The identity of the true strangers in the slums has been revealed.
On the broadcast of SBS "Tails of Tales" on the 9th, the program tracked the tragic deaths of US military comfort women.
In 1992, a woman was brutally murdered in a slum in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi-do. The woman, who was found naked with her face crushed, died from blood loss due to a laceration on her forehead.
Several foreign objects were inserted into the victim's body, and the state of the corpse, which was too horrific to even describe, shocked viewers.
The name of the woman who died at a scene of such devastating insult, where human dignity was shattered, was Yun Geum-i. Through the investigation, the culprit was identified as Kenneth Markle, a 19-year-old private in the US 2nd Infantry Division.
However, the police did not even investigate or detain Markle after catching him. This was due to the clauses of the Korea-US SOFA agreement. The agreement, created on July 12, 1950, when the nation's safety was shaken by the outbreak of the Korean War, could not be considered fair.
Although a Korean in her 20s was brutally killed in Korea, the Korean side could not even detain the US military criminal. The investigation was conducted only during limited hours and in the presence of US officials, and the initiative for the initial investigation was held by the US side.
As a result, it was impossible for a proper investigation to take place. Eventually, public anger reached its peak, and the citizens of Dongducheon even gave up their livelihoods to hold a "US military rejection movement," demanding the punishment of Markle.
At the time, Korean society showed a lukewarm response to crimes committed by US soldiers, especially murder. From 1967 to 1987, there were 39,452 confirmed crimes committed by US soldiers, and only 234 of them went to trial in Korea.
On October 27, 1992, Markle, who visited a club in front of the base, encountered Yun Geum-i while returning in a drunken state and claimed that he had kindly walked her home. He then made a one-sided claim that Yun Geum-i attacked him there, and he committed violence in self-defense.
He also claimed that he was not involved in her death and that a US soldier named Lambert, who was usually close to Yun Geum-i, was the real culprit, having killed her out of jealousy after seeing them together. However, during the investigation, Lambert's alibi was confirmed, and Markle continued to repeat lies.
Furthermore, he sparked outrage with his outrageous remark about Yun Geum-i, saying, "She didn't do anything to deserve death, but she did do something to deserve a beating." Markle did not apologize to Yun Geum-i even in his final statement. Consequently, the court sentenced Markle to life imprisonment.
Markle, who did not accept the verdict, appealed, and in the appellate trial, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which was finalized by the Supreme Court.
Markle was 19 years old at the time of the crime. An expert analyzed his crime, noting, "It is displaced aggression. Expressing his own anger is prioritized over the goal of killing this person. Because Lambert is a difficult target to project his violence onto, he is insulting and instrumentalizing the victim. It is speculated that he mutilated the victim's body while she was still alive to demonstrate his own anger and omnipotence." There was even an analysis that Markle appeared to have an antisocial personality disorder.
Then why did Yun Geum-i become the protagonist of such a horrific incident? Around the same time, another murder occurred in Dongducheon. It was the death of a woman who lived in the same neighborhood and did the same work as Yun Geum-i. In fact, they were "camp town women" or US military comfort women, often called "Yang-gongju" or "Yang-saeksi."
The camp towns created by the state were places where the state permitted and encouraged prostitution. The Park Chung-hee regime, which encouraged and sponsored the camp towns, even implemented a "camp town purification measure" for US soldiers when the foreign currency earned from US military-related businesses reached 70 million dollars, thereby taking control of the camp towns.
However, the country remained silent about the murders of camp town women that occurred all over the country at the time. Feeling abandoned by their country, these camp town women were the true strangers in the slums.
Markle, who was paroled after 12 years and 3 months in prison and returned to the US, lived an ordinary life. However, even after returning to the US, he committed over 10 crimes, including drunk driving, fraud, child support issues, domestic violence, and trespassing. He denied his charges until the end and died at the age of 50.
Yun Geum-i's remains were hastily cremated two days after the incident and scattered at the Sangpae-dong communal cemetery. The Sangpae-dong communal cemetery was a place where camp town women were buried without even a tombstone.
However, it was recently revealed that as park construction progressed, bodies with next of kin were relocated after being collected by bereaved families, and the remains of those without next of kin were relocated by a funeral service company. In particular, there were 780 unclaimed graves there, most of which were graves of camp town women.
Then, in 2022, the Supreme Court ruling on a damages lawsuit filed by US military comfort women against the state, which had been ongoing for 8 years, was released. In their final statement, the camp town women appealed their grievances, saying, "What did we do wrong to be abandoned by our own country? It is so unfair that we lived our lives as patriots earning dollars inside, while being looked down upon outside."
In response, the Supreme Court acknowledged state violence against the victims, stating, "The Republic of Korea has a responsibility to compensate." After the Supreme Court ruling, the victims felt as if they had become citizens of the Republic of Korea for the first time.
Out of 122 US military comfort women, 27 women passed away during that time. The survivors placed the written judgment on the graves of the deceased who could not see the ruling until the end. And this past March, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family officially apologized for the US military comfort women issue.
Finally, a former US military comfort woman expressed her only wish, saying, "I just wish they would look at us normally, as the same human beings," evoking deep sadness.
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