The news of that day has passed, but its meaning remains with us today. "That Day, Today" reads the present through the records of the past. — Editor's note
Stalking is not love. Yet there was a case in which relentless obsession ended in murder. The victim did her job until her final moment.
Sept. 14, 2022. Jeon Joo-hwan, 31, stabbed a 28-year-old female station attendant to death in the women's restroom at Sindang Station on Seoul Subway Line 2. The two had joined the company in the same year.
Three Years of Stalking, Two Complaints
Jeon and the victim joined Seoul Metro together in 2018. Beginning in November 2019, Jeon stalked her for nearly three years, placing calls and sending text messages more than 350 times. In October 2021, the victim filed a criminal complaint against him on charges of illegal filming. Police made an emergency arrest and Seoul Metro suspended him from his post, but a court rejected a request for a detention warrant, saying there was no risk of flight.
Even after being indicted, Jeon pressed the victim to settle, telling her, "Are you going to ruin my life?" When he was reported again in January 2022, this time on stalking charges, he promised he would stop contacting her but did not keep that promise. With additional charges including illegal filming and using the footage to threaten her, prosecutors had sought a nine-year prison term, and a first-ruling was scheduled for Sept. 15.
Although he had been suspended, Jeon exploited the fact that he remained an employee of the company. On the afternoon of Aug. 18, the day prosecutors demanded a nine-year sentence at his final hearing, he logged into the internal network from an office at Jeungsan Station on Line 6 and looked up the victim's work schedule. He did the same on Sept. 3 and again on the morning of Sept. 14, the day of the killing.
On the evening of Sept. 14, Jeon went to the victim's former address but did not find her. Unaware that she had moved, he concluded she was deliberately avoiding him and headed to Sindang Station. Wearing a disposable hair cap, he loitered near the women's restroom for about an hour and 10 minutes, then followed the victim as she was on patrol and attacked her with a knife inside a restroom stall. For the attack, he had turned his jacket inside out to show a different color on the lining and had installed an app to block GPS tracking.
Wounded, the victim pressed an emergency bell to signal for help. In less than a minute, station staff and a social service worker rushed in and subdued Jeon. Paramedics arrived nine minutes later and took her to a hospital, but she died at 11:31 p.m. Her uncle said with tears in his eyes, "My niece did her job to the very end."
In February 2023, a lower court sentenced Jeon to 40 years in prison, and in July an appeals court raised the sentence to life imprisonment, calling retaliatory crime an offense that neutralizes the criminal justice system. On Oct. 12 that year, the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal and finalized the life sentence. A lawyer for the bereaved family said there should be no parole.
