Yonhap News
October 20, 2008. As the sun rises, smoke rises into the air, a symbol of a fire in the heart of Seoul.
While the residents of the burning accommodation escape to save their lives, six dead people are found, and seven end up injured. But how did this deadly fire break out? Discover the Nonhyeon-dong Goshiwon Murders case without further delay.
A goshiwon is accommodation consisting of small individual rooms, generally located around universities and offering inexpensive rent. In addition to students, people with modest incomes can also stay there, thus welcoming a variety of profiles. It was in this goshiwon that JEONG SANGJIN had been living since 2003, a man born on February 27, 1978, who moved to Seoul in 2002, where he began several small part-time jobs, notably as a waiter, parking valet, or food delivery driver. As these jobs did not allow him to earn a sufficient salary, he quickly moved into a goshiwon, regularly asking his sister to lend him money to meet his needs. In April 2008, he resigned from his job as a waiter, and a downward spiral began, as he gradually sank deeper, retreating into his darkest thoughts.
JEONG had already committed offenses in the past. Indeed, in 2007, he had been sentenced to pay a fine of 1.5 million won for repeatedly failing to attend his military training sessions during his mandatory military service. Furthermore, investigators established that JEONG had evidence dating back to 2004 regarding the development of his fatal plan, which would cost six people their lives on that tragic October 20. On that day, it was at 8:15 in the morning that he started a fire in his room on the third floor of the goshiwon (a fire that lasted only thirty minutes), before attacking the residents attempting to flee. JEONG was only thirty years old when he chose not to live anymore, taking other people with him.
The selfishness in this death had been observed a few years earlier, when, in 2003, KIM DAEHAN decided to set fire to the subway in the city of Daegu in order to commit suicide, killing 192 people in the process. JEONG set his bed on fire, took a sashimi knife (equipped with a 50 cm blade), and walked through the third and fourth floors while waiting for a victim. He cold-bloodedly killed five people with a bladed weapon, and one frightened person jumped out of the fourth-floor window, dying instantly. JEONG, wearing a mask, a headlamp, and glasses, was quickly arrested and was indicted on December 11 of the same year for murder, attempted murder, and arson resulting in deaths and injuries. He stated during the trial that he had attacked people at random, without any particular reason.
“One man came running out with his intestines almost spilling out. I think he had been slashed with a knife” – Anonymous witness
The fire was a pretext to get the residents out of their rooms before throwing himself at them. JEONG began by attacking a Chinese-Korean mother who had come to Korea in the hope of finding medical treatment for her son. He then attacked a job seeker, whom he stabbed three times in the abdomen, but who managed to escape and hide in one of the goshiwon‘s offices, where he called the emergency services. JEONG turned toward another victim, also a mother in her forties, who stepped between him and a young student from China, but both women were stabbed to death. A student was then attacked in the arm and side, but managed to get out of the goshiwon. By the time the emergency services and the police arrived, approximately 45 minutes had passed.
Although he would deny having targeted specific individuals during this episode, investigators would reveal that several victims were women of Chinese origin. It was fortunate that there were so few victims, as according to various articles from the time, the goshiwon, located in the Gangnam district, housed between 70 and 100 occupants at the time of the incident. During his arrest, JEONG was hiding in a storage room on the fourth floor and immediately admitted to the acts, while he had kitchen knives attached to his shoes and revolvers, as well as a spray gun, on his person. This crime deeply shocked the Nonhyeon-dong neighborhood, as JEONG was known as a quiet person with no history of trouble. Yet, when he was younger, he had attempted to commit suicide while in middle school because he felt uncomfortable in his own skin, but he had not received help or therapy at that time.
After the fire, the police searched his room, where they discovered various notebooks mentioning JEONG‘s distress and resentment toward society, considering his precarious financial situation unfair compared with that of most of the people around him at work. He wrote that he felt despised and rejected by society, and that he felt cornered by the military fine he had received. A psychiatric assessment during the trial declared JEONG to have been sane at the time of the fire and murders, but to have suffered from deep chronic depression.
