Episode 128:
He Paid Her Rent for a Year After She Disappeared. What Was He Hiding in the Fridge was Shocking
After a year, the front door finally opened. Inside, it was dead silent, heavy dust coating furniture that looked as if no one had touched it in months. Police focused on one object standing alone in the room: a large kimchi refrigerator. Why would anyone's mother end up in a place like that?
On September 29, 2025, Ansan Sangrok Police Station received an unusual missing person report. A woman said she hadn't spoken to her older sister by phone or seen her in an entire year — despite still receiving text messages from her the whole time. Something about it felt wrong. That missing woman was 49-year-old Ms. Joo, a divorced mother of two who had, according to those texts, simply chosen to cut off her family to live in peace with her boyfriend.
A Second Chance at Love
Ms. Joo had divorced in 2016 and spent years raising her two children alone, working a factory job to support them. In 2018, a 34-year-old coworker, Mr. Lee, fell for her and pursued her patiently for two years until she finally let her guard down. They became a couple in 2020, and for years he seemed devoted, constantly reassuring her and rebuilding the confidence her divorce had shattered. In 2024, with both of her children now away at school, Ms. Joo moved in with him, hoping to finally make up for years spent apart while he traveled for work.
The Double Life
Just four months after moving in together, Ms. Joo abruptly cut off contact with her entire family, refusing visits and brushing off her children's pleas for even a single photo. What her family didn't know was what had been unraveling behind closed doors. In October 2024, Ms. Joo and Mr. Lee had both quit their jobs to day-trade stocks, and lost the vast majority of her $34,000 in savings. As their finances collapsed, so did their relationship — and in the fighting that followed, a devastating secret came out: for the entire six years he'd known Ms. Joo, Mr. Lee had also been living in a ten-year common-law relationship with another woman. On October 20, 2024, when Ms. Joo threatened to tell his other partner everything, Mr. Lee strangled her to death.
A Year of Impersonation
The day after the murder, Mr. Lee ordered a large chest freezer online, and when it turned out too small, exchanged it for the biggest kimchi refrigerator he could find. He wrapped Ms. Joo's body in a blanket, sealed it inside, and set the temperature to its lowest possible setting to keep it frozen solid — which is exactly why, when police finally opened it a year later, her body had barely decomposed at all. For the next twelve months, Mr. Lee impersonated Ms. Joo, texting her family in her style, using her cards, taking out a $34,000 loan in her name, and canceling insurance policies on her and her children to pocket a combined $66,000 — spending it on designer bags, gold, and living expenses, all while continuing to pay $200 a month in rent on the now-empty apartment to keep up appearances.
The scheme finally cracked when Ms. Joo's sister, unable to accept her silence, pushed the police to investigate further. When officers insisted on speaking with Ms. Joo directly, Mr. Lee panicked and asked his real girlfriend to take the call and pretend to be her — but the request only raised her suspicions, and when he confessed the murder to her the next day, she told her own sister, who finally called the police. Confronted at the apartment, Mr. Lee admitted to the killing without hesitation or any visible remorse.
Final Thoughts
At trial in December 2025, Mr. Lee insisted the killing had been a sudden, impulsive act of rage. But experts pointed out that genuine impulsive killers almost never keep a body in their own home for a year, let alone plan out a freezer purchase and build an entire false identity around the person they killed. His final statement — that he would "accept whatever punishment" the court saw fit — struck many as far from real remorse. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and after his appeal and a last-minute court deposit meant to soften his sentence were rejected by Ms. Joo's family, the original sentence was upheld.
Mr. Lee didn't just take Ms. Joo's life — for an entire year, he used her voice to convince the people who loved her most that she simply didn't want them anymore, leaving her children to carry both her death and a year of believing their mother had abandoned them.
Mr. Lee kept paying $200 a month in rent on the empty apartment where he'd frozen Ms. Joo's body, and texted her family in her exact style for an entire year to keep them from ever visiting. What do you think it says about him that keeping up the impersonation seemed to matter just as much to him as hiding the crime itself?
WE DOCUMENT.
YOU DECIDE.
Our interpretation is only one possible perspective.
