A heinous incident of indirect murder took place in a South Korean chaebol family. The abuse of husbands and children caused the chaebol lady to die of grief. The frightening suicide note and the creepy surveillance video unveil an unbearable scene in the life of the chaebol family.
In the early morning of September 1, 2016, a middle-aged woman with a sad face appeared in the elevator monitoring of an apartment in Seoul, South Korea, and quickly drove away from the monitoring area after entering the underground parking lot. That morning, his family sensed the anomaly and reported the woman's disappearance to the police.
About two hours later, police officers on routine patrol spotted the woman's car on the side of the Pong Hwa Bridge Expressway on the han river. The car was empty, and there was no trace of her nearby.
Police examined the car's dashcam and found the woman's final trajectory and the dying messages from her family. The day after the woman's disappearance, police found her body near the Jiayang Bridge in the lower Reaches of the Han River, and autopsy reports showed her death was due to drowning.
This ordinary suicide incident is confused by the woman's true identity. The woman's name is Lee Mei-ran, the daughter-in-law of the Fang family of the Chosun Ilbo group, and her husband, Fang Yong-hoon, is the second son of former Chosun Ilbo president Fang Yi-jong, the younger brother of The current president of Chosun Ilbo, one of the four major shareholders of Chosun Ilbo, and the actual ruler of a high-end hotel chain.
South Korea's most influential and oldest Chosun Ilbo Group not only publishes publications, but also includes cable television stations, hotels and so on. It is a leading enterprise in the field of satellite television media. However, Li Meilan was born into a family of doctors with three generations of ancestors who have been the president's chief dentist.
At the age of 20, Li Meilan entered the palace of marriage with Fang Rongxun in the envy of everyone, and gave birth to four children in succession. Li Meilan, who walked into the rich, was pampered and enjoyed all the glory and wealth. Yet her 33 years of marriage ended in such a tragic way in a cold river.
From Li Meilan's last words, the police found that her suicide was inextricably linked to her husband. Li Meilan also directly pointed out the decisive reason for her suicide in her suicide note, saying that she hated her husband, and in order to expose his evil deeds, she told the world that she was wronged and helpless, which was the only way.
What could make her expose the ugly face of her husband at the cost of her life? According to Li Meilan's family, the time of the conflict between the husband and wife broke out six months before the suicide, and the reason was because of a sum of money.
Because their four children are studying in Canada, 15 years ago, her husband Fang Rongxun took the initiative to give Li Meilan 5 billion won in cash, allowing her to dispose of it at will. At that time, Li Meilan's sister was responsible for the children's life and education, and the money was managed by her sister to pay for all the children's expenses.
However, 15 years later, Fang Rongxun suddenly said that his wife subsidized all the money to her mother's family, and she had no property to leave to her children. According to the police investigation, Li Meilan did remit 5 billion won to her sister in Canada around 2001, but the money was used on several children, and her sister did not take any money from it.
In addition to the necessary tuition fees, it is also necessary to spend money on schools so that a few people with poor grades can get better educational resources. The children also often make trouble in the local area, and they also have to pay for it to smooth out the trouble, and after dealing with a series of things, the money has long been consumed.
When Fang Rongxun asked Li Meilan for the 5 billion yuan and found that she could not get it at all, she began to constantly provoke the relationship between the children and Li Meilan, instigating them to snatch back the money from Li Meilan.
As a result, the South Korean chaebol lady began to be beaten and imprisoned by her own children and husband, and was forced to throw herself to death. Four months after Li Meilan's death, she was driven to the basement of her family by her husband and four children. Her husband, Fang, also threatened to let her live a hellish life.
The children also said coldly to her, saying that Daddy doesn't want to see you, you live like a transparent person in the basement, let me crawl down, you thief! Since then, Li Meilan has instantly fallen from heaven to hell and lived in a dark and damp basement for four months, eating only two sweet potatoes and one egg a day.
But imprisonment and occasional violence were far from enough to quell the anger of Mr. Fang and his children, and they used even more despicable tactics— on August 22, 2016, Mr. Li was forcibly crammed into an ambulance by Mr. Fang and his four children and taken to a mental hospital.
Between the pulls, the desperate Li Meilan struggled to resist, clutching the sofa with her hands and feet. The children shouted "If you don't let go, cut off your hand" Because the situation at the scene was very chaotic, Li Meilan took this opportunity to call her mother's family, and her family quickly called the police.
However, the patrol police who came to the door to understand the situation only judged the incident to be an ordinary family dispute, and left in a hurry without making any moves. This also led to the children's actions becoming more extreme, not only smashing the mobile phones containing recordings of the abuse of their mothers, but also calling for guards to throw their mothers out of the house.
Li Meilan cleverly used illegal responsibility as an excuse to force the ambulance driver to send him back to his mother's house. When she walked into the house safely, she was very embarrassed, her clothes were torn, her hair was scattered, and there were large bruises on her arms, armpits, thighs, and other parts.
These wounds were caused by palm blows, and at a glance, li Meilan knew that she had been abused by her husband and children. Even so, when questioned by a professional doctor, she lied that she had fallen. At this point, she was not willing to expose the ugliness of her family and let her own flesh and bones bear the infamy of filial piety and injustice.
