SBS
Asleep, or lifeless? The light of a star will shine only in memories.
“As I told you“. This song is perhaps not unknown to you, after being covered by popular groups such as BTS and STRAY KIDS. It was actually sung by KIM SUNGJAE, rising star of Kpop, found dead the day after his solo debut at SBS GAYO.
Born on April 18, 1972, KIM SUNGJAE is the son of an educator and a businessman. Led to travel often because of his father’s work, he learns foreign languages, and discovers within himself a passion and a certain talent for music. He quickly joined a children’s dance group, and growing up, he decided in 1993 to create a duo of Kpop with his best friend LEE HYUNDO, under the name DEUX.
Aged 21, SUNGJAE was introduced to the world in April, when his group released the title «Look at me and turn around me» which became an immediate success. The two boys were quickly recognized as fashion icons, and their talent in dance, singing, and composition was recognized by critics. SUNGJAE became a model, and DEUX conquered Korea by becoming one of the most popular and influential groups of the 1990s.
Within the duo, HYUNDO was in charge of the composition of DEUX’s songs, and SUNGJAE was in charge of the choreography as well as the artistic direction of the group. But quickly, despite the many musical victories and trophies received, the duo disbanded in 1995, as the two boys wanted to go solo. Nevertheless, they remain very close and promise to reform DEUX after they managed to find success solo. It is therefore on November 19, 1995 that SUNGJAE makes its debut with the title «As I told you».
Here again, success is there, this first performance unleashes the crowds and fans of DEUX and SUNGJAE want more, not knowing that the performance he held at SBS GAYO was the first and last of his career that rhymed with glory. Once his performance is complete, he returns to his hotel, in room 57 of the Swiss Grand Hotel in Seoul, accompanied by his manager, six of his dancers—two of them foreign—and his girlfriend, known to the public. The team spends the evening together, drinks a few beers, and then decides to go to bed each in a room, SUNGJAE spending the night with his partner.
At six o’clock the next morning, on November 20, the manager tries to wake up SUNGJAE, without success. Thinking him tired of his performance the day before, which he had been waiting for weeks, he let him sleep another hour. At seven o’clock, however, it is appalled that he notices that the singer is actually dead, and he rushes to warn the authorities. He noted, however, a strange fact: the day before, he had started the washing machine so that it will stopped around 3:45 in the morning, but at six o’clock it was still turning. The police, once arrived on the scene, declared KIM SUNGJAE dead of a cardiac arrest, probably linked to overwork.
Once the autopsy is done, it is discovers that the 23-year-old has 28 puncture marks on his right arm. Hypotheses of an suicide emerge, maybe SUNGJAE was using drugs? But something does not add up: SUNGJAE being right-handed, how could he have pricked himself on the right arm with precision? The lead of drug overdose was quickly cleared, but the shock persists in the population who lost one of its most beloved artists.
In addition, SUNGJAE used to take off his t-shirt on stage or backstage, so someone would have noticed if he was using drugs. He also slept shirtless, or sometimes dressed in a t-shirt, but he was found dead in a sweater offered by his girlfriend, not yet washed up of his performance a few hours earlier. The singer’s mother is formal: never, ever her son would go to bed without removing his make-up, aware that it was necessary to have perfect skin to be an idol. The fact that he was found wearing makeup, in a sweater, is more than intriguing.
On December 5, autopsy results went out for further chemical analysis and its result surprises Korea: SUNGJAE died from an overdose of Tiletamine Zolazepam, also called Zoletil, an animal anesthetic, a first in the peninsula’s criminal investigations. The Zoletil clogging the veins, that could have explained why he was pricked so many times. But the police had previously thought that he had died of a heart attack, so precautions were not taken to preserve the crime scene and the body of the deceased, leading a few years later to a cold case…
Immediately, the girlfriend is charged with murder, being the last person to have seen SUNGJAE alive after sharing his hotel room. Besides, she was known to be obsessed with the singer. She regularly phoned him, or her friends, to find out what he was doing, when, where and with whom, and even went on stage during a performance of DEUX to shout to the fans to leave her boyfriend alone, shot him «by accident» with a gas gun, and tied him up with duct tape in his bed so that he could not go out and sign a contract related to his musical career. Dating for two years before his death, SUNGJAE had tried to break up.
Shortly before his solo debut, the idol travelled to the United States where he met another young woman. Upset to know her ex-boyfriend in the arms of another woman, the one who was called KIM by the media to protect her identity called up to sixty times a day the singer. On his return to Korea, he gets back in a relationship with KIM, perhaps out of fatigue, fear, or, because they had settled their relationship problems. Even if the reasons for this rapprochement were never known, it was said that at the time of the artist’s death, the couple was on the same page and did not quarrel as much as before.
