Between May and December 1989, a series of robberies in the satellite city of Seongnam, in the neighboring city of Guri and in two districts of Seoul left at least seven people dead and three seriously hurt. The man police charged in January 1990 was Shim Young-gu, a 30-year-old resident of Seongnam who had come out of prison less than two years earlier. He was sentenced to death, and on December 29, 1992, he was executed with eight other prisoners. Five years later South Korea carried out what remain its last executions.
Shim Young-gu, whose name is also romanized Sim Yeong-gu, was born in Jecheon, a city in North Chungcheong Province. He was 29 in 1989. His parents divorced when he was about eight, and his mother left the household. He grew up with a violent father, a stepmother and four stepsiblings, and the home was marked by conflict. He left school in his first year of middle school and ran away to Seoul, where he lived on the streets.
The work he found was the work of a boy with no schooling and no family support: he delivered newspapers, shined shoes and took laboring jobs. He shared that start in life with several other Korean repeat killers of his generation, men who had grown up in poor and violent homes or had been left by their mothers. As a young man he was isolated, with low self-esteem and a sense of being persecuted.
In 1985, at the age of 26, he was sent to prison for robbery causing injury and served three years and six months. He was released in June 1988. After his release he lived for a time with his birth mother, and by 1989 his home was in the Sujeong district of Seongnam.
The robberies began in the spring of 1989 and ran until Christmas. The first known case was on May 21, 1989, in the Sujeong district of Seongnam, where a 23-year-old woman was seriously hurt and survived. Three weeks later the deaths began.
On June 11, a 42-year-old woman died in the Sujeong district of Seongnam. Five days later, on June 16, another woman aged 42 died in the Gwanak district of Seoul. On August 4, a 43-year-old woman died in the Jungwon district of Seongnam.
After a gap of more than three months, the pace quickened. On November 16, a 53-year-old died in the Sujeong district of Seongnam. On November 26, a 57-year-old died in Guri. The next day, November 27, a 29-year-old man died in the Jongno district of Seoul. On December 23, a 54-year-old died in the same district. Two days later, on December 25, 1989, an 11-year-old boy died in the Sujeong district of Seongnam.
The cases were spread across Seoul and Gyeonggi Province and at first seemed to have no common thread. The victims were strangers to him. Money was the motive.
When he was detained in January 1990, police counted seven dead and three seriously injured, together with more than ten robberies. The count of the dead later rose to eight, the youngest a boy of 11 and the oldest a 57-year-old.
Police in Seongnam had first suspected local young offenders. The December 1989 case gave them the lead they needed, and by tracing the people around him, officers were able to put a name to the series.
He was arrested on January 19, 1990, in the Gangseo district of Seoul, and on January 22 the Seongnam Police Station formally detained him. He was first held on a robbery and attempted-murder count, and as further deaths were linked to him, the charges grew to robbery-murder and attempted murder. He was 30 years old.
He was charged with robbery-murder, special theft and other offences. The court that tried him, the date of the verdict and the exact counts on which he was convicted are not on record. He was sentenced to death, and the sentence became final. The case on which he was executed covered the death of a 42-year-old woman in Seoul in 1989 and five further robbery-murders, all committed after he had served his sentence for robbery causing injury.
Under South Korean law at the time, every death sentence had to be reviewed by a higher court, and a defendant could not waive the right of appeal. Most death sentences were reviewed twice, first by a high court and then by the Supreme Court. Whether his case followed that path in full is not on record.
On December 29, 1992, Shim Young-gu, then 32, was executed. He was one of nine prisoners executed that day in Seoul and Daegu, on the orders of the Minister of Justice. All nine had been convicted of murder. They were the only executions carried out in South Korea in 1992, and the first since December 1991.
The executions of December 1992 came during a period of increased use of the death penalty in South Korea. From 1980 to April 1990, executions were carried out in eight rounds, with 86 people put to death. After a pause, seven people were executed in 1989, the first executions since July 1987, and fourteen in 1990, in two rounds in April and December. Nine more were executed on December 18, 1991, eight in Seoul and one in Gwangju; the Ministry of Justice presented that round as a sign of the government's resolve against violent crime.
The government framed the increase as part of a campaign against violent crime. In 1990 it announced a "war on crime," and the number of prisoners under sentence of death rose with it, from at least 16 in early 1991 to about 30 at the end of that year and about 50 by early 1993. Most death sentences in those years were imposed for murder, many of them for killings in the course of robbery.
The death penalty could be imposed for a wide range of criminal and political offences under the Criminal Code, the Military Penal Code, the National Security Law and other statutes. Most capital cases were tried first in a district court. A revised draft Criminal Code under discussion in the early 1990s would have removed the death penalty for ten offences involving unintended deaths, including robbery. An execution required an order signed by the Minister of Justice, and the order had to be carried out within five days.
Amnesty International opposed the executions of 1989 to 1992 and urged the government to abolish the death penalty, commute every death sentence and suspend executions while the Constitutional Court considered the question. On December 30, 1997, 23 prisoners convicted of murder were executed.
No execution has been carried out in South Korea since then. President Kim Dae-jung took office in February 1998, and Amnesty International counts South Korea as abolitionist in practice from that date. The death penalty remains in law. On February 25, 2010, the Constitutional Court ruled by five votes to four that capital punishment did not violate the constitutional guarantee of human dignity and worth. In November 2020, South Korea voted for a United Nations resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. Courts still hand down death sentences: 57 people were on death row in February 2010, 60 in 2020, and 52 in October 2026, when the average age of those held was 58.7.
Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province: birthplace (year not on record; aged 29 in 1989).
About age 8: his parents divorce.
1985: imprisoned for robbery causing injury; sentence of three years and six months.
June 1988: released.
May 21, 1989: a 23-year-old woman is seriously hurt and survives, Seongnam.
June 11, 1989: a 42-year-old woman dies, Seongnam.
June 16, 1989: a 42-year-old woman dies, Gwanak district, Seoul.
August 4, 1989: a 43-year-old woman dies, Seongnam.
November 16, 1989: a 53-year-old dies, Seongnam.
November 26, 1989: a 57-year-old dies, Guri.
November 27, 1989: a 29-year-old man dies, Jongno district, Seoul.
December 23, 1989: a 54-year-old dies, Jongno district, Seoul.
December 25, 1989: an 11-year-old boy dies, Seongnam.
January 19, 1990: arrested in the Gangseo district of Seoul.
January 22, 1990: detained by Seongnam police on charges of robbery-murder and attempted murder.
Date not on record: sentenced to death; the sentence becomes final.
December 29, 1992: executed, one of nine prisoners executed that day in Seoul and Daegu.
December 30, 1997: 23 prisoners executed, the last executions in South Korea.
February 25, 2010: the Constitutional Court upholds the death penalty by five votes to four.