Subway murderer gets 40-year prison term for revenge killing

Jeon Joo-hwan, who fatally stabbed an ex-coworker at her workplace to seek revenge last year, was sentenced 40 years of imprisonment and labor at a district court on Tuesday.

Jeon, 31, was also ordered to put on a tracking device for an additional 15 years after his release from prison. Jeon was earlier sentenced to nine years behind bars for stalking the same victim in a district court, which both prosecutors and Jeon appealed.

A judge at the Seoul Central District Court said the murder was intentional and premediated, rejecting the murderer's claim that he had killed the woman impulsively.

The ruling also showed that Jeon had high chances of perpetrating repeat murders, and he was not forgiven by the bereaved family of the victim. It, however, indicated that Jeon showed signs of regretting his past wrongdoings.

Prosecutors had earlier sought a death sentence for the murder suspect, given the gravity of the crime.

Jeon and the murdered woman worked together at Seoul Metro in 2018. Since then, Jeon sent her a slew of abusive text messages, including illegally filmed footage. He also blackmailed her when she tried to cut off all contact. Jeon was fired for harassment and stalking, but this did not stop his misconduct.

In August 2022, Jeon’s prosecutors sought a nine-year prison term for stalking. He learned the victim's location via unauthorized access to Seoul Metro's internal network. A day before the court ruling that would have found Jeon guilty of stalking, he waited for an hour at a restroom in Sindang Station until she appeared, and stabbed her there to death. She was 28.