Former Kodansha Editor Jung-Hyun Park Sentenced to 11 Years for Murder of His Wife

Jung-Hyun Park, former Kodansha manga editor, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for the murder of his wife committed in 2016. Park (48) claimed that his wife (38) committed suicide but the courts declared that this statement was not consistent with the evidence on the scene. Park was sentenced to 11 years in prison in the first instance trial, which he appealed. The second instance trial (High Court ruling) confirmed the verdict in 2019, but the Supreme Court ordered a retrial on the basis of an incomplete case and the case once again ended up in front of the Tokyo High Court.

According to the information presented by the prosecutors during the trials, Park killed his wife by strangling her in their home in Tokyo. The defendant claimed that he held down his wife on the bed, while she was holding a knife, and then went to another room, after which he heard a noise and saw that she committed suicide. The presiding judge dismissed this claim, stating that it was unnatural for the wife to lose consciousness and then move around and commit suicide. The judge further added that Park’s claims lack credibility. Park still stands by his claims of innocence. The couple had children.

Park joined Kodansha in 1999. As an editor of the Weekly Shonen Magazine, Park worked on titles such as The Seven Deadly Sins and GTO: Paradise Lost. He also wrote a column for children in the Asahi Shimbun magazine. Although many outlets attribute the launching and editing of the Attack on Titan manga series to Park, these claims are false. Shortly after his arrest in 2017, Kodansha’s Morning magazine issued a statement, revealing that Park assisted in the starting of Bessatsu Shonen Magazine (where Attack on Titan was serialized), and while he was the magazine’s first editor-in-chief, he did not launch the actual manga.

Source: NHK, Mainichi
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