Sydney taekwondo instructor who murdered family of three consumed by fantasies of Olympic glory

SYDNEY (AP) – A Sydney taekwondo instructor who murdered a family of three had been consumed by fantasies of Olympic glory and meetings with billionaires, a court heard Thursday.

Prosecutors argued Kwang Kyung Yoo, 51, should never be released from prison after pleading guilty to murdering a 7-year-old student and the boy’s parents in February last year.

A New South Wales Supreme Court judge will sentence Yoo on Dec. 16.

State law prevents child victims of crime from being identified, so his parents also can’t be named.

The killer and his three victims were all born in South Korea.

Yoo had lied about meeting the wealthiest Australian, Gina Rinehart, qualifying for the Sydney Olympics and owning a Lamborghini luxury car, according to evidence tendered to the court Thursday.

To impress his own wife, he would send emails to himself, pretending to be important people. He sometimes called himself professor Yoo.

“These are a form of fantasy, essentially a grandiose or self-important fantasy that he’s richer, has more social status, has more success in life in different domains than he actually does,” forensic psychiatrist Andrew Ellis told the court.

In reality, Yoo was in debt and behind in his rent on the Lion’s Taekwondo and Martial Arts Academy where he murdered the boy and his mother after a class.

Prosecutors said Yoo began thinking of murder after seeing the student’s father become successful and wealthy.

His mind turned to how he could kill the family to get their money, the court was told.

Yoo strangled the mother and son in his academy before driving the woman’s BMW luxury sedan to the family home where he fatally stabbed the father.

The father also stabbed Yoo in the struggle. Yoo drove the BMW to a hospital where he told medical staff he had been attacked in a supermarket carpark. Police arrested him at the hospital the next day.

After his arrest, Yoo could not explain how he was going to get the family’s money and later detailed his remorse.

“I was … good … two months ago. Now I’m a murderer,” he told prison authorities. “I feel shame, guilt and sorrow.”

Yoo’s lawyer Richard Wilson refuted prosecutors’ argument that his client was “motivated by jealousy and hatred” toward the family.

“There is some evidence that he had perhaps envy of what they had, but in terms of jealousy and hatred … that doesn’t appear to be a motivator here,” Wilson said.

Wilson argued that Yoo should be given a minimum non-parole period rather than a life sentence without possibility of release. The maximum penalty for someone convicted of murder in New South Wales is life imprisonment, with a standard non-parole period of 20 years for the murder of an adult and 25 years for the murder of a child.