The Curious Death of Lee Yoon-hyung

Suicide is sad but murder is sadder.

There is a lot going on behind the scenes in Lee Yoon-hyung's death. It really is a much bigger story—almost like a pandora’s box when you start looking into it. I haven't put everything together but here is what I know.

Lee Yoon-hyung is the daughter of Lee Kun-hee, who is the Chairman of Samsung Electronics. As the head of Samsung, Mr. Lee is one of the most powerful men in South Korea. Samsung’s annual sales are equivalent to more than one-sixth of South Korea's annual gross domestic product and some people call the country as the Republic of Samsung. Despite his power and influence, Mr. Lee and his family has come under increasing scrutiny lately. In October of this year, two Samsung executives were given suspended jail terms for their role in helping the Mr. Lee transfer massive wealth to his only son Lee Jay-yong in illicit bond deals carried out a decade ago.

An even more explosive scandal centered on allegations that Samsung bribed the leading candidates in the 1997 presidential election in Korea. The scandal erupted this year when a Korean television station broadcast reports based on a 1997 recording of conversations between Hong Seok-hyun, a newspaper publisher, and Lee Hak-soo, vice chairman of Samsung. The two were heard discussing Samsung’s illegal donation of funds to two presidential candidates, as well as bribes to a number of other leading politicians and government officials. The recordings had been obtained illegally by South Korea’s spy service. This illegal wiretapping operation by South Korea’s CIA caused a scandal in its own right, but the damage to Samsung had been done.

Lee Yoon-hung's father, Mr. Lee Kun-hee, was summoned to appear before the Korean National Assembly to answer questions related to the bribery scandal. Mr. Lee never appeared and instead flew to the U.S. in September, allegedly for a cancer checkup at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where he underwent surgery for lung cancer in 2000. Mr. Lee’s whereabouts are currently unknown and he did not attend his daughter's funeral in New York.

On November 20, Mr. Lee’s daughter by strangulation in her East Village apartment. On the same weekend (perhaps the same day and the same hour) that Lee Yoon-hyung “committed suicide” by hanging without a suicide note in NYC, the former No. 2 official at South Korea's spy agency--Lee Soo-Il (no relation to Lee Yoon-hyung)--"committed suicide" by hanging without a suicide note in Gwangju, Korea. Mr. Lee had testified that South Korean spies had illegally wiretapped conversations by Samsung’s Vice Chairman and others. Lee Soo-Il's confession had made him very unpopular among South Korean spies, who are currently being prosecuted for the illegal wiretapping.

See link
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200511/kt2005112117140511950.htm

Here is my conspiracy theory: South Korean spies killed Lee Yoon-hung and Lee Soo Il. They killed Mr. Lee because he implicated them for illegal wiretapping and they killed Ms. Lee to retaliate against her father and Samsung, which has been giving the Korean spies heat for their wiretapping activities.

On December 14, Mr. Lee and other senior executives at Samsung Group were cleared of allegations they bribed leading politicians during the 1990s. The scandal is starting to die down; too bad Lee Yoon-hyung’s body had to be thrown on the coals.

I mean HEARTLESS. I'm really batting 1000 tonight! I should really get some sleep!

Oops. My apologies, Garth. I had just read so many articles on this topic, and yours wasn't the one that offended me. Sorry about that.

But a couple of your readers were horrible. How could people be so hearless?

Yoon was a human being who was obviously troubled, and she chose to end her life. It is so sad that she couldn't see the sun beyond the clouds, but the bottom line is that she is no longer with us.

Everyone is living for a different purpose; I believe that everyone is on a different quest in life wherein they seek to experience different things. When we experience what we set out to do, then it is time to move on. Sometimes when people pass over to the other side, it is difficult for others to comprehend, but Yoon's choice is not on trial for people's judgement.

I do not understand why the writer of this nasty article would go out of his way to disrespect her. What is the point of that negativity? It just makes him (Johnston) look bitter and jealous, but hey, maybe those are the fine qualities of himself that he is trying to broadcast in order to rile people up.

