The Worst Serial Killer in Korean History
the story of Crown Prince Sado
Today’s content is a (very) truncated version of a complicated and long-drawn-out, tragic chapter in Korean history. Please understand that there are layers upon layers of background stories and events that I can’t possibly describe in its entirety. But this is still quite long.
The person I’m referring to in the title lived about 260 years ago. On his epitaph, this person is described as “… born in a well-to-do family, he degraded into a madman…” Written by his OWN FATHER!
What do you do if you’re the King and your son keeps killing people for no apparent reason? As incredulous as it seems, this really happened—the most notorious serial killer in Korean history was the oldest surviving son (jeok-jang-ja), and thereby Crown Prince, of a Joseon Dynasty King.
This is an actual portrait of King Youngjo (영조, r. 1724~1776), someone who’s made a few appearances in my past postings. He himself was a son of a concubine and thus once considered illegitimate. He took the throne when his half-brother King Gyongjong (경종) died under mysterious circumstances—there was a widespread rumor that Gyongjong was poisoned by a group led by the eventual successor Youngjo.
Youngjo’s first son died when he was 10 and his second son was born when Youngjo himself was an “old” man of 42 years of age. Considering the average life expectancy of Joseon men being around 37 years, this was almost inconceivable and a cause for national celebration. This second son, named Yi Hwon (이훤), or mostly known as 사도세자 (Sah-doh Seh-ja, Crown Prince Sado) is the man that later grows up to be the most notorious psychopathic serial killer in all of Korean history.
In 2015, a film titled Sado (사도, English title “The Throne”) was released to a modest commercial success. It’s a story that all Koreans know—at least we all know how this story ends. (King Youngjo that you see in the above poster is Song Kang-ho of the Oscar winning Parasite).
So, let’s take a look at what happened. Mind you, this information is not some hearsay from people who heard some things from other people—it comes directly from the eyewitness accounts written at the time by Sado’s closest people (like, his wife and his biological mother), and from the official Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty (조선왕조실록).
Sado (Yi Hwon, 1735~1762) was named the Crown Prince (세자) when he was 15 months old (the average is about 14 years old), the youngest by far during the 500-year Joseon Dynasty. He evidently showed some signs of being a child prodigy but the psychological pressure from Youngjo, by all accounts, was too much for a child to handle. This was mainly due to the fact that Youngjo himself was a son of a concubine and that he had to fight the illegitimacy question all his life. And the father-son relationship started deteriorating when Sado was a child.
Sado was put to rigorous education and training when he was 3 (meaning, he was actually 2) years old, and when he complained about headaches at 9, the King thought it was all feigned and refused to give his own son some respite even after the tutors (high ranking court officials) asked for it. Around this time, Youngjo, who is known to clearly show who he likes and dislikes, begins to publicly embarrass Sado on countless occasions.
He asks unanswerable political questions to a child in front of all the court officials and scolds Sado when he can’t provide a satisfactory answer. The Veritable Records also writes that Youngjo showed displeasure at Sado’s portly physique and even the way he walked. The King also blamed Sado for droughts, storms, and famine openly and publicly, saying that they were all because of Sado’s lack of virtues. This led to a significant turn of events later in Sado’s life in that he developed an extreme fear of bad weather.
Sado marries the daughter of a minor court official Hong at the age of 10, and the wife (Lady Hong) plays a pivotal role in the whole episode by writing her own memoir called Han-joong-rok (한중록), which contains a lot of the detailed information that Veritable Records did not.
By the age of 18, Sado had a son (who later succeeds his grandfather as King Jeongjo) and started “seeing things.” He knew there was something wrong with him, for he wrote to his father-in-law in secrecy to get him some medicine for his conditions. He fell into the occult; reading books describing how to conjure spirits and utilize nonsensical cadence to heal pain and suffering. Then, he would have his servants build a coffin and would lie in there for hours or sleep. He would dig a giant hole in the ground, fill it up with swords, bows and arrows and spend an entire day in there. (supposedly this is a classic example of a Freudian Death-Drive theory)
Around this time, the rumor was that Sado went on killing sprees of chickens and other domesticated animals around the Royal Palace and frequently torture and/or beat up on the eunuchs and servants. He had a sadistic nature in that he reportedly enjoyed bloodying up female servants before raping them. And when asked about it by Youngjo, Sado attributed his actions to “frustration taking over by the lack of love from my father.”
