News
Convict In 1993 Slaying Of OU Student Is Up For Parole
By: Associated Press
Posted on:
A man convicted of the 1993 murder of an Ohio University student is scheduled to have a parole hearing next month, The Athens Messenger reports.
Hyunchoel "Charles" Park, 45, was convicted of killing Ki-Chul "Andrew" Jung, whose body was found stuffed in a trunk along Route 50 in West Virginia. The two men had been friends.
A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said Park's hearing will be March 5 or 6. He has been serving his sentence in Allen Correctional Institution in Lima, according to the department's website.
Park faced the death penalty on an aggravated murder charge, but entered into a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to murder, a gun specification, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse and was sentenced to a total of 21 1/2 years to life in prison.
He has been in prison since March 1994, and was last denied parole in 2009.
At the time of Park's sentencing in Athens County Common Pleas Court, his attorney told the court that Park accidentally shot Jung in the head when he was showing him a handgun, then panicked and shot him in the head a second time to end his pain. Then-prosecutor Bill Biddlestone told the court it would "never be fully certain" if the first shot was intentional or accidental.
However, subsequent prosecutors who have opposed Park's release have said that investigators believed that Park also beat Jung with a golf club during the incident, and have said that after the killing Park went to Atlantic City and gambled with money taken from Jung.