Maggots ate her alive while her husband did nothing

When emergency responders entered the apartment, they found a woman slumped in a massage chair.

She was still alive, but only barely.

She was covered in feces. Tens of thousands of maggots crawled through her body and the apartment. The paramedics paused in disbelief as they took in the scene. The woman's calves and armpits were ravaged by deep pressure sores, where tissue had turned necrotic.

She died in a hospital a day later, but the most disturbing fact emerged only afterward: She was not living alone. Her husband, a 38-year-old Army noncommissioned officer, had been living with her in the same apartment since they tied the knot in 2016.

The husband was charged with murder by omission — meaning that he failed to take necessary measures to save her life, despite his duty to do so. He even denied his knowledge of her condition, defending his actions with statements including:

"I couldn't smell anything."

"I didn't realize my wife was that sick."

"I thought she was getting better."

"She refused to go to the hospital, and I respected her decision.”

His claims raised more questions than they answered. So the JoongAng Ilbo scrutinized each one.

This reporter pieced together the puzzle of the woman's tragic, forlorn death — through the initial verdict and investigation records that the JoongAng Ilbo exclusively obtained. The woman's family also gave their consent for the reporter to study the victim's phone, diary and handwritten letters.

The material offered a window into her final months. What emerged was deeply disturbing.

Perhaps the hardest claim to accept was the husband's insistence that he never realized what was happening inside the apartment, even though his home had become a breeding ground for filth and maggots.

“It was just like a fishy smell from water,” he said when the judge asked during the trial whether he had smelled anything unusual.

However, purchase records told a different story.

Over the previous three months, the couple's joint shopping account recorded nearly 20 purchases of Febreze, air fresheners and deodorizing products. Video recorded inside the apartment by the victim's sister after her death also showed air fresheners scattered throughout the home.

“Maggots appearing on a living human body is something you would expect to see only on a battlefield,” Yoo Seong-ho, a professor of forensic medicine at Seoul National University, said.

The infestation served as a timeline. The victim had been left in an environment where maggots could survive for at least two to three weeks, according to Yoo.

What really happened inside that apartment? And what was her husband doing while his wife was slowly dying on the couch?

The truth was inside her phone

Before her death, the 38-year-old victim had worked as a nursing assistant at a traditional Korean medicine clinic. She had been cheerful, outspoken and resilient — that’s how her family remembers her.

That's also why they found it almost impossible to believe she had spent months confined to a recliner without ever leaving her room.

"When she worked at the clinic, if a patient spoke to her disrespectfully, she'd ask, 'Why are you talking to me like that?'" her older sister said. "She was never someone who kept quiet or couldn't stand up for herself. I still don't know when or why that changed."

The husband had his own explanation.

“My wife had suffered from depression and panic disorder since quitting her job in 2024,” the husband said.

Yet prosecutors found no record of psychiatric treatment when they reviewed her national health insurance medical records.

The answers were not only in court records. The victim had left behind a record of her final weeks — photos taken from her cellphone and a handwritten diary.

She could no longer move, but she could still reach for her phone. She photographed herself sitting on the bedding along with the surrounding spaces.

She never sent them to anyone. She simply kept them.

After looking through the photos, her sister fell silent.

Maybe she hoped that someday someone would see them, so they'd know what she had been going through," the sister said.

Signs of looming death

As death drew closer, another pattern emerged.

On some days, YouTube logged more than 23 hours of playback. Most of the videos were eating shows, widely known as mukbang.

Every day seemed to end the same way. The last video playing was almost always from the TV comedy “Why Can’t We Stop Them” (2000). Episode after episode of the cheerful family sitcom played on — as she lay dying alone.

Left alone for hours, she seemed to spend the time watching other people eat and drifted off to the sounds of another family's everyday life.

By then, she could no longer move on her own.

The skin that had been pressing against the chair for months had broken down into severe pressure sores. More than 7 liters of abdominal fluid had accumulated in her body. The official cause of death was septic shock caused by infection.

