Just found this. Back story-
Sung Koo Kim was arrested and convicted of stealing thousands of woman’s underwear. He has been sentenced to many years in jail. He was briefly suspected, but ultimately cleared, in the case of a murdered college student Brooke Wilberger. Apparently he was raised from a young age as a JW.
Here’s the newspaper article:
From shame to soul-searching
Her son imprisoned, Dong Kim channels pain and suffering into a new understanding of mental illness
Saturday, August 05, 2006 MY-THUAN TRAN The Oregonian
Dong Kim sifts through a stack of well-worn newspaper articles and Internet printouts splayed across the kitchen table in her Tigard home. She finds a clipping that details the warning signs of mental illness and reads a sentence she has underlined twice: "The best prediction of future behavior is past behavior." Kim wishes she had read this article before her son, Sung Koo Kim, the "panty thief," was arrested. "I blame myself," she says, "for not recognizing mental illness in my son."
When she talks about Sung Koo and the past two years, Kim -- usually composed and smiling -- wrings her hands so tightly that her knuckles whiten. She recounts a mother's nightmare that set her on a personal journey from shame and despair to a new understanding of mental illness. For the first time, she speaks openly about breaking free of what she saw as cultural and religious rules, an oppressive existence of her own making. She has reached out to a broader society of friends and acquaintances and has even done some public speaking. Personal tragedy shattered one world and introduced her to another.
Kim was with family in South Korea when a phone call woke her on May 14, 2004. It was her daughter, Jung, speaking so softly Kim could barely make out what she was saying -- that Tigard and Newberg police were in the house with a search warrant, combing through Sung Koo's room.
They found bags and boxes filled with thousands of women's bras and panties. Her son was a suspect in a string of burglaries and thefts from college dorms and apartments in four counties. Police would later discover a vast collection of Internet pornography, some of which depicted violence against women. Some officials would argue that Sung Koo had violent sexual tendencies and was a danger to the community.
Left Korea when kids young
Dong Kim was born 57 years ago into a prominent Seoul family that shielded her from the hardships wrought on some Koreans after the war: She never went hungry, as some of her friends did, or worried about her tuition at prestigious Korea University, where she met her husband, Joo Kim.
With mounting fears that North Korea would invade the south, the Kims decided to leave their comfortable lives in Seoul, where Joo was a banker. In 1978, they immigrated to America with Jung, who was 6, and Sung Koo, 4, settling into a small apartment in Los Angeles.
Though Kim was shy as a girl in Korea, afraid to raise her hand in class or ask other children to play, she was always surrounded by friends and her large family. But in California, her shyness led to isolation. She did not know English, knew no one outside of her family, could not find the ingredients she needed to cook.
She was grateful when two Koreans, Jehovah's Witnesses, came to her door.
The family soon joined a congregation and met other Korean Jehovah's Witnesses, who helped the Kims make sense of their new lives in America, teaching the couple how to drive, how to open a bank account. After nine months, one of the families in the congregation moved to Oregon, and the Kims followed.
Kim walked her children home from school every afternoon while Joo worked as a carpenter. Kim started a job at Tektronix assembling fiber optics, working the graveyard shift to be with her children after school.
Sometimes, Sung Koo brought home certificates of good behavior; Kim saved them in a box. Three nights a week, the family went to Jehovah's Witnesses meetings. They spent their weekends attending prayer sessions.
Kim remembers she often saw Sung Koo staring out the window at other children playing. But he never asked to join them, Kim says, knowing his mother would not allow it, that their religion did not encourage associating with people outside of their faith.
She watched her son with a tugging feeling in her heart. She, too, felt trapped. She felt alienated from the rest of her family, all Buddhists. They did not understand why the Kims had joined the Jehovah's Witnesses, she says, which did not allow them to worship their ancestors, a Korean tradition.
The children did not receive Christmas or birthday presents because Jehovah's Witnesses did not mark such occasions. They spent their time in the school library while their classmates celebrated. As Jung and Sung Koo got older, they did not attend dances or other school activities and had no close friends. They were not allowed to date; most movies were prohibited.
Sung Koo spent late afternoons in Bible study groups. Afterward, he retreated to his room.
Kim noticed her son becoming more withdrawn, even upset at times, but she thought his mood swings were "part of growing pains of a teenager." Her daughter never complained, Kim says.
Sung Koo moved out of his parents' house when he was 22, working as a technician for Intel in DuPont, Wash., and later attending Washington State University. He moved back to his parents' house at 27 after earning a biology degree.
Meanwhile, Kim was caring for a dying aunt in Korea. On visits home, she found that her son stayed in his room all day except for meals. She nagged him to get a job, to move out, to make friends. But he said he did not know how. He said he felt chained, and he blamed Jehovah's Witnesses, she says.
