Choi Jin Sil committed suicide impulsively Police Friday concluded that actress Choi Jin-sil hanged herself on impulse under the influence of alcohol. The interim conclusion was made after an autopsy was conducted and her written memo and accounts of witnesses and friends were studied. Police found a notebook in which the late iconic actress expressed her innermost feelings in a memo. In it she said, “I am a loner being bullied… I can’t breathe.” Yang Jae-ho of Seocho Police Station said investigators have secured several pieces of evidence that her inner world had been shuffling between death and life. Sometimes she managed to get over extreme mental stress through dialogue with friends, he said. Choi came home Wednesday night after she halted shooting for a pharmaceutical commercial. A day earlier, she reportedly received telephone calls from a woman whom she accused of spreading a false rumor that she (Choi) was a loan shark who lent 2 billion won to TV actor Ahn Jae-hwan, who was also found dead in his car last month. The accused begged for Choi’s mercy and Choi reportedly cried all day long, which made her uncomfortable at the shoot the following day. Choi kept on saying she was not a loan shark and that she would never want her children to hear that. She was worrying about it Friday, when her son was to attend a sports meeting. She reportedly said “I cannot go there feeling like this.” She was drunk when she got home. Choi then called up a magazine reporter just after midnight Thursday and repeatedly told her that she wanted to die. She reportedly said, “This is the last time I am calling you. Please take care of my kids.” The two text messages her makeup manager received read like this. “My dear, I hope you take care of my children if something happens to me,” Choi seemed to have thought about killing herself before taking the fatal action, the police assumed. The National Scientific, Criminal and Investigation Laboratory has yet to establish whether the suicide involved drug taking. She will be cremated Saturday following a funeral. Two copycat suicides were reported Friday, one day after Choi killed herself. A 55-year-old Park was found dead around midnight hanging from an elastic bandage in the bathroom of her apartment in Haenam, South Jeolla Province. Another woman with the family name Lee, was found dead in the same way in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, Friday morning. Park reportedly suffered from depression, the same disease Choi had. Police are worried over more copycat suicides following Choi’s death. The government and political circles moved swiftly to prevent such a syndrome. Health Minister Jeon Jae-hee Thursday urged people to think of suicide as a grave issue and not to follow it while Rep. Lim Doo-sung of the governing Grand National Party is seeking legislation to support those suffering from depression and to come up with a system to reduce suicide to the maximum extent. “I hope the Werther effect does not affect anyone anymore. I hope the bill would bring hope to the desperate ones,” the lawmaker said. Actress Death Stokes Fears of Copycat Suicides Two women were found hanging from elastic bands less than 24 hours after the chilling death of South Korean top actress Choi Jin-sil, raising fears of possible copycat suicides, Yonhap News reported quoting police sources. As the nation braced for a possible rash of copycat suicides, police reported that two women were found dead in circumstances similar to the actress’ death. A 55-year-old woman, identified only by her family name Park, was found dead shortly after midnight hanging from an elastic band in the bathroom of her apartment in Haenam County, South Jeolla Province. Her family says the woman suffered from depression. Park’s son told police that she “went into the bathroom to take a shower, but that after a while nothing was heard from inside.” Another woman, identified by her family name Lee, was found dead after hanging herself with an elastic band in her multi-family house in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, at around 6 a.m. Friday morning. A neighbor who lives downstairs reported to police after receiving a phone call from Lee, 30, giving her the password to her home an hour earlier. No suicide notes have been found in both cases. Choi Jin-sil, 40, a fixture of Korean prime-time television dramas spanning two decades, was found dead Thursday hanging from a shower stall with an elastic band tied around her neck in her home in southern Seoul. Malicious rumors, depression and fallout from an ugly divorce in 2004 have been cited as factors that drove the actress to her death. Experts fear the shock of Choi’s death will be particularly poignant, given the weight of her presence in Korea’s entertainment industry. With a cheerful demeanor and versatile talents, she charmed audiences with her roles in dramas, movies and commercials since her debut in 1988. Choi’s life took a tumultuous turn when her marriage to pro baseball player Cho Sung-min in 2002 quickly unraveled two years later in 2004, ending in an ugly divorce. The actress had reportedly taken medication for depression since. Min Seong-gil, a psychiatrist at Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital, said Choi’s death may trigger what is known as the so-called Werther effect, named after the protagonist in the German playwright Goethe’s work, “The Sorrows of Young Werther.” Source: seoulfull Credit: Korea Times
