South Korean prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for 21-year-old Kim So-yeon, who is accused of poisoning six men she met on dates across Seoul, leaving two dead. The prosecution delivered its closing argument at a court hearing in the capital on August 18, 2026, describing her actions as monstrous.
The verdict for Kim, who gained thousands of online fans defending her appearance after her arrest, will be delivered on August 27, 2026. Prosecutors argued that a severe sentence was inevitable due to her systematic lying during police investigations and her total lack of remorse.
Defense attorneys called for her acquittal, arguing that the deaths were unintentional. Her lawyer told the court that Kim gave alcohol to one suitor because she feared sexual assault, while other victims suffered because she did not understand the fatal potency of the sedative she administered.
Kim told the court she believed the men were only sleeping because they were snoring. She claimed she was shocked to learn after her arrest that two of the men had died, adding that she drugged one victim because past trauma from surviving sexual violence made her fearful of being touched.
Addressing the courtroom audience, Kim asked for forgiveness from the victims and their families. She said she felt overwhelming guilt for destroying her life, adding that before her detention she thought she was unhappy, but now realized true happiness was simply being near her mother and having a warm meal.
Distracting Suitors With Laced Beverages
Police arrested Kim on February 9, 2026, in the Gangbuk district of northern Seoul, where she lived and where all the alleged crimes occurred. Just 30 minutes before her arrest, she posted a selfie to her social media account, unaware that investigators were closing in on her location.
Hours before the arrest, police discovered the body of a young man inside an hourly rental hotel room in Gangbuk. Investigators found that Kim had taken him to the motel the previous evening, served him a beverage laced with a strong sedative, and abandoned him when he lost consciousness before fleeing in a taxi.
Investigators confirmed that Kim targeted at least six men in total using an identical method. She would meet dates in public, lead them to restaurants or motels, and secretly slip sedatives into their drinks. Police noted that additional victims may remain unidentified.
The poisonings began in October 2025, when Kim called an emergency ambulance herself after a victim collapsed. Roughly a month later, in November, she gave her new boyfriend a drink she claimed would cure fatigue. The man lost consciousness in a cafe within 20 minutes and woke up two days later.
On January 24, 2026, a third man collapsed at a karaoke bar after drinking a beverage provided by Kim. The venue owner refused to let Kim leave the premises alone, forcing her to call an ambulance, which saved the man's life without raising suspicion. Four days later, on January 28, she drugged another suitor at an hourly motel with a sedative dissolved in a hangover drink. Motel staff found his body the following morning, marking her first confirmed murder.
Social Media Fame and Psychological Tests
Authorities initially withheld Kim's identity, but released her name and age following widespread media criticism. Born in 2005, Kim had dropped out of high school and was unemployed, while falsely telling acquaintances that she was a 25-year-old university fashion student.
She routinely posted self-portraits online using popular hashtags meant to boost followers. After her name became public, her social media following expanded 45-fold within a single week, spawning an online fan base that argued her attractive appearance justified clemency. Online commentators wrote that her looks made her innocent, while others suggested her social isolation contributed to her actions.
Experts suggested that Kim targeted wealthy dates to fund a lifestyle beyond her means. She used her victims to pay for expensive meals, hotel stays, and food deliveries, resorting to poisoned drinks whenever the men demanded something in return or argued over expenses.
While in custody, Kim underwent the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised test, a standard psychological evaluation used in South Korea for violent criminals. She scored above the 25-point threshold that indicates psychopathy. However, criminal psychology professor Lee Soo-jung noted that Kim recorded an IQ between 70 and 80, well below average, suggesting that her cognitive limitations made complex premeditation unlikely and pointing instead to a childhood environment marked by parental violence.
Artificial Intelligence Searches Reveal Intent
Six weeks after her arrest, a user on the South Korean online forum DC Inside published photographs of a handwritten letter received from Kim. In the letter, Kim wrote that separation from her mother was mentally exhausting and that she wished to die, stating she preferred death over serving a life sentence in prison.
During her trial, which opened in mid-April 2026, prosecutors presented her search history with an artificial intelligence chatbot as proof of premeditated murder. Before the poisonings, Kim had asked the AI chatbot about fatal doses of sleeping pills, whether mixing sedatives with alcohol was lethal, and what legal penalties applied to deaths caused by negligence.
Kim declined a trial by jury, a move legal analysts viewed as an attempt to seek a lighter sentence for involuntary manslaughter. Lawyer Nam Eun-ho, representing the victims' families, rejected her claims of accidental harm, describing her as a rare serial killer operating in a modern era and demanding the death penalty.
Although South Korean courts almost certainly will convict Kim on August 27, legal precedent indicates her final punishment may be lighter than the capital sentence requested by prosecutors. South Korea retains the death penalty under criminal law, though judges frequently hand down long prison sentences instead.