Kim and her husband anxiously talked about their son and tried to brush off their worries, but Kim quit attending Jehovah's Witnesses services. Joo, an elder in the congregation, still went. "It was our choice with Jehovah's Witnesses," she says. "It works for other families, but it did not work for us."
For three years, Kim divided her time between Korea and the United States. Two weeks before she was supposed to return permanently, she got the phone call about her son's arrest.
The news devastated her. She hardly ate or slept in the four days she waited to fly back to Oregon. The day after she returned, she paid the $51,000 security bond against bail of $510,000 to get him out of jail.
No answers, one clue
What had gone wrong? The question kept her up at night. She'd wander into Sung Koo's room and hug him as he slept. She peered down at him, a young man she refers to as "a good Christian boy" who had never before gotten into trouble.
She had no answers, only a deep sense of disgrace.
Kim had no idea why her son hoarded underwear. She did not want to embarrass him by asking. In whispered discussions, she and her husband tried to make sense of what was happening.
The one clue she had came from Richard Wollert, a clinical psychologist who would meet with Sung Koo more than 40 times. He said Sung Koo had a mental illness, probably schizophrenia, and a fetish.
But even learning that mental illness could have driven her son to steal underwear did not make Kim feel better. "I didn't want to talk about mental illness. I didn't want to know about it," she says. "I never thought it would affect my family." In Korean culture, she says, talking about mental illness is taboo.
The perception is that mental illnesses can be overcome with self-discipline, says Chungin Chung, a family friend and former president of the Korean American Citizens League in Portland. A man who cannot conquer mental illness, Chung says, is considered weak.
Some Koreans believe that marrying into a family with a mentally ill person can taint family blood; so mental illness is considered shameful, says Kim, who had the same perception. "I would have been concerned if my children wanted to marry to somebody whose sister or brother is mentally ill," she says.
Kim learned from Wollert that her son suffered from schizoaffective disorder, a type of schizophrenia in which a person has both delusions and severe depression. Sung Koo's delusions made him believe that others were out to get him, Wollert says; his reclusiveness was also a sign of schizophrenia.
Wollert told Kim that the underwear thefts came from Sung Koo's longing for relationships and intimacy, to have some connection with the world.
After Sung Koo's arrest, Kim could not find a shoulder to lean on, especially when her son became a highly publicized "person of interest" in the abduction of Brooke Wilberger, a 19-year-old from Veneta who disappeared in Corvallis a couple of days after Sung Koo left jail.
Sung Koo was later cleared of any suspicion in the case, but the damage was done.
Removed from church
Jehovah's Witnesses officially removed the Kims from the congregation, isolating Dong Kim from friends of 20 years, who quit associating with her because she was no longer a part of their faith.
She once again felt alone. But right across the street, she found someone who would listen.
Carla Ernster had been a neighbor for 10 years, but Kim had never spoken to her except for a quick hello. Ernster remembers seeing Sung Koo, as a teenager, dressed in a suit and going to Bible study, while her own son -- the same age -- went out to play football or hike with friends.
Ernster, knowing of the family's horror, started taking meals to the Kims. Dong Kim, in turn, started visiting Ernster's house several times a day, just to talk.
What gave Kim hope was learning from doctors that mental illness could be treated. Doctors said Sung Koo had to learn how to approach people and to maintain healthy relationships. With medications and therapy, her son might get better.
On nights she couldn't sleep, Kim spent hours researching on the Internet, printing articles on mental illness and putting them into a 3-inch-thick binder.
The psychologist told her about the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which had a chapter in Washington County. She took a class taught by family members of the mentally ill.
In NAMI, she found others who understood what she was going through. Some of them had also missed warning signs of mental illness. With each article she read and each family she met, Kim felt less alone.
Today, she frequently welcomes mental-health advocates and neighbors into her home. Some in the Korean community have rallied to the family's side. "Somehow, when I talk about mental illness, I become very open," Kim says. "I'm not afraid of anything."
She has joined groups such as the Western Prison Project, a grass-roots organization working for change in the criminal justice system. She and others from NAMI lobbied last fall in Salem for a mental-health parity bill. She attends mental-health support groups every week and wants to become a teacher for the type of mental-health class she took, the one that helped her find answers.
Kim says every day is a struggle. What keeps her going is the thought that her son might get better with treatment. Sung Koo, 32, is serving an 11-year sentence for burglary, theft and one count of child pornography.
Kim wants to organize a support group for parents in the Korean community who have questions about mental illness and want to talk about strange behavior.
"My goal is to educate the community to show that there is nothing to be ashamed of with mental illness," she says. "Before it's too late, get help.
"I don't want to waste my experience," Kim says. "I don't want to waste my pain and suffering."
