Jeong Seong-hyeon was convicted of killing two elementary-school-age girls in the city of Anyang, in Gyeonggi Province, on December 25, 2007, and of causing the death of a 44-year-old woman in the neighboring city of Gunpo in July 2004. The Suwon District Court sentenced him to death on June 18, 2008. An appeal court kept the sentence, and the Supreme Court of Korea confirmed it in February 2009. He was 39 when he was sentenced. He remains on death row in a country that has carried out no execution since 1997.
The two children were Lee Hye-jin and Woo Ye-seul. Their deaths became one of the most closely followed criminal cases in South Korea in the following year. The case also produced a public debate about how the country treats crimes against children.
Jeong was a 39-year-old man who worked as a substitute driver at the time of his arrest and had no previous convictions. His date of birth is not on record. He lived in Anyang.
Lee Hye-jin and Woo Ye-seul, both pupils of elementary-school age, died in Anyang on December 25, 2007, at the ages of 11 and 9.
The Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency ran the investigation, together with Anyang Police Station. Police took Jeong into custody on March 16, 2008. On March 17 he confessed to the killings of both girls, and he later changed parts of his statements. Police applied for an arrest warrant on March 18, and the Suwon District Court issued it on March 19, 2008, on suspicion of murder and a further offense.
On March 21, 2008, in further questioning, Jeong also confessed to causing the death of a woman in Gunpo in July 2004. Police announced the confession on March 23. They said they were checking whether he was connected to other cases involving women and girls in southwestern Gyeonggi between 2004 and early 2007. No charges arose from those inquiries.
The woman was 44, and her family name was Jeong. She died in July 2004 in Gunpo. Prosecutors charged Jeong Seong-hyeon with murder and a further offense in her case. The Suwon District Court did not find that he had intended to kill her. It convicted him instead of bodily injury resulting in death, which is a lesser offense than murder under Korean law.
The Suwon District Prosecutors' Office brought the case and asked for the death penalty. The court was Criminal Division 2 of the Suwon District Court. The charges for the two girls included murder, with other charges.
The trial was the first held under the revised Criminal Procedure Act, which took effect in January 2008. Evidence, the prosecution's sentencing request and the verdict were all completed in a concentrated hearing on June 17 and 18, 2008. Jeong's defense counsel was a court-appointed lawyer who took the case after other lawyers declined it. Jeong admitted the killings of the two girls and argued that his mental capacity had been diminished. He said the woman's death in Gunpo had not been intended. In his final statement he expressed remorse and read from a prepared memo.
On June 18, 2008, the court found most of the charges proven, rejected the claim of diminished mental capacity, and sentenced Jeong to death. It said the death penalty was needed as a deterrent against crimes targeting children, and it pointed to a high risk that he would offend again.
Jeong appealed. The appeal court also imposed the death sentence, and the Supreme Court confirmed it in February 2009. After the first verdict, Jeong sent a letter of thanks to his court-appointed lawyer.
Jeong has continued to bring civil and criminal complaints, and has lost them. In March 2010 he announced that he would sue a newspaper reporter for defamation over the way the Anyang case was described, and the outcome of that complaint is not on record. He also filed a complaint against a prosecutor, alleging a forced confession; five complaints of this kind were dismissed. He sued the state and an Anyang police officer, claiming misconduct during the interrogation; the first trial and the appeal court dismissed the claim, and on September 21, 2012 the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal because the case fell within the Small Claims Act. In 2017 prosecutors dismissed a defamation complaint he had filed against a local reporter, finding that the report was not false and served the public interest.
In 2026 courts finished his most recent action. He had sued a media outlet for about 13 million won, arguing that publishing his full name and photograph violated his privacy and portrait rights. The civil division of the Seoul Central District Court dismissed the claim, and the appeal court upheld that decision in January 2026. The court said that publishing his name and photograph was permissible given the gravity of the crimes. It also found that the report had not been shown to be false. Jeong was ordered to pay the costs, and the ruling is final.
South Korea carried out its most recent executions in December 1997, when 23 people were executed on one day, and none has followed. Amnesty International classifies the country as abolitionist in practice. That suspension rests on practice and is not set in law; bills to introduce life imprisonment without parole have stalled in the National Assembly. At the end of 2010 there were 61 people under sentence of death. Because executions have not resumed, a death sentence in Korea is in practice carried out as a sentence of lifelong confinement, a description that has been applied to Jeong's own situation.
Police checked whether he was linked to other cases involving women and girls between 2004 and 2007, and no charges followed. The Gunpo death was charged as murder and convicted as bodily injury resulting in death. The exact day of the Supreme Court decision in February 2009 is not on record.
July 2004: a 44-year-old woman dies in Gunpo.
December 25, 2007: Lee Hye-jin and Woo Ye-seul die in Anyang.
March 16, 2008: Jeong is arrested.
March 17, 2008: he confesses to the killings of the two girls.
March 19, 2008: the Suwon District Court issues the arrest warrant.
March 21 to 23, 2008: he confesses to the Gunpo death, and police announce it.
June 17 and 18, 2008: trial before the Suwon District Court; death sentence on June 18.
February 2009: the Supreme Court confirms the death sentence.
March 2010: Jeong announces a defamation suit against a newspaper reporter.
September 21, 2012: the Supreme Court upholds the dismissal of his suit against the state and an Anyang police officer.
2017: prosecutors dismiss his defamation complaint against a local reporter.
January 2026: his suit over the publication of his name and photograph is dismissed on appeal and becomes final.