A Korean true crime fan who murdered a stranger 'out of curiosity' is sentenced to life in prison

• A true crime fanatic who murdered a stranger in South Korea was sentenced to life in prison.
• Jung Yoo-jung, 23, reportedly stabbed a 26-year-old over 100 times in the victim's home in Busan.

Jung Yoo-jung, a true crime-obsessed woman in South Korea who killed a stranger "out of curiosity" has been given a life sentence, multiple local news outlets reported.

Jung, 23, spent months researching murder through true crime shows, books, and on the internet. She "became obsessed with murder from TV programs and books," a police spokesperson said.

In May, Jung found her victim, a stranger, on an online tutoring app after contacting over 50 potential targets and asking if they held lessons in their homes. She posed as the mother of a high school student who needed tutoring, showed up at the tutor's home dressed in a school uniform, and stabbed the victim — a 26-year-old woman — over 100 times, continuing even after she was already dead, BBC reported.

She then dismembered the victim's body, packed parts of it into a suitcase, and changed into the victim's clothes, police told Korea JoongAng Daily, the English edition of a major South Korean newspaper.

Jung then took a taxi ride with the suitcase and dumped it in a wooded area by a river, leaving other parts of the body in her own home. Police were tipped off by the taxi driver who drove her to the area where she dumped the body.

Jung eventually confessed after changing her story several times throughout the investigation: She initially denied the accusations, then said she had only moved the body, and later said she had killed the victim during an argument, Korea JoongAng Daily and BBC reported.

While prosecutors had requested the death penalty, Jung had pleaded for a more lenient sentence, claiming that she was suffering from hallucinations and other mental issues, according to the BBC.

"The crime was carefully planned and carried out and the defendant's statements have frequently changed. Thus it is difficult to accept her claim of mental and physical disorder," the court said.