Taekwondo Instructor Charged With Killing Student, Parents

Australian suspect showed up at hospital with multiple wounds
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 22, 2024 12:06 PM CST
Taekwondo Instructor Charged With Killing Student, Parents
Police investigate one of the crime scenes in Sydney, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024.   (Dan Himbrechts/AAP Image via AP)

A hospitalized taekwondo instructor was charged Thursday with three counts of murder for the deaths of a 7-year-old student and the boy's parents in Sydney, Australia. Lawyers for Kwang Kyung Yoo, 49, appeared on his behalf in the Parramatta Local Court hearing, but did not apply for Yoo to be released on bail or enter any plea to the charges, the AP reports. Yoo, the owner of the Lion's Taekwondo and Martial Arts Academy and known to his students as Master Lion, remains under police guard at a hospital after undergoing surgery for what police described as stab or slash wounds to his chest, stomach, and arms.

Police allege Yoo strangled his student and the boy's mother, Min Cho, to death at his academy on Monday evening. Yoo then allegedly drove her car to the family home where he fatally stabbed her husband, Steven Cho. Yoo then drove himself to hospital where he told medical staff and police he had been attacked in a supermarket car park. The bodies were discovered on Tuesday. Police have not disclosed a motive for the violence, nor said whether Yoo was injured in a struggle or the wounds were self-inflicted.

Yoo's only connections to the family made public so far were that all four were born in South Korea and the boy was a regular taekwondo student. "We're still establishing what other relationships there might have been," Homicide Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty said, per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Yoo's next court date is April 18, and he must remain in custody either in prison or under police guard in the hospital until then. (More Australia stories.)

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