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison for suffocating her three sons, then aged 3, 5 and 8, in a motel in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, in 2011.
She also suffered from depression and left her home with the three kids after a quarrel with her then-actor husband.
She insisted in court that she had been physically and mentally devastated due to chronic fatigue caused by sleep disorders and stress from raising her children. She said impulsively killed them after they kept having a pillow fight and did not listen to her.
According to the husband, his wife said she had killed their children because she had felt “unacknowledged by her husband and his parents.”
By Kim Young-won (
wone0102@heraldcorp.com)
