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American Arthur Patterson enters South Korea in custody through Incheon International Airport

A South Korean court has finally decided who was the culprit in a murder that occurred at a Burger King in the Seoul neighborhood of Itaewon 19 years ago.

In a hearing that lasted about two hours, Arthur Patterson, 37, shed tears and sighed after the judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Initially considered a witness in the case, Patterson was eventually identified as the culprit.

“Because of the crime committed in this case, the victim, Cho Joong-pil, was deprived of all his human rights, including the right to pursue happiness, at the tender age of 22. The psychological pain and trauma of Cho’s family members have lasted for 19 years and remain today,” Hon. Sim Gyu-hong told Patterson, who was charged with murder, on the afternoon of Jan. 29. Sim, a judge in criminal division No. 27 at the Seoul Central District Court, then gave Patterson a 20-year prison sentence.

In determining the sentence, the judge took into account the fact that Patterson was 18 years old when he committed the crime. According to South Korean legislation about the prosecution of violent crime, individuals who are less than 18 years old when they commit a violent crime, such as murder, that would normally carry a sentence of execution or life in prison can be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison.

The court concluded that both Patterson and Edward Lee, 37, had entered the bathroom expecting that an incident would occur but that only one of them had actually committed the murder.

Lee had originally been identified as the culprit in the case before later being cleared of charges.

Since the murder took place in a short time in a cramped bathroom, the judge said, Patterson and Lee could not have handed the murder weapon to each other. In the end, he said, the criminal must have been the person who had been splattered with more blood.

The bathroom of the Burger King at which the crime occurred was tiny – just 1.45 meters by 2.6 meters in size.

“Lee did not wash his hands immediately after the crime, and there was not much blood splattered on his upper body. With Patterson, though, his entire body – both hands, upper body, lower body, and socks – was covered with a great deal of blood. Furthermore, as soon as he came out of the bathroom [where the murder occurred] he went to the bathroom on the fourth floor of the Burger King and washed his hands. Considering these points, Lee’s testimony [that Patterson was the criminal] is more credible,” the court concluded.

The court also regarded Lee as a co-principal offender in the case, acknowledging that he had been complicit in the crime.

“Lee egged Patterson on to commit the crime, did not try to stop him even when the victim was being stabbed and was bleeding, and bragged to his friends about the crime,” the judge said. “Lee appears to have followed Patterson into the bathroom not to watch the crime but rather to make sure no one else came into the bathroom and to help hold down the victim.”

However, since Lee had already been found not guilty in the case, he cannot be convicted according to the legal principle of double jeopardy, which states that no one can be tried twice for the same crime.

Immediately after the ruling, Patterson choked back tears and approached his lawyer in an attempt to tell him something, but he was soon escorted out of the court by four bailiffs.

The court’s ruling that Lee and Patterson were both criminals in the case lays the prosecutors open to criticism for not indicting the two as accomplices in the case. If the prosecutors had carried out the initial investigation properly and had prevented Patterson from fleeing to the US in 1999, it would not have taken 19 long years for the truth to be revealed.

While both Lee and Patterson had been at the scene of the crime, the prosecutors only pinned the murder charge on Lee, citing the autopsy report and the results of a lie detector test as evidence. This was the exact opposite of what the US Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) had found in its initial investigation – namely, that Patterson was the culprit.

But the prosecutors’ missteps did not end with the initial investigation. After Lee was found not guilty in Sep. 1998, the victim’s family asked the prosecutors to charge Patterson with murder that November. Patterson, however, took advantage of the prosecutors’ failure to extend his travel ban to flee to the US in August of the following year.

The victim’s mother, Lee Bok-soo, 74, had kept her head bowed the whole time that the judge was reading the verdict. When the judge read that Patterson was guilty, she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.

“I feel relieved and gratified that the ruling turned out well,” she told reporters after the verdict was read. “As long as the criminal was still out there, I felt more dead than alive and I felt like I was doing wrong to Joong-pil. But I stayed strong and made it this far.”

“I think that Joong-pil will be able to find peace of mind, too, now. I appreciate everyone who has helped us.”

“It feels like a relief now, but I’ll have to see what happens with Edward Lee. The Supreme Court found him not guilty, but he’s a murderer, too. It’s absurd that he can’t be held responsible because of the ‘double jeopardy’ rule,” Cho’s mother said.

Immediately after the sentencing, Patterson’s lawyer, Oh Byeong-ju, announced that they would appeal. “I’m convinced that Patterson is not the culprit in this case. I hope that the truth will be made clear in the appeal to ensure that the wrong person is not convicted of the crime,” Oh said.

By Seo Young-ji and Kim Ji-hoon, staff reporters

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