Adopted mother died? Mugwort rice cake found in the body, insurance money of 5.8 billion won, the truth is

■ Broadcasting: FM 94.5 (06:40~06:55, 12:40~12:55, 19:40~19:55)
■ Broadcast Date: January 10, 2025 (Fri)
■ Host: Lawyer Lee Won-hwa
■ Dialogue: Lawyer Kwon Ji-an

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information.
◆ Lee Won-hwa: April 2016 was probably an inflection point that I will never forget in A's life. At that time, A was adopted by B's parents, who were friends. So it means that she became legally a sister with her friend. Of course, that's possible, but there were two reasons why I wondered about this. Mr. A's adopted age was 53. And Mr. A's biological mother was not even dead. Mr. A even had a daughter. So, it was not easy to understand the story that A was suddenly adopted by a friend's mother one day. It's been about a year and five months. Mr. A was found dead at the folk pub where he worked that day. In addition to post-mortem stiffness, A's hands and feet were blackened. However, there were no signs of assault or murder. But there was something strange about A's case. In the case of an incident where no signs of assault or murder have been found, the investigation is generally terminated in two or three months. Somehow, the police's investigation of A's death case has not been completed for three years. What was the reason? Let's take a closer look at this case in today's case X file. Hello, this is case X file dualization. Today, we are also with lawyer Kwon Jian of Law Firm Roel. Welcome, lawyer.

◇Kwon Jian: Hello. I'm lawyer Kwon Jian of Law Firm Roel.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: We deal with unpublished cases every Friday. The case we're going to talk about today is a little different from the cases we've been dealing with. I'm not sure if the victim was a murder or a sudden death. It's not like there's a prime suspect or anything. But there was such a doubtful point that it was worth putting our heads together. Let's take a look at what happened.

◇Kwon Ji-an: As you mentioned, this is a very strange case. The deceased A in this case is. She was a woman in her 60s at the time of her death. In September 2017, she was a woman who ran a folk pub in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do. Found dead in this folk pub. At the time of discovery, A had already undergone post-mortem stiffness and was found in a state of black necrosis of his hands and feet.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I don't know the exact time, but from what you told me, it must have been at least a few days since he died. That's what I'm thinking. Who made the discovery?

◇Kwon Ji-an: First of all, the first time I found A's body. This is Mr. Choi, Mr. A's uncle. Mr. Choi is... It became a case in earnest when I reported it to the police. When the police found A, he seemed to have already died a few days ago, and the body was decomposing very quickly. The police who looked at the body. I checked if there was any assault or attack on A, but as you just told me, I couldn't find any such traces and I couldn't find any circumstantial evidence that he made an extreme choice. But there was something very unusual about the body.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: Which one was it?

◇Kwon Ji-an: Mugwort rice cake was found in the body's mouth.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I think he might have died because of blocked airways while eating rice cakes.

◇Kwon Ji-an: Of course, that's a possibility. The case of dying while eating rice cake is. I'm sure the listeners have heard it at least once. The police did not immediately judge that it was a case of death due to blocked airways while eating rice cakes. An autopsy was conducted based on the expert opinion that there was something unclear.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: What was the result?

◇Kwon Ji-an: Unfortunately, the cause of death was unknown. If you look at the autopsy report. The cause of death is anatomically unknown. It could be a case of suffocation from airway obstruction by food, but after death, the contents returned, leaving open any possibility that there could be food in the airways. In the end, the fact that rice cakes came out of the mouth alone cannot confirm suffocation. For this reason. Compared to the usual quick closure of the case, this case has become the subject of investigation in the long run. The reason is. I'll explain it later, but it's because there was something noteworthy.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: What did the police pay attention to?

◇Kwon Ji-an: Before Mr. A died. It was the fact that I bought about 22 life insurance policies. If you add up all the receipts of life insurance that Mr. A has subscribed to in the future. It was a huge amount, reaching 5.86 billion won. It was a very unusual situation. And it was a very suspicious situation that A was in very good health until a few days before his death.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: In fact, it seems that it would have been difficult for the police to just end this. And I think there was an acquaintance who sold insurance to Mr. A's acquaintance. Even so, it is not common sense to take more than 20 life insurance. Did Mr. A earn a lot because of his good income?

◇Kwon Jian: No. Mr. A seems to have been struggling with his livelihood. What about Mr. A? I had about 1 million won a month during my lifetime, and I didn't have 20,000 to 30,000 won in my pocket, so I had difficulty making a living to the extent that I did credit transactions at the mart and worked part-time during the day when I didn't open a bar. However, Mr. A has signed up for more than 20 life insurance policies. I paid about 1.4 million won as a monthly insurance premium. But it's going to be very important who the beneficiaries of these insurance policies were. Can you guess who the beneficiary was?