My-Thuan Tran: 503-294-5119 or [email protected]
©2006 The Oregonian
From shame to soul-searching
Her son imprisoned, Dong Kim channels pain and suffering into a new understanding of mental illness Saturday, August 05, 2006 MY-THUAN TRAN The Oregonian Dong Kim sifts through a stack of well-worn newspaper articles and Internet printouts splayed across the kitchen table in her Tigard home. She finds a clipping that details the warning signs of mental illness and reads a sentence she has underlined twice: "The best prediction of future behavior is past behavior."Kim wishes she had read this article before her son, Sung Koo Kim, the "panty thief," was arrested. "I blame myself," she says, "for not recognizing mental illness in my son."
When she talks about Sung Koo and the past two years, Kim -- usually composed and smiling -- wrings her hands so tightly that her knuckles whiten. She recounts a mother's nightmare that set her on a personal journey from shame and despair to a new understanding of mental illness. For the first time, she speaks openly about breaking free of what she saw as cultural and religious rules, an oppressive existence of her own making. She has reached out to a broader society of friends and acquaintances and has even done some public speaking. Personal tragedy shattered one world and introduced her to another.
Kim was with family in South Korea when a phone call woke her on May 14, 2004. It was her daughter, Jung, speaking so softly Kim could barely make out what she was saying -- that Tigard and Newberg police were in the house with a search warrant, combing through Sung Koo's room.
They found bags and boxes filled with thousands of women's bras and panties. Her son was a suspect in a string of burglaries and thefts from college dorms and apartments in four counties. Police would later discover a vast collection of Internet pornography, some of which depicted violence against women. Some officials would argue that Sung Koo had violent sexual tendencies and was a danger to the community.
Left Korea when kids young
Dong Kim was born 57 years ago into a prominent Seoul family that shielded her from the hardships wrought on some Koreans after the war: She never went hungry, as some of her friends did, or worried about her tuition at prestigious Korea University, where she met her husband, Joo Kim.
With mounting fears that North Korea would invade the south, the Kims decided to leave their comfortable lives in Seoul, where Joo was a banker. In 1978, they immigrated to America with Jung, who was 6, and Sung Koo, 4, settling into a small apartment in Los Angeles.
Though Kim was shy as a girl in Korea, afraid to raise her hand in class or ask other children to play, she was always surrounded by friends and her large family. But in California, her shyness led to isolation. She did not know English, knew no one outside of her family, could not find the ingredients she needed to cook.
She was grateful when two Koreans, Jehovah's Witnesses, came to her door.
The family soon joined a congregation and met other Korean Jehovah's Witnesses, who helped the Kims make sense of their new lives in America, teaching the couple how to drive, how to open a bank account. After nine months, one of the families in the congregation moved to Oregon, and the Kims followed.
Kim walked her children home from school every afternoon while Joo worked as a carpenter. Kim started a job at Tektronix assembling fiber optics, working the graveyard shift to be with her children after school.
Sometimes, Sung Koo brought home certificates of good behavior; Kim saved them in a box. Three nights a week, the family went to Jehovah's Witnesses meetings. They spent their weekends attending prayer sessions.
Kim remembers she often saw Sung Koo staring out the window at other children playing. But he never asked to join them, Kim says, knowing his mother would not allow it, that their religion did not encourage associating with people outside of their faith.
She watched her son with a tugging feeling in her heart. She, too, felt trapped. She felt alienated from the rest of her family, all Buddhists. They did not understand why the Kims had joined the Jehovah's Witnesses, she says, which did not allow them to worship their ancestors, a Korean tradition.
The children did not receive Christmas or birthday presents because Jehovah's Witnesses did not mark such occasions. They spent their time in the school library while their classmates celebrated. As Jung and Sung Koo got older, they did not attend dances or other school activities and had no close friends. They were not allowed to date; most movies were prohibited.
Sung Koo spent late afternoons in Bible study groups. Afterward, he retreated to his room.
Kim noticed her son becoming more withdrawn, even upset at times, but she thought his mood swings were "part of growing pains of a teenager." Her daughter never complained, Kim says.
Sung Koo moved out of his parents' house when he was 22, working as a technician for Intel in DuPont, Wash., and later attending Washington State University. He moved back to his parents' house at 27 after earning a biology degree.
Meanwhile, Kim was caring for a dying aunt in Korea. On visits home, she found that her son stayed in his room all day except for meals. She nagged him to get a job, to move out, to make friends. But he said he did not know how. He said he felt chained, and he blamed Jehovah's Witnesses, she says.
Kim and her husband anxiously talked about their son and tried to brush off their worries, but Kim quit attending Jehovah's Witnesses services. Joo, an elder in the congregation, still went. "It was our choice with Jehovah's Witnesses," she says. "It works for other families, but it did not work for us."
