A 40-year-old man was killed in Hyesan, Ryanggang Province, after suffering from a severe beating by two of his relatives on Feb. 10.
“A man suffering from a drug addiction spent all his family’s money on buying drugs and his wife and her brother beat him to death,” a Ryanggang Province-based source reported on Feb. 21.
The man’s body was found on a side street in Hyesan’s Hyemoney District by a neighbor on the morning of Feb. 11. A metal wire was reportedly wrapped around the neck of the man’s frozen corpse when it was discovered.
The local police station recovered the body and identified the man as a drug addict with a past history of family troubles. The police began focusing their investigation on the man’s wife.
At first, she testified that her husband had gone out to buy drugs but failed to return. Later, however, the woman confessed that she and her brother had killed him.
The police concluded that on the day of the murder, the man had taken the family’s TV out to sell and had gotten into a serious fight with his wife upon his return home. His wife called her brother and the two proceeded to beat the man to death.
The man’s wife and her brother placed his body on the street and wrapped steel wire around his neck to make it seem like he had been killed by a mugger.
The wife’s brother is currently undergoing a “preliminary examination” by the police. Preliminary examinations include the entire interrogation process prior to suspects being indicted.
The wife may face leniency given the “suffering” inflicted upon her because of her husband’s drug addiction, sources said.
The murder follows another killing of a remittance broker in Hyesan’s Hyegang District earlier this month.
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