Justice is Served?
Posted: September 21st, 2009, 9:33 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Wilberger
Justice has been served for Brooke Wilberger and her family. There is no question about this.
Five years after her abduction, her remains have been returned to her grieving parents.
Joel Courtney, the man responsible for her death, will serve out an eighteen year sentence in New Mexico for a crime he was convicted of there, another abduction/rape/murder he attempted but failed, and then be returned to Oregon to serve life without possibility of parole.
Ms. Wilberger, a nineteen year-old freshman attending Brigham Young University at the time of her disappearance, was on summer break visiting her sister, a student of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, when she was abducted by Mr. Courtney while cleaning lamp posts in the Oak Park Apartments complex near the OSU campus.
Mr. Courtney agreed to reveal the whereabouts of Ms. Wilberger's remains and plead guilty to her murder when assured by the Benton County district attorney that the death penalty would not be sought.
Sung Koo Kim was considered a person of interest in the first weeks after Ms. Wilberger's disappearance. The home he shared with his parents was searched. In Mr. Kim's possession were found multiple pairs of women’s panties, one of which was determined to belong to Ms. Wilberger. When the available evidence proved that Mr. Kim had not abducted Ms. Wilberger but had in fact stolen her panties from a dryer in the laundry room of the apartment complex in which her sister lived, where Ms. Wilberger was staying, he was dropped as a suspect in the case. Before this happened, however, his face, the image of the home he shared with his parents, and the details of his admittedly bizarre panty fetish and undeniably illegal manner of serving it had been plastered for a week or longer all over television screens throughout the region. He then received and is currently serving a 68-month prison sentence for theft.
Five years and eight months for stealing panties out of dryers.
Justice has been served for Brooke Wilberger and her family. Joel Courtney should by anyone's measure spend the rest of his life behind bars. But what about justice for Sung Koo Kim? Yes, he's weird. Yes, he stole. He snuck into laundry rooms and stole women’s panties, their personal property, out of dryers in order to feed his bizarre fetish. He had dresser drawers full of them. He'd clearly been doing it for years. He was probably very ashamed of it, hence the sneaking. But five and a half years? Is that justice for the women whose panties he stole? Is that justice for society as a whole? It hardly seems like justice for him, if justice is defined as the punishment suiting the crime. It sounds more like once he was arrested and his life and the lives of his immediate family members were irrevocably disrupted if not destroyed, some show had to be made by the authorities to prove they had been right in the first place. They couldn't just say sorry and let him go. This man needed to be taken off the streets. More than a nuisance, he was a menace. He was going around stealing women’s panties, for God sakes. Everyone knows it would only have been a matter of time before he started abducting the women themselves, stepped it up, and escalated his illegal activities, right? The cops did us all a favor by stumbling upon his illegal activities in the course of their investigation of the abduction of Brooke Wilberger. And never mind that the intensity of their focus on Sung Koo Kim may be what allowed the real killer to escape to New Mexico, where he almost killed another young woman six months later. One has nothing to do with the other. They were sure it was him because he had her panties. Who can blame them? It shouldn't matter that they were wrong.
Justice has now been served. Brooke Wilberger's parents can bury their daughter, and this is a good thing. It is justice. I just can't help feeling sorry for Sung Koo Kim, no matter how weird he is. Even though it's true that he stole women’s panties, their personal property, it just doesn't seem like almost six years in prison is a punishment that fits the crime. And I'm betting that Brooke, if she were alive, had she escaped and lived like that other girl down in New Mexico whose testimony ultimately led to the conviction of Brooke's killer - I'm betting Brooke wouldn't think so either, even though Sung Koo Kim had her panties in his drawer.
Peace,
Barry
PS: In the 40 minute news conference today, a special report on all three major network affilliates, not one word was mentioned of Sung Koo Kim. His is the untold story in the Brooke Wilberger case.
Justice has been served for Brooke Wilberger and her family. There is no question about this.
Five years after her abduction, her remains have been returned to her grieving parents.
Joel Courtney, the man responsible for her death, will serve out an eighteen year sentence in New Mexico for a crime he was convicted of there, another abduction/rape/murder he attempted but failed, and then be returned to Oregon to serve life without possibility of parole.
Ms. Wilberger, a nineteen year-old freshman attending Brigham Young University at the time of her disappearance, was on summer break visiting her sister, a student of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, when she was abducted by Mr. Courtney while cleaning lamp posts in the Oak Park Apartments complex near the OSU campus.
Mr. Courtney agreed to reveal the whereabouts of Ms. Wilberger's remains and plead guilty to her murder when assured by the Benton County district attorney that the death penalty would not be sought.
Sung Koo Kim was considered a person of interest in the first weeks after Ms. Wilberger's disappearance. The home he shared with his parents was searched. In Mr. Kim's possession were found multiple pairs of women’s panties, one of which was determined to belong to Ms. Wilberger. When the available evidence proved that Mr. Kim had not abducted Ms. Wilberger but had in fact stolen her panties from a dryer in the laundry room of the apartment complex in which her sister lived, where Ms. Wilberger was staying, he was dropped as a suspect in the case. Before this happened, however, his face, the image of the home he shared with his parents, and the details of his admittedly bizarre panty fetish and undeniably illegal manner of serving it had been plastered for a week or longer all over television screens throughout the region. He then received and is currently serving a 68-month prison sentence for theft.
Five years and eight months for stealing panties out of dryers.
Justice has been served for Brooke Wilberger and her family. Joel Courtney should by anyone's measure spend the rest of his life behind bars. But what about justice for Sung Koo Kim? Yes, he's weird. Yes, he stole. He snuck into laundry rooms and stole women’s panties, their personal property, out of dryers in order to feed his bizarre fetish. He had dresser drawers full of them. He'd clearly been doing it for years. He was probably very ashamed of it, hence the sneaking. But five and a half years? Is that justice for the women whose panties he stole? Is that justice for society as a whole? It hardly seems like justice for him, if justice is defined as the punishment suiting the crime. It sounds more like once he was arrested and his life and the lives of his immediate family members were irrevocably disrupted if not destroyed, some show had to be made by the authorities to prove they had been right in the first place. They couldn't just say sorry and let him go. This man needed to be taken off the streets. More than a nuisance, he was a menace. He was going around stealing women’s panties, for God sakes. Everyone knows it would only have been a matter of time before he started abducting the women themselves, stepped it up, and escalated his illegal activities, right? The cops did us all a favor by stumbling upon his illegal activities in the course of their investigation of the abduction of Brooke Wilberger. And never mind that the intensity of their focus on Sung Koo Kim may be what allowed the real killer to escape to New Mexico, where he almost killed another young woman six months later. One has nothing to do with the other. They were sure it was him because he had her panties. Who can blame them? It shouldn't matter that they were wrong.
Justice has now been served. Brooke Wilberger's parents can bury their daughter, and this is a good thing. It is justice. I just can't help feeling sorry for Sung Koo Kim, no matter how weird he is. Even though it's true that he stole women’s panties, their personal property, it just doesn't seem like almost six years in prison is a punishment that fits the crime. And I'm betting that Brooke, if she were alive, had she escaped and lived like that other girl down in New Mexico whose testimony ultimately led to the conviction of Brooke's killer - I'm betting Brooke wouldn't think so either, even though Sung Koo Kim had her panties in his drawer.
Peace,
Barry
PS: In the 40 minute news conference today, a special report on all three major network affilliates, not one word was mentioned of Sung Koo Kim. His is the untold story in the Brooke Wilberger case.
