On October 28, 1992, 26-year-old South Korean sex worker Yun Geum-i was sexually assaulted and murdered by U.S. Private Kenneth Lee Markle III at a camp town in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.
| Murder of Yun Geum-i | |
| Hangul | 윤금이 피살 사건 |
|---|---|
| Hanja | 尹今伊 |
| Revised Romanization | Yun Geum-i pisal sageon |
| McCune–Reischauer | Yun Kŭmi p'isal sagŏn |
| IPA | [jun kɯm.i] |
The case sparked controversy and Anti-American sentiment, as well as advocacy for reviewing the U.S.–South Korea Status of Forces Agreement.[citation needed]
Murder
editIn 1992, Yun Geum-i, a kijichon (camptown) sex worker in the city Dongducheon, was killed by U.S. servicemen.[1][2][3] Yun was found dead with a bottle stuffed into her vagina and an umbrella into her anus.[4]
Aftermath
editIn August 1993, the U.S. government compensated the victim's family with about US$72,000.[5] Markle III was imprisoned in Cheonan prison on May 17, 1994. In 1995, he was fined 2 million won (US$2,000) for causing a disturbance in prison. He was released on parole on August 14, 2006, and deported to the United States. He'd made seven previous applications for parole, but all of them had been rejected. Markle was arrested for various less serious crimes, including burglary, in Maryland.[6] Markle died on February 14, 2023.[7]
The murder of a prostitute did not itself spark a national debate about the prerogatives of the U.S. forces;[citation needed] on the other hand, the 1995 rape of a twelve-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl by three American servicemen (one U.S. Navy Seaman, two U.S. Marines) elicited much public outrage and brought wider attention to military-related violence against women.[3]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Cho, Grace M. (2008). Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War. University of Minnesota Press. p. 115. ISBN 978-0816652747.
In October 1992, a camptown sex worker named Yun Geum-I was brutally murdered by one of her clients during a dispute.
- ^ Moon, Gwang-lip (2011-09-30). "After soldier held for rape, U.S. vows assistance". JoongAng Ilbo. Archived from the original on 2013-06-19. Retrieved 2013-04-12.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ a b Moon, Katharine. "Military Prostitution and the U.S. Military in Asia". The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. Retrieved 2013-05-02.
- ^ McHugh, Kathleen (2005). South Korean Golden Age Melodrama: Gender, Genre, And National Cinema. Wayne State University Press. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-8143-3253-5.
- ^ "U.S. soldier free after brutal 1992 murder". The Hankyoreh. 2006-10-28. Retrieved 2013-04-15.
- ^ Times-News, Cumberland (2017-05-09). "Keyser man faces multiple burglary charges". The Cumberland Times-News. Retrieved 2023-05-21.
- ^ "Kenneth Lee Markle Obituary". www.tributearchive.com. Retrieved 2023-03-09.