For three years, Kim divided her time between Korea and the United States. Two weeks before she was supposed to return permanently, she got the phone call about her son's arrest.
The news devastated her. She hardly ate or slept in the four days she waited to fly back to Oregon. The day after she returned, she paid the $51,000 security bond against bail of $510,000 to get him out of jail.
No answers, one clue
What had gone wrong? The question kept her up at night. She'd wander into Sung Koo's room and hug him as he slept. She peered down at him, a young man she refers to as "a good Christian boy" who had never before gotten into trouble.
She had no answers, only a deep sense of disgrace.
Kim had no idea why her son hoarded underwear. She did not want to embarrass him by asking. In whispered discussions, she and her husband tried to make sense of what was happening.
The one clue she had came from Richard Wollert, a clinical psychologist who would meet with Sung Koo more than 40 times. He said Sung Koo had a mental illness, probably schizophrenia, and a fetish.
But even learning that mental illness could have driven her son to steal underwear did not make Kim feel better. "I didn't want to talk about mental illness. I didn't want to know about it," she says. "I never thought it would affect my family." In Korean culture, she says, talking about mental illness is taboo.
The perception is that mental illnesses can be overcome with self-discipline, says Chungin Chung, a family friend and former president of the Korean American Citizens League in Portland. A man who cannot conquer mental illness, Chung says, is considered weak.
Some Koreans believe that marrying into a family with a mentally ill person can taint family blood; so mental illness is considered shameful, says Kim, who had the same perception. "I would have been concerned if my children wanted to marry to somebody whose sister or brother is mentally ill," she says.
Kim learned from Wollert that her son suffered from schizoaffective disorder, a type of schizophrenia in which a person has both delusions and severe depression. Sung Koo's delusions made him believe that others were out to get him, Wollert says; his reclusiveness was also a sign of schizophrenia.
Wollert told Kim that the underwear thefts came from Sung Koo's longing for relationships and intimacy, to have some connection with the world.
After Sung Koo's arrest, Kim could not find a shoulder to lean on, especially when her son became a highly publicized "person of interest" in the abduction of Brooke Wilberger, a 19-year-old from Veneta who disappeared in Corvallis a couple of days after Sung Koo left jail.
Sung Koo was later cleared of any suspicion in the case, but the damage was done.
Removed from church
Jehovah's Witnesses officially removed the Kims from the congregation, isolating Dong Kim from friends of 20 years, who quit associating with her because she was no longer a part of their faith.
She once again felt alone. But right across the street, she found someone who would listen.
Carla Ernster had been a neighbor for 10 years, but Kim had never spoken to her except for a quick hello. Ernster remembers seeing Sung Koo, as a teenager, dressed in a suit and going to Bible study, while her own son -- the same age -- went out to play football or hike with friends.
Ernster, knowing of the family's horror, started taking meals to the Kims. Dong Kim, in turn, started visiting Ernster's house several times a day, just to talk.
What gave Kim hope was learning from doctors that mental illness could be treated. Doctors said Sung Koo had to learn how to approach people and to maintain healthy relationships. With medications and therapy, her son might get better.
On nights she couldn't sleep, Kim spent hours researching on the Internet, printing articles on mental illness and putting them into a 3-inch-thick binder.
The psychologist told her about the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which had a chapter in Washington County. She took a class taught by family members of the mentally ill.
In NAMI, she found others who understood what she was going through. Some of them had also missed warning signs of mental illness. With each article she read and each family she met, Kim felt less alone.
Today, she frequently welcomes mental-health advocates and neighbors into her home. Some in the Korean community have rallied to the family's side. "Somehow, when I talk about mental illness, I become very open," Kim says. "I'm not afraid of anything."
She has joined groups such as the Western Prison Project, a grass-roots organization working for change in the criminal justice system. She and others from NAMI lobbied last fall in Salem for a mental-health parity bill. She attends mental-health support groups every week and wants to become a teacher for the type of mental-health class she took, the one that helped her find answers.
Kim says every day is a struggle. What keeps her going is the thought that her son might get better with treatment. Sung Koo, 32, is serving an 11-year sentence for burglary, theft and one count of child pornography.
Kim wants to organize a support group for parents in the Korean community who have questions about mental illness and want to talk about strange behavior.
"My goal is to educate the community to show that there is nothing to be ashamed of with mental illness," she says. "Before it's too late, get help.
"I don't want to waste my experience," Kim says. "I don't want to waste my pain and suffering."
My-Thuan Tran: 503-294-5119 or [email protected]
©2006 The OregonianHere's the link: http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/115474472436800.xml?oregonian?lcfp&coll=7&thispage=1