A woman in her 20s died in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, after she was forced against her will to fight two teenage girls in succession under so-called "yacha rules," police said.
Cheongju Sangdang Police Station said on the 8th that it had arrested a woman in her 20s, identified as A, and her boyfriend on charges of joint coercion.
According to police, A and her boyfriend are accused of forcing a woman in her 20s, identified as B, to fight two teenagers, including a girl identified as C, one after the other at a park in Yongam-dong, Sangdang District, Cheongju, at around 12:20 a.m. on May 29.
B and the teenagers said at the time that they did not want to fight, but A and her boyfriend pressed them into a bout under so-called "yacha rules," police found. The term is slang for bare-knuckle fighting without rules or protective gear.
B was severely injured while fighting the two teenagers in succession and lost consciousness. She was taken to a hospital in cardiac arrest but died.
Police booked C and the other teenager without detention on charges of assault resulting in death. The five people involved in the case knew one another, and B and the teenagers had been on bad terms, according to police.
Immediately after the incident, A and her boyfriend gave police and fire authorities an account that differed from what actually happened. They said B had fallen while playing tag and lost consciousness after someone running behind her landed on top of her. In one statement, they said the other person's buttocks had pressed down on B's face.
But police confirmed that a fight had taken place after conducting an autopsy on B's body and seizing the phones of those involved for forensic analysis. Based on those findings, investigators believe B was forced to fight the two teenagers in succession and died after being beaten.
Police plan to question A and her boyfriend further about their motive and the circumstances of the case before sending it to prosecutors.
