Doctor sentenced to 20 years for killing pregnant wife

SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) -- A local court sentenced a doctor to 20 years in prison for killing his pregnant wife during a quarrel and trying to cover up the murder. The court found the 31-year-old man surnamed Baek guilty of strangling his nine-months-pregnant wife in January after the two had a fight over the husband's heavy computer gaming habit. "Baek is to be blamed for strangling his wife who was expected to give birth to his child only one month later as well as for causing the death of the baby," said Judge Han Byung-yui of the Seoul Western District Court in a verdict. The heavy sentence also reflected Baek's attempts to cover up his crime and falsely claim his innocence in his wife's death, the verdict stated. "Baek only immersed himself in defending his innocence rather than showing remorse or asking for forgiveness," it added. The rare case of murder by a doctor drew heavy media attention and required a batch of forensic specialists to prove Baek's responsibility for the killing. The doctor first reported his wife's death to the police himself, saying he found his wife lying dead over a bathtub in the couple's apartment in Seoul after he returned home in the evening. Citing his medical career and knowledge, the doctor claimed his wife might have slipped in the bathroom and the extra weight from the pregnancy led to the suffocation. However, police and forensic scientists said the woman's death was apparently caused by Baek strangling her because their investigation found marks around her neck and internal bleeding due to the throttling. "It is difficult to say the death was caused by suffocation due to the wife's abnormal posture (caused by the fall) as the defendant argued," the judge noted. A police investigation found that the couple had a serious fight early in the morning on the day the woman was found dead. The fight, coupled with stress from a medical license test he took the previous day, led the husband to strangle his wife. Baek left his home at sunrise for a nearby college library before returning home later in the day to report the death to the police.