The late Ms.Lee may be depressed but suicide is one of the most selfish way to end problems. She should have seek help from others instead of ending her own life with an electrical cord. Its tragic to see such a beautiful person choosing the wrong path of life. I had my tears all over my cheeks when i read about her news. Worse, her parents refused to attend her funeral because it's the Koreans tradition that parents do not attend the funeral of their sons or daughters when they die unmarried. Oh well.. Nobody is to be blamed. What has happened let it go. Lets hope she rest in peace. And it was said that she had a personal website where she wrote about her life. By any chance, does anyone know what her website link is? Thank You

Hi people, as a young doc with some experience in psychiatry, I call for you guys and gals for compassion. Suicide is a psycho-social event, and like many similar occurrences it is biologico-chemico-socio-economic. If one has to blame, one must blame the whole landscape of human experience in modern society.

There're few brains born for suicide, but there're lots of brains primed up for it. Major depression is everywhere but in "high" society it is a taboo, especially in Asia where people often are confused between depression and psychosis. Hundreds of millions of people there still combine both of them together, while even psychosis is treatable, and major depression is not only treatable but curable, too.

If this young woman had seeked help a month or two before, chances are she didn't commit suicide at all. Her family is majorly responsible for this, because it's not too hard to know someone is majorly depressed. Her school counselor(s) classmates, instructors, are partly MORALLY responsible too.

Critics of my comment clearly have not seen what happens to the families of suicide victims. It takes a typically bad situation and makes it worse, much much worse. I've seen a close friend and his family fall apart because his father "offed himself". It was cowardly and selfish and he didn't think about what it would do to the people around him. Don't construe my comment as a judgement based on hatred, or stupid or pompous, or ill-informed -- it's based on experience. I have no problem with your opinions and I'm not resorting to name-calling. I'm just telling it like it is.

Suicide is an undignified and cowardly act.

How sad, that in this time of grief, you can only stand in judgement and hatred.

My heart goes out to her family and to all people affected by suicide.

isPainless,

You don't know her, you don't know why she did it, and you're a stupid, pompous git.

Why don't you do the world a favor and off yourself?

what a poorly written article, please use "hanged" instead of "hung." who ever is running this site should make sure they have decent writers.

Gothamist appears to have lost its way lately. It's trying to compete with the newspapers, the tabloids, the arts papers and god knows what else. You can't be all things to all people and do it well.

As for this young woman's suicide, I agree that Gothamist's speculation about a cover-up and such is just plain tacky. Have a little decency, will you? If I want conspiracy theories, I'll read the NY Post.

And as for the comment by "ispainless," please get your head out of your rear-end. I have never heard anything as callous and ill-informed about depression, mental illness and suicide.

Suicide is an undignified and cowardly act. Lionizing the late Miss Lee will only help others follow her to this sad end. The only brave choice for anyone facing suicide is to get help.

I'd like to add that, news like this is inappropriate for Gothamist. To the Gothamist poster: If one of your more prominent relatives committed suicide, are you going to post it here? Gosh, show some morals.

A lot of Korean's tend to be Christian. Most of the time when the death in question is unfavorable, its usually attributed to a car accident or something 'miscellaneous'.

Instead of attributing this to something sinister, its likely that this is exactly what Crybaby said, a family's desirer to uphold their lost child's dignity.

Hey they just showed the Gothamist web page with this story on the WB 11 news, good job guys! unfortunately it had to be something so tragic

"we can't imagine employing the family multinational corporation to try to cover it up (but then again, we don't have a family corporation). "

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yeah, hilarious. no, what you don't have is the sense to consider this sad event in terms other than your own. if you possessed the vaguest notion of cultural awareness you'd realize a family's desire to uphold their lost child's dignity isn't a rich or poor thing, and certainly not any NYU thing.




give up your ambulance chasing, it's gross.

Do you know anyone who's committed suicide? Do you know about "honor" and family name in Asia? Show some compassion, douche bag.

So what Number is this for NYU? Another one bites the dust. Even the super rich, affluent and pretty ones aren't immune to NYU's SUicide curse!

But Garth, you skip the crucial Gothamist questions: When will this be a Law & Order episode and does this count as another NYU suicide?