Online Post Recounts Aftermath of Sookmyung Girls’ High Exam Leak Case

An update on the Sookmyung Girls’ High School exam paper leak case has resurfaced online.

On the 29th, a post titled “Update on the Sookmyung Girls’ High exam leak twins” was uploaded to an online community.

The post included a personal account from a reporter, identified only as A, who covered the case at the time. A wrote that he recently met an acquaintance who knew the family well and asked how they were doing.

“I expected something, but it was more miserable than I thought,” A wrote, adding that the couple had divorced.

A said the husband was the school teacher and academic affairs head implicated in the case, and that the wife also worked in education. He wrote that financial strain and stress made normal life difficult. The husband was sentenced to three years in prison and was released recently after completing his term, A said.

A wrote that the man moved with the two children to a provincial area far from Seoul and now pumps gas at a service station, suggesting it was not easy to find work because of his age and career history.

A also wrote that the two children, described as suffering from social anxiety, stay inside all day using their phones. “I heard they eat only when food is pushed into their room, then put the dishes back out,” he wrote.

A added that he could understand why the wife chose divorce, writing that the cost of wrongdoing in one of South Korea’s most sensitive areas had been severe: the breadwinner lost his job, the family collapsed, and the children could not live normally. He wrote that they had no supporters in society.

Some commenters who saw the post mentioned Cho Kuk, leader of the Cho Kuk Innovation Party, who has declared his candidacy in the Gyeonggi Province Pyeongtaek-eul by-election ahead of the June 3 by-elections. Many commenters described the situation as a “difference in power,” with some saying Cho’s family is “living well.”

Other comments included: “The kids who flipped off reporters have social anxiety?” “Did the mother abandon the family by choosing divorce?” and “They’ve already been punished legally, but it’s still sad the family fell apart.”

The twins, who were first-year students at Sookmyung Girls’ High School in 2024, were found to have taken exams using answer sheets their father stole on five occasions, from the first semester final exams in 2017 through the first semester finals the following year. The twins were indicted on charges of obstructing the school’s grading work. They denied the allegations from the first trial, but the courts did not accept their claims.

On the 24th, the Supreme Court’s Second Division, with Justice Kim Sang-hwan presiding, upheld a lower court ruling sentencing the two daughters of former academic affairs head Hyun to one year in prison, suspended for three years.

The sisters were expelled in October 2018, shortly after police announced the results of their investigation. Their father, Hyun, was tried earlier and found guilty of obstruction of business; in March 2020, the Supreme Court finalized a three-year prison sentence.

* This article has been translated by AI.

Kang Min seon