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Guilty Verdict for Edmund Ko

Korean American murdered his former college girlfriend

By Heather Harlan

A young, Ivy League-educated heir to a Korean leather-goods fortune was convicted July 27 of murdering his ex-girlfriend in her Columbia University apartment.

Edmund Ko, 26, was found guilty of second-degree murder by a Manhattan jury after 12 hours of deliberations.

The defendant was accused of slashing Columbia law student, Hyseung Lynda Hong, 26, on March 20, 1998.

Ko did not react as the verdict was read, but Hong’s family burst into tears and wept loudly. Without acknowledging his parents who were seated behind him, Ko was then handcuffed and led away.

The verdict brought to a close a case that shocked and saddened the Korean American community in New Jersey, where both the victim and the killer were raised.

Ko met Hong when they were both undergraduates at Cornell University, and they soon began dating. The couple later broke up in 1997, but remained on good terms, friends said.

After graduation, Ko joined the executive training program at Macy’s department store to prepare for eventually taking over his father’s multi-million dollar leather-goods business in Korea. Meanwhile, Hong, whose family is affluent as well, attended law school where she was known as an exceptional student with a passion for Asian American women’ s rights issues.

During the seven-week trial, assistant district attorney Ann Prunty laid out a story of how Ko’s promising future spiraled downward into a twisted lovers’ game between Ko and another ex-girlfriend, Claudia Seong, that apparently led to Hong’s death.

Prunty contended that Ko had killed Hong in order to prove his devotion to his then-girlfriend, Seong, who was obsessively jealous of his former girlfriends.

Jack Litman, Ko’s defense attorney, insisted, that it was Seong, 33, who should be held responsible for the murder. He suggested that the jealous girlfriend may have ordered a friend, Jae Young Shin, to carry out the killing as revenge for Hong calling Seong a prostitute. Shin, who had been Ko’s classmate at Cornell, has allegedly fled to Korea. Neither he nor Seong have been charged in connection with the crime.

Prosecutors said that while Seong might have inspired the incident, Ko acted alone.

Ko was arrested soon after police found Hong’s body—with her throat slashed ear to ear—facedown in a pool of blood in her Morningside Heights apartment. She had been killed the day before.

During the trial, prosecutors said bloody clothes linked to Ko were found at the crime scene. A friend of Hong’s testified that while she was talking on the phone with Hong the night of the murder, the law student mentioned that Ko was on his way over to visit.

There was little forensic evidence, however, linking Ko directly to the murder scene. Prosecutors had planned to introduce a knife that allegedly contained traces of Hong’s blood as evidence of a murder weapon, but suddenly changed their minds after allegations that the knife had been planted by police in Ko’s parents’ apartment where it was found.

Police later discovered that Ko, who was living with Seong in Edgewater at the time of the murder, did not have access to his parents’ Cliffside Park apartment. A police forensics lab technician testified during the trial that he might have accidently contaminated the knife with Hong’s blood while examining it.

Seong was called to testify, but under questioning from both the prosecution and the defense, invoked the Fifth Amendment 37 times while the jury was out of the courtroom.

Throughout the trial, both the defense and the prosecution acknowledged what they characterized as Seong’s manipulative hold on Ko. Another of Ko’s ex-girlfriend, Diane Kim, testified about a disturbingly similar incident in New Jersey during which Seong slashed her face, scalp and legs while Ko and Seong’s younger sister, Young Joo, restrained her. Charges against Ko, Claudia Seong and Young Joo Seong stemming from that incident—which allegedly occurred only four months before Hong’s murder —are pending in New Jersey.

After the verdict, Hong’s family spoke bitterly about Ko’s attorney’s attempts to suggest he was framed by Seong and the police.

“No matter how much Mr. Litman tried to use his defense attacks, people in this day and age are not as stupid as he thinks,” said Hong’s sister Amy. “The evidence against [Ko] was tremendous.”

She praised the prosecutors and said she was pleased with the guilty verdict but added, “It doesn’t erase the fact that my sister will never be here with us and our pain will never diminish.”

Ko’s father, Eun-Bong, told reporters as he walked out of the courtroom that he was surprised by the verdict. “My son is not the kind of young boy who can kill somebody,” he said. “He didn’t have any criminal record during his high school and university days.”

Litman said he would appeal the verdict. Ko is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 18. He faces 25 years to life in prison.