Kill Student and His Coach in Sydney Taekwondo Sentenced to Life in Prison

JAKARTA - A judge has sentenced a taekwondo coach in Sydney, Australia, to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for killing a 7-year-old student and his parents.

Reported by ABC News, Tuesday, December 16, Kwang Kyung Yoo (51) sat with his head bowed when Judge Ian Harrison said he would never qualify for parole.

Harrison said Yoo committed the act because of the envy he felt over the family's financial success.

"I am satisfied that the degree of culpability in this offence is so extreme that the interests of the community in retribution, punishment, public protection and deterrence can only be met by imposing a sentence of life imprisonment," Harrison told the New South Wales Supreme Court.

Harrison said Yoo had no motive to kill the boy or his parents in February 2024.

State law prohibits identifying child victims of crimes, so the boy's parents also cannot be named.

Yoo and his victims were all born in South Korea.

Yoo pleaded guilty to the three murders at an earlier hearing. He has no previous criminal record.

Yoo strangled the boy and his 41-year-old mother at his Lion Taekwondo and Martial Arts Academy in western Sydney. He was then in debt to the academy for tens of thousands of dollars and was behind on rent.

He took the boy's mother's Apple watch and drove his luxury BMW to the family home, where he stabbed the boy's 39-year-old father to death.

Yoo was injured in a fight at home and drove his own car to the hospital, where he told medical staff he had been attacked in a supermarket parking lot. Police arrested him at the hospital.

The coach, who was called Master Lion by his pupils, did not look at the victim's family and other supporters as they wept in the court's public gallery after the verdict was delivered.

"This murder was a horrific and cruel act, without any sense of reason, cruel and cynical, committed without the slightest human compassion," the judge said.

Although the crime was planned - with Yoo overseeing the family home beforehand - he made no attempt to hide his crimes from CCTV cameras at his academy or try to conceal the bodies.

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