A 26-year-old rape victim, whose years of suffering sexual violence at the hands of her brother-in-law only recently came to light after she killed her 3-year-old son, claimed she had been raped on more counts than prosecutors had determined in official case records.
According to the Incheon Bucheon district court on May 19, the woman told her lawyer that “she had repeatedly had unwanted sexual relations with her older sister’s husband,” stressing the damage of the crimes she suffered was graver than prosecutors let on.
(123RF)
The accused rapist is 25 years the victim’s senior.
Prosecutors had only acknowledged three cases of sexual violence against her as rape -- twice at the assailant’s country house in Wando, South Jeolla Province, when the victim visited in August 2008, and once in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, in 2013 at a new apartment where the victim later joined her sister’s family in cohabitation.
Prosecutors suspected the older sister knew of the sexually coercive nature of the two’s relationship, but lacked a normal level of intelligence or integrity to intercept and protect her younger sibling. The older sister also had two children with the accused.
The prosecution found both sisters to be intellectually disadvantaged and lacking in self-protective mechanisms.
Starting from 2013, the victim had given birth to three children to her assailant. The prosecution, however, only acknowledged the sexual violence that led to the first child’s conception. This was partly due to the victim’s inability to clearly recall the times she had been raped.
In the most recent meeting with her lawyer, the victim spoke with more clarity, saying she had regularly been coerced into unwanted sex with the accused, and that the brother-in-law had used force to overpower her.
The accused admitted to raping the younger sister in court, although he did not specify the number of occurrences. He claimed he could not remember clearly due to the length of time that had elapsed since.
The Incheon court will take the rape case into consideration when ruling on her infanticide case.
The woman is to be tried on the charge of kicking her 3-year-old firstborn to death on March 15. She is accused of kicking the infant five times in the stomach for not obeying her order to take out his lunch box from his nursery bag. She reportedly told prosecutors that she could not stand the boy, saying he resembled her rapist.
By Lim Jeong-yeo (
kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)