Fairfax teen may have died in Korean exorcism, police say

Washington Post ^ | October 22, 2009 | Tom Jackman

[La Lydia]

Someone pummeled and smothered 18-year-old Rayoung Kim in a bedroom of her home in a new suburban subdivision in Fairfax County. She fell unconscious and later died. Fairfax police think the fatal injuries occurred in July 2008 during a Korean exorcism, in which a spiritual shaman and family members try to force evil spirits to leave a possessed person. That account is in a police affidavit filed recently in Fairfax Circuit Court, which quotes Kim's brother as saying his sister was involved in a religious ritual in the moments before she passed out. The court filing also quotes the medical examiner's report, saying Kim died from "blunt force trauma and asphyxiation."

After investigating the case for more than a year, Fairfax homicide detectives recently obtained search warrants to take DNA samples from Kim's mother and brother, whom they suspect might have participated in the ancient Korean rite of kut, in which a shaman communicates with spirits.

It is extremely rare for murder or manslaughter charges to be filed in relation to religious rituals. In the past 10 to 15 years, only a few cases have been prosecuted in the United States. But the search warrant filed in Fairfax Circuit Court in the Kim case provides a window into the sometimes dangerous practice...

John Goulde, director of the Asian studies program at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Va., said he had watched a number of kuts in South Korea. He said they involve holding the person down while the evil spirits are pushed out of the stomach and forced out through the throat. In a 1996 case in California, a woman who died during a Korean exorcism had suffered 16 broken ribs and a crushed heart...

[La Lydia]

Life in suburban Washington, D.C.