A higher court cleared a man of killing his girl friend, overturning a previous ruling in the “octopus murder” case.

The 32-year-old man was sentenced to life imprisonment last year for suffocating his 23-year-old girl friend in a motel in Incheon.

He had claimed that she died while eating an octopus.

But the victim’s family later discovered that she had signed up for life insurance only a week before her death with Kim as the beneficiary.

The Incheon District Court concluded in October last year that evidence showed the suspect killed his girlfriend to obtain 200 million won in insurance money.

“If the suspected had suffocated his girlfriend, it must have left some marks on the victim’s face. But there were no such marks on her body,” the Seoul High Court said Friday.

But the court found the man guilty of theft, and sentenced him to one year and six months in prison.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)