Proper meals were long gone. So were the signs of health from her face and body. When she was found, little remained but skin and bones.

Earlier messages between her and her husband pointed to a different life, one filled with small conversations about what to have for dinner. Gradually, however, the conversations became shorter.

And eventually, the conversations stopped. The husband no longer asked what she wanted to eat. Instead, he simply sent photos of convenience store shelves.

The pictures she took inside her room told the rest of the story: boxes of Choco Pies and drinks.

Five chilling behaviors spoke louder than words

The military court sentenced the husband to 30 years in prison. He was found guilty of murder by omission. The legal reasoning was straightforward: he could have saved her life but failed to act.

What the husband did while his wife was dying is laid out in the court records, step by step.

① The dog got care. His wife didn't.

The dog made it to the doctor four times that October. The husband carried the dog.

His wife never got nearly the same level of medical care.

Veterinary records show the visits were due to the dog's diarrhea. Nothing life-threatening was found.

At the same time, his wife remained confined to a recliner in the master bedroom, where infected bedsores slowly consumed her body.

"I would have taken her to the hospital right away if I knew she was sick,” the husband said in court.

But she did tell him — multiple times through KakaoTalk messages and even letters. 

“Please take me to a doctor,” she wrote in a handwritten letter.

② A diet of snacks, a room of trash

What passed for meals reduced over time: crackers, bread and soft drinks.

The trash kept growing. Eventually, there was no space left even to set down another meal.

Asked why he never cleaned the room, the husband offered a simple explanation.

"She told me not to."

He knew, by his own account, that his wife was no longer mentally well. Still, he said, he did as she asked.

③  The final night before the emergency call

On Nov. 16 of last year, the night before he called paramedics, the husband put on latex gloves and a face mask.

Then he cleaned the bathroom attached to the bedroom.

Later, he told investigators his wife had spilled soup on the blanket. That same night, he replaced it with a clean one and sealed the old blanket inside a plastic bag on the veranda.

By the next morning, the blanket was crawling with maggots. On Nov. 18, 2025, she died. 

④ Family wasn't first

The first call the husband made after dialing 119 was not to his wife's family.

It was to his part-time employer — simply to say he would not be coming in.

His wife's family did not hear from him until about 20 minutes after she had been placed in the ambulance.

⑤  Search history tells a story

Then came the search history.

The husband then searched for phrases including "neglecting a mentally ill person" and "solitary death cleanup,” according to court records.

While his wife was fighting for her life, he appeared to be researching his own legal exposure and cleanup services.

Every time he got drunk, she pressed record

Was she really suffering from depression and withdrawing from the world? Her diary suggests she was.

"I want to die. I can't sleep."

"I had a panic attack in the car."

Her KakaoTalk history tells a similar story. Beginning in late 2024, her conversations with friends grew noticeably less frequent.

Whatever had happened, the records leave little doubt that she was in psychological distress.

But another question remained. If she had been suffering, why did her husband leave her that way?

In court, he described their marriage in simple terms.

"We loved and depended on each other. We were happier than most couples."

He maintained that her depression began only after she left her job and insisted there had been no serious problems between them.

“Have you ever mistreated your wife after drinking heavily?” prosecutors asked.

“No,” he said without hesitation.

Her family told a different story.

Among the files on her phone were five voice recordings. She had recorded them during phone calls with her husband when he was intoxicated.

A recording from Oct. 16, 2023

• Husband: I'm sorry.

• Wife: You said you'd help me get through this. Instead, you're making everything harder. You're always the problem.

• Husband: I'm sorry.

• Wife: What's the point of apologizing if you keep doing it? It never changes. I'll never see your parents again. They raised you to be like this.

The intoxicated husband slurred his words throughout the recording. His wife sounded exhausted.

The conversations lasted only between one and 10 minutes, but they painted a relationship very different from the one he described in court.

The diary was not the only record of his drinking.

