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Daegu suitcase murder suspect indicted, wife released without charges

Published: 28 Apr. 2026, 17:41

Cho Jae-bok, who was indicted on April 28 of killing his mother-in-law and disposing of her body in a suitcase in a stream in Daegu. [DAEGU METROPOLITAN POLICE AGENCY]

Prosecutors in Daegu on Tuesday indicted Cho Jae-bok on charges of killing his mother-in-law and dumping her body in a suitcase, but released his wife without filing charges after finding that she had been forced to act as his accomplice.

Cho has been charged by the Daegu District Prosecutors’ Office with killing a relative — which is classified as a more serious form of homicide under Korean law — and disposing of the body.

His wife, who has not been identified, had been accused of assisting in disposing of her mother’s body.

The decision to charge only Cho was based on footage from a home camera system, which showed that Cho had confined both his wife and her mother at their residence, subjected them to repeated abuse and ultimately beat his mother-in-law to death before discarding her body.

According to investigators, the wife was found to have suffered injuries including fractured ribs at the time she was handed over to prosecutors by police, suggesting she had suffered sustained violence.

Prosecutors concluded that she had aided her husband in the disposal of the body under duress, with no realistic means of resisting.

The prosecution cited Article 12 of the Criminal Act, which exempts individuals from punishment if they commit an act under “violence they cannot resist” or threats that leave no way to protect themselves or close relatives from harm.

“The husband’s abuse negates his wife’s criminal responsibility,” a prosecution official said, adding that authorities “would support her medical treatment for physical and psychological harm as a victim of domestic violence.”

Jang’s murder of his mother-in-law came to light on March 31, when police received a report of a suspicious suitcase near Sincheon, a stream in Daegu. Officers who opened it found the body of a woman inside.

Cho and his wife were arrested later that evening at their residence in Daegu’s Jung District.

Police said Cho fatally assaulted his mother-in-law on March 18, reportedly because he thought that she was noisy while washing dishes and had failed to keep the home tidy.

He is accused of placing her body in a suitcase after her death and abandoning it with his wife’s aid at the stream, located about a 20-minute walk away from the couple’s residence.

Cho is also alleged to have confined his wife to their home to prevent her from reporting the crime.

A preliminary autopsy by the National Forensic Service determined the cause of the mother-in-law’s death to be multiple injuries resulting from external force.

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 BAEK KYUNG-SEO [[email protected]]