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| Wanting... |
 Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:37 pm |
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In North Korea, the Dear Leader tells reporters from Myanmar, "We do
these all the time. Even make people disappear."
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"Fairfax, Virginia, teen may have died in Korean exorcism, police say"
By Tom Jackman
Thursday, October 22, 2009
SOMEONE PUMMELED and smothered 18-year-old Rayoung Kim in a bedroom of
her home in a new suburban subdivision in Fairfax County, Va. 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.
Kim's father, Kyung T. Kim, said police officers had their facts wrong
but declined to comment further. No one has been charged in the case.
Exorcisms have a long history in Korean theology, experts said.
Missionaries introduced various forms of Christianity in Korea
beginning in the late 18th century, but the kut ritual long predates
that, experts said.
"Historically, the Korean culture has been very deeply shaped by
shamanism," said Peter Cha, a professor of pastoral theology at
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill. In Korean
shamanism, a woman is typically the shaman, or mudang, and
communicates with gods or spirits not only to drive out evil but also
to resolve financial problems or improve a person's health.
Cha said some Koreans "believe in multiple spirits that are active and
present. Whether an illness is physical or emotional, it is evil done
by these spirits."
The family of Seung Hui Cho, the Korean-born man who killed 32 people
and himself at Virginia Tech in 2007, considered using members of a
Woodbridge church to treat their emotionally disturbed son in 2006 but
ultimately did not, the pastor said. The Rev. Dong Cheol Lee of One
Mind Presbyterian Church said that Cho was afflicted by "demonic
power" and that his mother had approached several congregations
seeking help.
"His problem needed to be solved by spiritual power," Lee said in
2007. "That's why she came to our church, because we were helping
several people like him."
Rayoung Kim was a student at Centreville High School and might have
had mental health issues, said law enforcement sources with knowledge
of the investigation. But rather than explore psychotherapy or
medication, the Kims brought in a shaman trained in the elaborate
rituals of kut, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because the investigation is ongoing. A kut can last hours or days and
involves chanting, dancing, candles, incense, offerings of food and
money to the spirits -- and sometimes physical force.
Leaders in Northern Virginia's Korean community said exorcisms are
unusual in the area. "This is not common," said Michael Kwon of the
Korean-American Association of Northern Virginia. "I've been very
involved in the Korean American community for many years, and I don't
know of anybody using mudangs," he said, although he said he was
familiar with the practice in Korea.
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.
The mudang typically enters an altered state of consciousness in which
spirits enter her body during the ceremony and can transmit positive
power, withhold their harmful presence or communicate important
messages, author John A. Grim wrote in the book "Asian Folklore
Studies." Money is usually involved as payment to the spirits, and
spirit power must be "correctly solicited and purchased," Grim wrote.
Goulde said some highly educated people use mudangs rather than more
modern approaches. The shaman can sometimes be connected to a
Pentecostal or charismatic church, and "it's a highly emotion-packed
form of religion," Goulde said. "It's very cathartic. It makes them
feel good and generates support."
Fairfax police wouldn't discuss the specifics of what happened to
Rayoung Kim last year. A search warrant affidavit written by homicide
Detective Robert A. Bond that was recently filed in Circuit Court
quotes the medical examiner's report, saying that "unidentified DNA"
was found at Kim's house on Old Mill Road, just off Route 28 in
Centreville.
When Bond interviewed Kim's mother, she said she had been speaking
with her daughter when she collapsed. The mother later made a second
statement, saying that she found her daughter in her room,
unresponsive. The mother denied having a role in her daughter's death,
Bond wrote.
Kim's teenage brother told police that he, his mother and two other
people "were performing a religious ritual on the victim prior to her
becoming unresponsive," the affidavit says.
On July 26, 2008, someone in the house summoned an ambulance for the
unconscious girl. She was taken to Inova Fair Oaks Hospital, then to
the intensive care unit at Inova Fairfax Hospital.
Police dominated the quiet street for hours, neighbors said. But
virtually none of the neighbors had any relationship with the Kims,
and no one knew what might have been going on in their house. Some
said they didn't even know a teenage girl lived there.
Kim died July 30, 2008. Officer Don Gotthardt, a Fairfax police
spokesman, said the investigation was continuing. "Homicide detectives
are still waiting for some forensic results, and it's still an active,
ongoing investigation."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/21/AR2009102104110.html |
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