Neighbors told investigators that the husband regularly ordered alcohol by the case.

One diary entry read: "He came home drunk again. I want a divorce."

Debt and spending

Prosecutors said the husband had accumulated about 80 million won ($52,200) in debt through alcohol, living expenses and other spending.

"His expenditures were extraordinarily high compared with his income, and most of the money was spent on eating, entertainment and leisure," military prosecutors argued.

"Wasn't the reason you spent so recklessly that you expected to collect the insurance money if your wife died?" prosecutors asked. "No," he said.

Whether his drinking or debt directly contributed to the deterioration of the marriage remains unclear.

The victim can no longer speak. Her husband denies everything.

What is clear, however, is that serious conflict had existed between them for years. Her diary hinted that she had known more than her family realized.

"Our finances are in bad shape,” she penned in April 2023. “We are more than 10 million won in debt."

She wrote a few days later.

I've felt miserable all day. I really want to die. The stress has filled my head with dark thoughts."

Unspoken details in court

The court focused more on whether the husband had knowingly failed to provide care that could have saved her life, and less on her mental condition.

The verdict described the victim: "Beginning around March 2025, for 'unknown reasons,' she remained in a recliner in the master bedroom, unable to leave or perform even the simplest acts needed to survive. She could no longer eat or use the bathroom on her own."

The court found that the husband knew no one else was available to care for her, as well as the fact that taking her to a hospital could save her.

He "found her mental illness irritating and caring for her burdensome," according to the ruling. He did nothing that might have saved her. Instead, he fed her little more than snacks, bread and drinks, left her waste uncleaned and neglected her where she lay.

For the court, the legal question centered on neglect. For her family, the questions run much deeper: Where did this death truly begin?

For them, punishment alone is not enough. They continue to ask whether that is where the state's responsibility ends.

"It's not enough to prove only how the husband neglected his wife and let her die," a family member said.

"We also need to understand why someone who had been healthy became so sick, and whether her husband contributed to that. What if he was the primary cause?"

Suspicious insurance policies 

In November 2024, the payment account for two insurance policies in the victim's name was changed from her bank account to the husband's.

"My wife told me she didn't want to use a credit card anymore, so I took over the premium payments," the husband said.

He claimed she personally contacted the insurers to change the payment account. Her relatives question the timing.

The account changes coincided with the period when she became increasingly isolated and unable to function independently, according to investigators.

His departure from the military also raised suspicions. The husband applied for discharge from the Army in May 2025, even though he was only a few years away from becoming eligible for a military pension.

“I resigned to care for my wife,” the husband said in court. But he reportedly told his colleagues that he was leaving "to avoid assignment in remote regions."

After leaving the military, the husband appeared to be planning a new future.

KakaoTalk messages from July 2025 show him sharing detailed plans with his wife of starting a cleaning business with a friend, including business registration, possible locations and startup costs.

She never replied. So what future was he imagining while his wife was dying?

Forensic evidence speaks for itself

Even forensic experts say the case still holds unanswered questions, and the woman's body can provide answers. The victim had sustained fractures to her clavicle and to the first through sixth ribs on the right side. 

What follows are excerpts from Prof. Yoo's forensic analysis. 

Q. Could fractures to six ribs and the clavicle occur without external trauma?

Ribs Nos. 2 through 6 can fracture during cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but fractures of the first rib or the clavicle are extremely rare. A fracture involving both the first rib and the clavicle points to injury caused by external force or blunt impact.

Could the rib fractures have left her unable to move?

A fractured first rib and clavicle would cause excruciating pain with even the slightest movement. Even breathing could be painful. I can't say definitively that she became unable to move because she was assaulted.

But I can say there was physical force, and that it likely contributed to restricting her mobility.

She died of septic shock. Would earlier medical treatment have saved her?

When she was found, the disease had already progressed beyond the point of recovery. She had severe ascites and impaired liver function. Septic shock develops when bacteria spread through the bloodstream and toxins begin damaging the entire body.

