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Court upholds 30 year sentences for woman, shaman who beat man to death over ritual fees

Published: 19 Aug. 2025, 11:50 Updated: 19 Aug. 2025, 20:34

In this photo unrelated to the article, a shaman performs a ritual [JOONGANG ILBO]

Supreme Court upheld long prison terms for a woman, her daughter and a shaman who beat the woman’s ex-husband to death in a scheme to extract money for ritual fees.

The court on Tuesday announced that it confirmed 30-year sentences each for the 40-year-old woman and the shaman, who orchestrated the crime. The woman’s daughter, now in her 20s, received a 10-year term. The woman's teenage son also took part but was not prosecuted because he was legally a juvenile.

The woman and the shaman met in 2017 when she consulted her for predictions about her construction business. When the shaman’s predictions proved accurate, the woman grew devoted to her. After divorcing in 2020, the woman moved into the shaman’s home and began helping with household chores. Together, they devised ways to extract money from the woman’s ex-husband, insisting his children needed shamanic rituals due to suffering from shamanic illnesses.

Following the shaman’s instructions, the children pretended to be possessed by spirits. The daughter pretended to be possessed by a “great-grandmother” and the son by a “general.” The ex-husband, believing the act, raised money through fraud and loans to pay for the ceremonies. He was later fined twice for the related fraud.

When he could no longer provide money, the woman and the shaman as well as the two children plotted violence. They prepared a script and for six days, they berated him, staged possessions and beat him more than 500 times.

On May 9, he died from multiple injuries, including fractures and internal bleeding. The group argued they had acted out of rage, not with intent to rob or kill. Prosecutors rejected that claim and charged them with robbery and murder.

A court last year sentenced the woman and the shaman to life in prison, calling the crime “literally beating a man to death” and denouncing the shaman as the mastermind who manipulated others through “gaslighting.” An appeals court reduced the life sentences to 30 years, citing the defendants’ eventual call to emergency services as evidence of potential for rehabilitation.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld those sentences, ruling that the lower court had not erred in applying the law.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM JUN-YOUNG [[email protected]]