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I heard that this person had a child after her husband or parents. Anyway, I don't think he was one of the family members.

◇Kwon Jian: That's right. It is correct to assume that it is usually a family member, but in this case, the beneficiary was A's friend. The beneficiaries of the insurance policies that Mr. A signed up for were all friends who were middle school classmates, and this friend was an acquaintance with a history of insurance planners. The insurance premium that Mr. A had to pay was 1.42 million won. Among them, the friend was paying 1.26 million won instead and maintaining these insurance policies. Another thing that I didn't know was... This friend was the one who had a sisterhood relationship with the adult adoption. In fact, A was an ordinary woman who was already married and had children, but suddenly ran away from home and started living with this friend. And by 2016. I decided to adopt her under her mother, and the adoption process actually went on, so A and this middle school classmate, this friend, became sisters to each other.

◆ Won-hwa: It's not something that's absolutely impossible, but it's kind of weird with universal common sense.

◇Kwon Jian: That's right. Especially if you look at the adoption process. According to the civil law, if the person to be adopted is an adult, the adoption process can be carried out only with the consent of the biological parents if the biological parents are alive. But at the time of the adoption process, A's mother was alive. That's why A's mother thought A was terrible and thought A was the youngest daughter, so she loved her very much, but it could not be considered by the consent of this kind of adoption process. So when A took a closer look at this case, A's mother was blind at all when she filled out this adoption document. When Mr. A is filling out the documents. I've already cut off all my relationships with my family and haven't even contacted them. Then, suddenly, with this document, I came to see the mother with my friend. The blind mother may have signed an agreement with this document. Of course, I don't have the exact evidence. Then, she stopped all relationships with her daughter as well as her mother. The daughter even came to find A, but she pretended not to know her daughter, simply said hello, and cut off the relationship in this way. Then suddenly, Mr. A died like this incident. And the bereaved families who heard the news of the death like youth troops. I was very sad, but at the same time, I couldn't figure out what kind of property relationship Mr. A had, especially how he signed up for insurance. In the meantime, A's daughter was informed by the police to check if her mother had many insurance policies, and only then did A's daughter and her original family members. I found out about this insurance policy.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: Just because you have a family to choose who the beneficiary of the insurance will be, you must do it in his name. It's not like this, but from the perspective of the daughter who received the story, shouldn't she have found out who and why her mother made the profit? What happened to this?

◇Kwon Ji-an: That's what A thought. I searched several insurance companies to find out what kind of insurance their mother had and who the beneficiaries were. Despite trying to check, the third-party A's daughter was unable to check the exact insurance subscription details because the policyholder was A's daughter, not A's daughter, and the beneficiary was A's friend. In the end, the police suspected this case as an insurance fraud. So we continued the investigation for four years. As a result, as I said earlier, I found circumstantial evidence such as a friend paying insurance premiums and a friend searching for poisoned food on the Internet before A's death. However, it was not possible to confirm exactly why and how Mr. A died, and there was no proper evidence. After four years, the police will close the case due to insufficient evidence.

◆Wonwon: But you know this insurance money. I'm very curious about how this works. Did the friend take out all the insurance money?

◇Kwon Jian: No. Mr. A died. This friend of Mr. A, who was a beneficiary, of course claimed insurance money from the insurance company. But insurance companies. Mr. A's friend refused to pay the insurance money, claiming that he falsely signed an insurance contract for the insurance money. Eventually, Mr. A's friend filed a claim against insurance companies. The content was intended to give the insurance money according to the contract because A died of suffocation after eating mugwort.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I'm curious about the outcome of the trial.

◇Kwon Ji-an: To tell you the conclusion, all of Mr. A's claims have been rejected. The court did not accept Mr. A's friend's argument.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: Is that so? What was it about?

◇Kwon Ji-an: It seems that the court has also comprehensively judged all of the contents described above. It is very unusual for A to sign up for a large number of insurance policies while paying excessive premiums, and to point out his friend as the beneficiary of the insurance, and to designate his friend as the beneficiary even though he paid the insurance premiums and there is a legal heir. So, all of the plaintiff's claims were dismissed by paying attention to these points.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: There were still many unsolved suspicions about why A signed up more than 20 of them, who had not been able to simply take out life insurance that could only receive death insurance without any guarantee on the cause of A's death. I'm also curious about your opinions after listening to this broadcast. That's all we've prepared. You all deserve to be defended. Incident X file, thank you everyone.