The screams of a family brutally murdered by a martial arts teacher still ring in the ears of their loved ones.<\/p>\n
Kwang Kyung Yoo was forced to face his victims’ supporters on Thursday, more than 18 months after strangling a seven-year-old student and his mother before hunting down the boy’s father.<\/p>\n
Wearing crocheted flowers on their lapels, the loved ones of the deceased filled the public gallery of the NSW Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
As a supporter read an impact statement from the woman’s parents in Korean, she took glances at Yoo, who sat with his head bowing lower and lower as the words washed over him.<\/p>\n
“Our lives have been utterly destroyed,” an English translation of the statement said.<\/p>\n
‘Excruciating pain’<\/p>\n
“Ordinary days, small happinesses, laughter and conversation \u2013 all of them have disappeared.<\/p>\n
“What remains is only excruciating pain and endless despair.”<\/p>\n
Sobs and sniffs reverberated through the courtroom as the depth of the family’s grief was laid bare.<\/p>\n
Yoo did not raise his head as the parents recounted how their daughter, son-in-law and grandchild were killed.<\/p>\n
The instructor admits he strangled the boy and the woman, 41, at his North Parramatta taekwondo school in February 2024.<\/p>\n
He then drove the woman’s white BMW to her home in Baulkham Hills where he fatally stabbed the 39-year-old father.<\/p>\n
“Even now we can still hear the screams and tears … as their lives were wrongfully taken,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
“Every moment we breathe is painful and being alive in itself feels like a punishment.”<\/p>\n
The mother’s brother made a lament to the heavens, asking what his family had done to deserve a tragedy like this.<\/p>\n
“Why were our ancestors so cruel to us?” his victim impact statement said.<\/p>\n
“What wrong did we commit that they had to take her and upset mum?”<\/p>\n
Pile of tissues soaked in tears<\/p>\n
Yoo’s interpreter began wiping away tears as the brother laid out everything he wished he had told his younger sister.<\/p>\n
“Mum’s vanity table is piled high with tissues soaked in tears as she thinks of you,” his statement said.<\/p>\n
“Whenever I was struggling, I knew I could reach out to you \u2013 my only little sister.<\/p>\n
“Now I am left alone, what do I do?”<\/p>\n
Though the agreed statement of facts did not point to a specific motive, police had found 51-year-old was interested in luxury items, social status, and wealth.<\/p>\n
He previously lied about qualifying for the 2000 Olympic Games and earning a PhD in exercise science.<\/p>\n
Yoo once showed the mother of one of his students a photo, which showed the Sydney Harbour Bridge and a Lamborghini, and falsely claimed it was the view from his home, with a car he owned.<\/p>\n
Shortly before the murders, Yoo had lied to his wife, telling her a school where he worked would soon provide him with a BMW.<\/p>\n
He arrived at Westmead Hospital in a BMW belonging to the deceased, an hour after the 39-year-old stabbed him in self-defence.<\/p>\n
The hearing continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The screams of a family brutally murdered by a martial arts teacher still ring in the ears of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-155989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}