The key question in this case is not simply how she died, but how her husband remained beside her while her condition deteriorated to that stage without seeking help.

The husband says he never noticed the smell of her flesh rotting. Is that scientifically possible?

It makes no sense. Ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and butyric acid released during tissue necrosis are extremely pungent compounds. The smell is far stronger than fermented skate — known as hongeo in Korean. It's not something you can cover up with Febreze, air fresheners or incense sticks. Even someone with chronic rhinitis (inflamed nasal cavity) would be able to smell it.

If she had been suffering from severe depression or panic disorder, could she have refused treatment to the point that it led to her death?

Even someone with depression or panic disorder doesn't simply endure that degree of physical pain. When the pain becomes that severe, people naturally seek help from others — that was, indeed, shown in one of the victim's handwritten notes.

Could anything else be inferred from the wife’s handwritten letter?

The tone suggests she was desperately asking for help while trying not to upset her husband. The victim was an adult woman, and she had a cellphone. So why did she write a note to her husband instead of contacting her family directly? A psychological autopsy would be needed, but this appears closer to the traits often seen in long-term abuse — what is commonly called brainwashing or gaslighting.

She knew she needed help, but the fact that she could not ask anyone except her husband suggests she may have been under that level of coercive control. 

Was the victim in an environment that made her vulnerable to gaslighting?

In Paju, she had no family or support network. Her husband was the only person she could rely on. After leaving her job, she rarely went outside. For reasons that remain unclear, she complained of back and leg pain and became confined to her room. 

The more isolated a person becomes, the more deeply and quickly gaslighting can take hold.

Can maggots appear on the body of a living person?

It is scientifically possible for maggots to grow on a living person. When an open wound, warm seasonal conditions that allow flies to reach the body, and prolonged poor hygiene occur together, flies can lay eggs in necrotic tissue, where the larvae develop.

Yoo estimated that the victim had been left in those conditions for at least two to three weeks, considering maggots' life cycle. 

Taking into account the time it would have taken for septic shock — the direct cause of her death — to develop, the forensic expert said the overall period of neglect likely lasted anywhere from about one month to as long as three months.

Facade of a devoted son-in-law

While his wife was wasting away, the husband sent his mother-in-law photographs of healthy meals with meat that she was supposedly eating. He assured her that her daughter was eating well.

None of it was true, but the mother trusted him completely.

He checked in more often than her daughter did. He rarely let a holiday pass without visiting, and he often stopped by on ordinary days as well. He was warm, thoughtful and quick to lend a hand.

Those who knew the family said she praised her son-in-law more often than she praised her own daughter.

The family had not seen their daughter for months because they trusted him.

He had told them she was struggling with depression and panic disorder. They knew little about panic disorder and feared that showing up unannounced might only make things worse.

Whenever they expressed concern, the husband offered the same reassurance.

"She's getting better,” their son-in-law said. "Please don't worry too much."

Worried about her daughter's worsening condition, the mother tried several times to visit the couple's military housing in Paju, Gyeonggi. Each time, the son-in-law persuaded her not to come.

"She's getting better, and it won't do any good if you come now,” he said. "What if seeing you only makes her condition worse?"

The family stepped back.

For them, staying away was a way of helping. That’s what they thought.

Behind the closed bedroom door, however, their daughter remained confined to a recliner. She was there dying alone in agony.

"How could my daughter possibly have said she didn't want to go to the hospital when she was that sick?" her mother said in court. "Her organs were failing. There wasn't a single part of her body that hadn't been destroyed. Who could possibly believe that?"

The case is not over. After the initial ruling, both the prosecutors and the defendant appealed. The first appellate hearing is scheduled for mid-July at the Seoul High Court.

I can't live with this. I won't be silent — not until the day I die," said the victim's mother.

BY JEONG SAE-HEE, HONG SUNG-HYUN AND KIM EUN-JI [[email protected]]