This extreme behavior led the investigators on her lead. It was soon learned that she had bribed the police not to perform an autopsy, but after it had been done, she asked the coroner to declare him dead of a heart attack, which again was not listened, since he brought evidence of the Zoletil poisoning before the court. Even more troubling, KIM bought Tiletamine in early November at a veterinary clinic.
During the trial that lasted two years and three months, the young woman defended herself as having bought the drug to euthanize her dog who suffered from health problems, then she changed her version to say that she had thought of committing suicide so much her love for SUNGJAE was strong. However, she did kill her dog, which she immediately replaced with one of the same breed so that her relatives would not realize anything. She even went back to the veterinary pharmacist on December 1, after the death of her partner, to tell him not to inform the police that she had bought the product from him. She also informed SUNGJAE of this purchase, claiming that it was for her dog, telling him not to tell anyone.
Fans, and the victim’s lawyers were quick to think that the dog was just a test to see if the high-dose Zoletil injection was lethal, especially since KIM would have asked the pharmacist if the chemical molecules of the drug could appear on an autopsy report. Also, she was a medical student at the time, so she knew how and where to sting someone. It did not take more for the police to arrest him, thinking that the motive was a potential rupture between the two lovers. She will be sentenced to death in a first trial, whose sentence will be relaxed on appeal to become a life sentence. The judge said in the KIM trial:
« Before KIM SUNGJAE flew to the United States on November 15, 1994, he broke up with his girlfriend on the phone. The girlfriend then decided to commit the crime, and bought animal anesthetics, magnesium sulfate, and two syringes from an animal clinic in Seocho-gu, and told the clinic not to tell anyone about her purchase. The day he performed on a music show, he was tired, so she lied to him telling him that she was going to inject him with an invigorating substance, and injected it into his right arm 28 times to make him look like a drug addict who died of an overdose. »
KIM did not let it happen, the young woman who was 25 when SUNGJAE died appealed a second time. The washing machine is one of the arguments of the victim’s party, claiming that the washing times did not coincide, and that she had to turn a second machine around four o’clock before leaving the hotel, probably to mask possible noise. But suddenly, the pharmacist changed his words, saying he no longer remembers whether or not he sold KIM the Zoletil. For lack of evidence incriminating her, she is acquitted and immediately released.
During the two previous trials, KIM’s lawyer had tried to blame one of the foreign dancers of SUNGJAE, who would have been jealous of the success of the young man, dancer who had taken the plane on the 20th to return home what seemed suspicious. The charges were quickly dropped, and HYUNDO, SUNGJAE’s best friend and member of DEUX, publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the knowledge that her friend’s killer [KIM] was free despite the overwhelming evidence.
KIM comes from a wealthy and influential family, and one of her uncles being a renowned politician, many suspicions surround her acquittal. Today, she is married, dentist, and has changed her name and face after receiving cosmetic surgery to not be harassed by SUNGJAE fans. These same fans have petitioned to reopen the case, as recently as 2021, but a law protects KIM: if someone was acquitted in a trial, they can no longer be charged with the same criminal case, even if new evidence confirms the guilt of the accused.
In 2019, the SBS channel wanted to broadcast a program twice about the death of SUNGJAE in the show «UNANSWERED QUESTION», which was banned from broadcasting following a complaint from KIM for damaging her public image, the program having been shot without her agreement, but using her name and image. In the show, new evidence is revealed, and the mother of SUNGJAE was among the guests. In the second broadcast ban, the judge stated:
« The previous broadcast and this one differ only in their reasoning, but in the end, they both suggest that the plaintiff of the injunction [KIM] could have committed the murder.»
It was however recognized that KIM had purchased 5ml of Zoletil, 7mg of magnesium sulfate, and two syringes. According to the pharmacist heard during the trials, 5ml would have allowed SUNGJAE to sleep in a few minutes for a quarter of an hour, but would not have killed him, as it would have taken fifty 5ml vials to make the product fatal. In June 2023, the SBS producer said he would try by all means to get his documentary out, even if it had to go through Netflix, because being an American platform, it could not be banned from broadcasting even while being diffused in Korea. If the documentary is release, it will be divided into three episodes.
The death of SUNGJAE remains one of the most significant and enigmatic in the world of the Kpop. With the information to our knowledge, do you have a hypothesis? Who do you think committed the crime? The family of the artist, and mainly his brother, continues to fight to know the truth, so that SUNGJAE can one day rest in peace and that his murderer is locked behind bars.
Journalist : Pillet Anaïs
Sources : KSTATION TV, see under the pictures
