Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Echoes of Survivors: Inside Korea’s Tragedies’ presents different criminal cases in South Korea that shook the country due to the nature of their brutality. The fifth and sixth episodes focus on the crimes of the Chijon family, where a group of young men, disillusioned by the system and disgruntled by the rich, decided to trap, extort, and kill rich people. They planned meticulously for the whole thing and even created an entire house to be the place where they could undertake their activities without drawing suspicion. What makes their crimes even worse is the allegations about eating their victims. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Cannibalisation in the Chijon Family Remains a Point of Contention
The Chijon family was caught after their sole surviving victim, Lee Jeong-su, found a way to escape and told the cops about their deeds. What they found in the house, and particularly the basement, was spine-chilling. It is confirmed that they killed their victims and burned two of them in the incinerator they had installed expressly for that purpose. However, whether or not they ate their victims remains uncertain. The strongest evidence for the case comes from the part where Kim Hyeon-yang was asked if he and his group really ate the flesh of their victims. He replied that it was just him, and he did it because he wanted to do away with his humanity. He also added that his only regret was that he didn’t get to kill all the rich people. This remorseless manner conveys that perhaps he really did eat his victims. However, there is no confirmation of it officially, and neither he nor any other member of his group was found guilty of cannibalism in the court of law.
Another reason to believe that there may have been cannibalism involved comes from the account of the victim, Lee Jeong-su. According to her account in the Netflix series, the group kidnapped a couple who owned a small business and extorted money from them. After they had received the money, they decided to kill the couple. Lee said that she was forced to kill the man by shooting him with a gun that was put in her hands by one of the criminals. According to the Daily Mail, after the couple was killed, Lee was forced to eat the raw liver of the man she’d been forced to kill. The same thing is also alleged in a South Korean podcast, which featured former detective Kim Bok-jun, who has 32 years of experience in the force, along with a psychologist who tried to understand the psyche of the criminals and the victims.
The Chijon Family’s Cruelty Allegedly Extended to Animals
One of the facts presented in the docuseries is that the members of the Chijon family burned the bodies of their victims. To mask the stench, they came up with the idea of barbecuing pork in their front yard, so that the neighbours wouldn’t be alarmed by any smell. Their plan worked as one of the neighbours passed by their house, and he believed that the young men were simply cooking meat and having a good time. He had no idea the incinerator in their basement was disposing of two dead bodies. Before they kidnapped and killed strangers, the group killed one of their own.
In their first crime, they attacked, raped, and killed a woman and then buried her body in the forest. One of the gang members, Song Bong-u, started feeling guilty and horrified by what he and his friends had done. So, he decided to take whatever money they had pooled together and run away. One of the core philosophies of the group was that they would kill the traitors. Now, Song Bong-u was a traitor, so they came after him. At first, they made it look like they were ready to forgive him and invited him to have a meal with them. Reportedly, the meal they intended to share would have dog meat in it. According to the previously mentioned podcast, the leader, Kim Gi-hwan, thought that hunting and killing a dog would prepare his group for the task of hunting and killing Bong-u.
In their previous murder, there was no blood involved, and Gi-hwan wanted to prepare his group for it. Thus, before they mercilessly killed young Bong-u, the group also allegedly killed a dog and then ate it. They were eventually arrested and found guilty of robbery, murder, and abandonment of a corpse. For their crimes, they received the death penalty, and they were executed two days later. Their case received worldwide attention, and it also made some wonder how many more people would have died if Lee Jeong-su hadn’t escaped and alerted the authorities. Reportedly, the group had a list of more than 1200 VIP customers, which included some high-profile names. The Chijon family had every intention of finding and killing all these people, but fortunately, their nefarious plans did not come to pass.
Read More: Lee Hyo-Jin: What Happened to the Chijon Family Survivor?
