Park Jung-hyun, a former editor at Kodansha who worked on notable series such as Attack on Titan and The Seven Deadly Sins, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for the murder of his wife. His testimony was deemed unreliable due to conflicting accounts of the events surrounding her death.
According to Mainichi Shimbun, Park (48) was sentenced on July 18, 2024, after a retrial for the murder that occurred in August 2016.
The Tokyo High Court ruled that Park strangled his 38-year-old wife at their home in Bunkyo City, Japan. Initially arrested in January 2017, the prosecution sought a 15-year sentence.
The case was marked by Park’s inconsistent stories. Initially, he claimed his wife had fallen down the stairs, later suggesting it was a suicide.
Notably, he did not mention the suicide claim to the arriving ambulance. His wife was found at the base of the stairs, with suffocation determined as the cause of death. When his suicide claim was challenged in court,
Park then stated that his wife had been acting violently with a knife, and that bloodstains in the bedroom, away from her body, were due to him holding her down before leaving the room. He claimed he later heard a noise outside the door and found she had taken her life.
According to Tokyo Reporter, Park explained his contradictory accounts by stating he could not tell his children their mother had committed suicide. However, the judge found his reasoning lacked credibility, stating,
“It is too sudden and unnatural that the wife lost consciousness and then moved around so much that she made a noise, and then committed suicide.”
Park has announced plans to appeal the decision, insisting,
“It’s wrong. I’ll make sure I make sure it’s corrected.” His attorney argued that the verdict was based more on the unreliability of Park’s testimony rather than concrete evidence of murder, calling it “extremely unfair.” Park’s mother supported him, saying, “My son got along well with his wife, and he cared for his children. My children believed that their father would come home today, but I don’t know how to explain the ruling to them. It’s too cruel.”
Park began working for Kodansha in 1999 and was the first editor-in-charge of Attack on Titan, serialized in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine.
He later became an editor at Weekly Morning in June 2016. This retrial was ordered by the Supreme Court after it determined that not all evidence had been thoroughly examined in previous trials.
The sentencing of Park Jung-hyun highlights a case fraught with inconsistent testimonies and a legal battle over the interpretation of events leading to his wife’s death.
As he prepares to appeal, the case continues to evoke strong reactions from his family and legal team, who maintain his innocence and criticize the handling of the trial.
