A wealth and status-obsessed Korean taekwondo teacher has admitted murdering one of his students and the seven-year-old boy’s parents in Sydney.
Kyung Kwang Yoo, 51, pleaded guilty to three counts of murder in Parramatta Local Court on Thursday and will be sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court later this year, Newswire reported.
No motive for the murders was revealed in court, but police said in court documents that Yoo was a serial liar “obsessed” with status, wealth and luxury items who faked credentials and told people his parents and wife had died of Covid, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
According to a statement of agreed facts, Yoo first strangled his student’s mother Min Kyung Cho, 41, in the storeroom of his North Parramatta martial arts studio while her son waited at reception, before killing the boy the same way.
In between the first two murders he called his wife to say a BMW he had told her he was expecting to receive as a work car from a school where he had a part-time job “had arrived”.
Yoo then drove Ms Cho’s BMW X5 to her family home in Baulkham Hills where he broke in and waited for her husband Hyun Soo “Steven” Cho, 39, to arrive before attacking him with a knife and scissors.
Mr Cho fought back, leaving Yoo with a punctured lung and multiple other stab wounds, but died of injuries to his head, neck and torso.
Yoo told police he had been attacked by three men in a Woolworths carpark and that he’d driven himself to hospital in his own Toyota Camry, but his lies unravelled when detectives checked CCTV and Yoo’s wife told them about the BMW.
Police then found blood in the car, documents for the sale of a multi-million dollar home in Mosman, and a fake Master’s degree from Sydney University in Yoo’s name.
Yoo, who called himself “Master Lion”, also lied about having a PhD, representing South Korea at the 2000 Olympics, owning a home with a view of the Harbour Bridge and a Lamborghini, travelling to New York and California, and owning property in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
Police said he inspected luxury properties after lying to real estate agents and telling them he had a budget of $50 million to act on behalf of his parents or wealthy employer.
“During the investigation, police obtained evidence that suggested that the offender (Yoo) had interests in luxury items, social status and wealth,” the court documents state.
Header image: Left, Kyung Kwang Yoo. Right, Min Kyung Cho and Hyun Soo “Steven” Cho (supplied).
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