A reconstruction of the events took place on October 23, while the trial found him guilty on December 11 of the same year. A large quantity of stuffed toys and objects from claw machines was discovered in JEONG‘s room, depicting an addictive behavior that was likely to worsen his debt. Furthermore, having purchased his knives and spray gun in 2004, the prosecution retained premeditation, which led to a death sentence on May 12, 2009. JEONG accepted his verdict, which became final in August 2009 after he refused to appeal. Nevertheless, no death sentence has been carried out in Korea since December 1997.
“The world ignored me. I didn’t want to live. I felt pressure because of rent, mobile phone bills and a penalty for missing training in the reserve force” – JEONG
Despite everything, like many cases covered by KSIS, this case helped advance Korean laws and regulations. For example, in 2013, insurance policies had to include, under civil liability, damage caused by fires in goshiwon. This type of accommodation is still very commonly used in Korea, and this case raised questions surrounding safety and evacuation systems. In the space of just five years, between 2003 and 2008, twenty-five people reportedly died in fires in goshiwon. Some sources attempt to establish a possible link between JEONG‘s fire and the Akihabara massacre in Japan on June 8, 2008. During this tragedy, the young TOMOHIRO KATO (25 years old) killed three people by running them over, then stabbed four others to death, leaving ten people injured. Sentenced to death in 2011, he was executed on July 26, 2022.
Other sources also mention the 2005 Korean film “A Bittersweet Life,” a film that JEONG particularly liked and which depicts the life of a hitman in a gang at night and a hotel manager during the day. In an article published by SBS in 2023 to provide a retrospective on the Nonhyeon-dong goshiwon case, it is stated that the victims’ families took legal action against the goshiwon owner regarding the building’s compliance with fire safety and evacuation regulations, which undoubtedly encouraged changes to the country’s regulations. A program (꼬꼬무) was also broadcast to reconstruct the events, also produced by SBS.
→ What about the death penalty in Korea?
As the death penalty remains suspended, it is highly likely that JEONG is still serving his sentence on death row at present. At the beginning of the month, an article by 서울신문 determined that one in three death-row inmates is over sixty years old, a statistic concerning fifty-two prisoners. Since 1997, several condemned prisoners have died of illness or old age on death row, the oldest being OH JONGGEUN, who died at the age of 87 in 2024. As for the most recent person to be sentenced to death, it was LIM DOBIN in 2014. Both were found guilty of murdering several people. Since the last recognized execution in 1997, demonstrations have taken place in Korea to reconsider the cases of prisoners on death row. As a result, current law provides for life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after a twenty-year minimum term for certain rare cases, but the majority of those sentenced fall under the law prohibiting parole.
As the death penalty remains suspended, it is highly likely that JEONG is still serving his sentence on death row at present. At the beginning of the month, an article by 서울신문 determined that one in three death-row inmates is over sixty years old, a statistic concerning fifty-two prisoners. Since 1997, several condemned prisoners have died of illness or old age on death row, the oldest being OH JONGGEUN, who died at the age of 87 in 2024. As for the most recent person to be sentenced to death, it was LIM DOBIN in 2014. Both were found guilty of murdering several people. Since the last recognized execution in 1997, demonstrations have taken place in Korea to reconsider the cases of prisoners on death row. As a result, current law provides for life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after a twenty-year minimum term for certain rare cases, but the majority of those sentenced fall under the law prohibiting parole.
Recently, on February 19, 2026, former president YOON SUKYEOL was sentenced to life imprisonment after the prosecution’s request for the death penalty on January 13, for his implementation of martial law on December 3, 2024, was rejected. He was found guilty of leading an insurrection, which could be considered a coup d’état, and the death penalty was once again requested during the appeal proceedings dated June 25. The trial is currently still ongoing.
Do you think a president deserves such a severe sentence for implementing martial law? Feel free to share your thoughts on this article in the comments!
Journalist: Pillet Anaïs
Translator : Pillet Anaïs
Sources: KSTATION TV, under the photos, in hyperlinks