She wrote in her suicide note that if you sacrifice me alone, the children will not have to suffer. None of them are married and can't have a bad impact on them. Until the moment When Li Meilan threw herself into the cold river, she was worried about the children.
5 billion won is only a few months' turnover for a president who runs a five-star hotel, but why is Fang Rongxun so cruel to his wife? Why would four children be so cruel to their own mother? Was the 5 billion won 15 years ago really the cause of the conflict?
Fang Rongxun, while stirring up dissension, promised his children that whoever could get back the 5 billion yuan would get his inheritance rights. This move made the children who still had consciences instantly red-eyed, and they all sided with their fathers. After Li Meilan threw herself into the river, bizarre things happened one after another.
When the police handed over her body to the Fang family, they quietly cremated and buried it without even holding a simple funeral. Such behavior makes people think that they are afraid of the body if it falls into the hands of the mother's family. Will it check out facts that are not good for them?
Until now, Li Meilan's mother's family does not know where Li Meilan is buried. According to the injury records and evidence left by Li Meilan before her death, the police indicted Li Meilan's eldest son and eldest daughter for injuring her relatives, but during the trial, the prosecutor arbitrarily changed the indictment to obsessive-compulsive disorder, which made the case change its nature instantly.
In South Korean law, the penalties for coercion are much more lenient than those for harming a relative, and they are punishable only by imprisonment for up to five years and a fine of 30 million won. Imprisoning his wife in the basement, being beaten and abused by his own children, fasting at every turn, threatening to cut off his hands... Such a light punishment?
Just for the sake of power and profit. How can a Korean chaebol family be so rampant? In January 2018, the court of first instance convicted the two children of forced crimes and sentenced them to eight months in prison, suspended for two years. In the face of this result, many legal and political circles believe that it is biased and suspected of being given a light sentence.
Is there any power behind the Chosun Ilbo? Fang Rongxun's response to the incident was jaw-dropping. He said that his wife voluntarily went to the basement to reflect because of her own mistakes, that her wife had two suicide attempts, and that the children had sent her back to her mother's house because of her sympathy.
The court's verdict is a complete distortion of the facts! Two months after Li Meilan's death, there was also a terrifying and terrifying violent incident at the door of her mother's family's residence - one early one morning, Li Meilan's eldest son came barefoot to the door of Li Meilan's sister's house and slammed the door with stones.
Later, Fang Rongxun, who was holding an ice axe, also drove to the gate with his son and hammered the gate with stones. Excited, he also kicked over the courier box at the door. I can't imagine how unimaginable the consequences would be if Li Meilan's sister had opened the door that day.
The terrified mother's family called the police, and after learning the truth, the police recommended that they be prosecuted for illegally invading the house. However, in the follow-up investigation report, the Yongsan Police Department in charge of the case gave a puzzling conclusion.
According to Fang Rongxun's statement, he rushed there that day when he received news of his son's disturbance on the way to the walk. The police also judged that Fang Rongxun in the video had blocked his son's actions, so it did not constitute a crime. Such a conclusion is completely contrary to the surveillance footage.
Is there a power behind the Chosun Ilbo? From Li Meilan's last words, it is learned that she had tried to seek legal help and sued Fang Rongxun for divorce, but no lawyer at a law firm dared to accept such a lawsuit.
According to Li Meilan's brother in an interview, not only are no lawyers willing to accept their commissions, but they are even asked to delete all the records of consultations so as not to unnecessarily implicate their law firms.
All this means that the power of the Fang family is incomparably strong, Li Meilan wants to escape the clutches of the devil, and there is no more choice but death in the situation at that time. Three years after Lee Mei-ran's death, the South Korean media re-reported the case.
Previously, several family members of the Chosun Ilbo had long been involved in scandals, including the suicide of the shocking actor Jang Zi-yeon. In the suicide note left by Jang Zi-yeon, another family member of chosun Ilbo was mentioned, the second son of the head of the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, Fang Zhengmu, then president of North Korea TV, and the nephew of Fang Yongxun.
According to a number of media reports, on the day of Zhang Ziyan's parents' sacrifice, Fang Zhengwu also forced her to drink beer and provide physical services, and Fang Rongxun was also very likely to be present and participate in it. Zhang Ziyan ended her life after this day.
The investigation showed that at that time, in order to protect the presidents involved in the case, Fang Sang-hoon, Fang Yong-hoon, Fang Zhengwu and others, the Chosun Ilbo did put pressure on the police. Cho Kin-mo, then director of the Gyeonggi-do Police Department, also testified that the Chosun Ilbo clique had threatened it that we could bring up a regime or destroy it.
Children who grew up in such a twisted family only know how to judge the status of others with money and power from an early age, whether they are brothers and sisters whose blood is thicker than water, or their own mothers who are as generous as mountains, as long as they threaten their own interests, they will do whatever it takes.
Before the storm over Lee Mei-ran's suicide had dissipated, the leak of the recording of her granddaughter in Chosun Ilbo made the Fang family even more infamous. The granddaughter of Chosun Ilbo president Fang Sang-hoon, the daughter of Fang Zhengwucai in the third grade, repeatedly cursed and attacked the 60-year-old driver who picked him up on the way home from school.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg of the Fang family's evil deeds, there are many tragedies hidden in the night, and I only hope that the dawn will come soon and all the evil forces will be severely punished.