Man jailed over Sydney strangling murder of woman he was having an affair with
A man who admitted murdering a woman whose body was found in a western Sydney park will spend at least 13 years behind bars, a court has heard.
Chulsoo Jung, 56, pleaded guilty in February to murdering Min Sook Moon, 49, whose family reported her missing in March 2021 after falling out of contact.
Moon was last seen walking along Rawson St in Epping on March 8 last year and her body was found in a Silverwater park later that month.
On Friday, Jung faced the NSW Supreme Court where Justice Justice Ian Harrison sentenced him to a term of 18 years behind bars, with a non-parole period of 13 years and six months.
In handing down sentence, Justice Harrison noted Jung had shown deep regret for killing Moon, whom he had been having an initimate affair with for several years in the lead-up to the “undeserving” crime.
He pointed to it being highly unlikely that Jung would ever reoffend, his lack of criminal history and that he would be much older when released from jail.
The judge also noted that Jung, who was born in South Korea and moved to Australia in 2010, had assisted investigators in locating the body of Moon, and had pleaded guilty, affording him a 25 per cent discount on sentence.
The court heard that Jung, who would deliver food to Moon’s Korean food store in Epping, killed her by strangling her with a phone charger cord for at least five-and-a-half minutes, before burying her at Blaxland Riverside Park near a tree.
The murder, which involved a prolonged exertion of force, possibly took place in the context of strain, or an ending, to the extra-marital affair, the judge said, describing the killing as a “violent act of uncontrollable passion”.
“On Jung’s account he just went crazy,” Justice Harrison said, noting that crimes of passion needed to be punished and that Jung’s brutal loss of self control was carried out on Moon, who was an unsuspecting victim.
Jung, in a green prison tracksuit, appeared via audio-visual link from Parklea Prison and showed little emotion as the sentence was handed down.