Then, in June of 1757, when Sado was 22, something bigger happens. You see, Sado had been suffering from vestiphobia—fear (or hatred) of clothes (의대증). Some scholars believe that Sado developed this condition because of his fear of his father—wearing proper clothing meant that he had to go see him (the customary duty of a nobility class during Joseon was that the son had to go see his dad 3 times a day to ask how he’s doing and pay his respects). According to his wife’s records, he would routinely change clothing 20 to 30 times each morning and would get absolutely mad at the servants. And one day, after his usual bout with constant garb change, he went overboard and killed Kim Han-chae (김한채), one of the servant eunuchs, by beheading him, and walked around the Palace carrying the severed head. Han-joong-rok (Sado’s wife’s memoir) writes,
… after Seh-ja killed Kim Han-chae, he seemed to be in a better mood and went on to kill 5 other female servants.
According to the Veritable Records, this is the first incident of Sado killing a person. But virtually all historians and criminologists agree that this could not have been his first (apparently beheading requires a very specific prior knowledge and experience). And corroborating the thesis is the numerous books and reports written at the time and shortly after Sado’s eventual death, including his wife’s memoir, that say, in no uncertain terms, the number of victims “reached over 100” in some accounts, and “almost 100” in others. The fact is, no one knows exactly how many people lost their lives by Sado’s sword, bare knuckles, torturing tools, and clubs—only that the number is about 100. Among the people who perished was Lady Bak, the concubine Sado supposedly loved the most and had a son with. He even threw the infant (his own son!) into the pond, only to be saved by servants standing helplessly to stop the madness.
Seh-ja has killed almost 100 eunuchs, female servants, and other servants. He has burned people in torture, and used all sorts of torturing tools from the Court’s Investigation Office. He has tried to kill me a few times. Please, for the sake of your grandson, the royal line, and for the well-being of the nation, make the big decision.
This is Sado’s biological mother Lady Lee in May of 1762 imploring her husband to execute their own son. Upon hearing of this, Sado actually tried to sneak into the King’s private quarters to kill him.
Finally on July 4, 1762 (Western calendar), exactly 14 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed and adopted halfway around the world, King Youngjo strips the Crown Prince title from Sado, throws him a sword, and tells him to “finish yourself (자결하라).”
(This is the part of the history that every Korean knows about.) Then, Youngjo orders a dwiju (뒤주) to be brought in. It is a wooden rice container that looks something like this.
When I was growing up in a small town, we had a dwiju in our house. It would be a snug fit for a young child. The implication, of course, was for Sado to climb into the box. Youngjo nailed the top of the rice container himself, but Sado managed to break free and escape on the 2nd or 3rd day (not too sure about the day & not important).
After which, he was put back into a new dwiju and Youngjo had the rice container completely sealed, secured with ropes and covered with dirt and grass on top, and the holes in the bottom plugged up, after he finds out that Sado’s son had been sneaking in water and porridge to his father.
And finally on the 8th day, it was announced that Sado had died. He was 26. Thirst, hunger, exhaustion, suffocation… in sweltering July heat in Seoul.
As you might imagine, there are many, many unanswered questions that remain mysteries to this day. One of them is, while this murdering rampage was going on, over a period of a few years, why didn’t the King do anything? There’s no way he didn’t know about it. One interesting observation that I’ve read was that a renowned Korean psychologist thinks that there seems to be a hereditary issue with bipolar disorder with a number of Joseon Kings and their sons, especially the ones in the 17th and 18th century. And there are quite a few people who put the blame squarely on Youngjo for ruining his own son.
Another question you might have at this point is, why go to all that trouble with the rice container and such? The answer ties in with the fact that Youngjo threw a sword and told Sado to kill himself. Youngjo could not punish his son himself because of this old common law called Yon-jwa-jeh (연좌제), meaning that if one person is found to be guilty of a crime, then the closest family members and friends are to be found guilty also. Youngjo could not have his beloved grandson and the next in line to be King (Yi San, later Jeongjo) to be a criminal as well.
So, what is one of the first things that Youngjo does after Sado dies? He has his grandson to be officially adopted by Youngjo’s dead firstborn son (remember him?), thus making Sado’s son to be the jeok-jang-ja without any legal liabilities. There are many small details about the whole fiasco that show that Youngjo is not of the sound mind either. Maybe I’ll someday talk about that aspect.
And finally, the word Sado itself. That name that all Koreans know him by was given to him after his death by his dad, Youngjo. Written in Chinese characters, Sado is 思悼. To 思 is to reflect, to think, to commemorate and 悼 is sorrow, regret, sadness. So, this name literally means, “to reflect and think about the sadness.”