With Jang Jayeon’s case being opened once again, it turns out that the already sinister case was much worse and more disturbing than people originally thought.
Jang Jayeon had a bright future ahead of her.
After she starred in “Boys Over Flowers”, she won the public’s love and everyone knew that she would become an even bigger star in the future.
Unfortunately, this never ended up happening because Jaeyon died in 2009.
On March 7, 2009, Jayeon was found hanging in her own home by her sister.
The two had had a phone call only a few hours earlier, where Jayeon had complained about how much stress she was under and said that she wanted to die.
Unable to reach her again, her sister returned to their shared home four hours later and found her body. It is believed that Jayeon had taken her own life at around 4:30 p.m.
Only a few hours after her death, her manager at The Content Entertainment agency, Yoo Jangho, announced that he was in possession of Jayeon’s suicide note but did not want to reveal what the note said.
This raised the public’s curiosity, who thought that the note was just about Jayeon’s last words to her loved ones but the truth was much different.
The note was a seven page letter that revealed the names of the 31 high-profile personnel in the industry that had sexually assaulted her and had physically abused her.
The main culprit of her abuse was the CEO of the company, Kim Sunghoon.
According to Jayeon’s testimony on her letter, Sunghoon had repeatedly hurt her physically and forced her to have sexual relations with powerful men in the industry, including directors, media executives and CEOs.
After her death, a full-on investigation was launched by the police on what had caused her to take her own life.
A special investigative team was additionally signed to the case but in the end, it was ruled that she took her own life, as the investigators claimed they found no evidence of foul play.
The investigation was concluded and none of the people that Jayeon had mentioned in her letter were found guilty, with the court ruling that her claims lacked the evidence to jail them.
CEO Kim Sunghoon was the only person out of all the 31 people that Jayeon had named who was indicted for violence and defamation but netizens felt that his punishment was a slap to the wrist for what he did.
He ended up receiving only four months in prison and a year of probation for physical abuse meanwhile Jaeyon’s manager also received a sentence of a year in prison and two years of probation for defaming the CEO.
The case was ultimately done with and closed until 2019.
Because of the Burning Sun scandal, in 2019, the former South Korean president Moon Jaein ordered a thorough reinvestigation of prominent scandals involving celebrities, whether they are new or old.
The order led to Jang Jayeon’s case being reopened, 10 years after it happened.
It also made Dispatch launch their own investigation and release a report with crucial facts that the public had not been aware about in the past.
According to Dispatch’s report, Jayeon wrote her final letter in Yoo Jangho’s office and in it, she recorded all the instances where she was forced to do whatever Sunghoon told her to in order to get a role in a drama.
For example, according to Jayeon, in October of 2008, Kim Sunghoon had made her serve liquor to the Director of the drama “Ja Myung Go” so she could book a role.
Jayeon also recalls the time she was made to have intercourse with the CEO before he started abusing her physically and verbally.
Another time, he got too drunk, locked her in the room with him and hit her over the head with a bottle while also yelling at her and calling her names.
In the letter, she says: “I am just a weak and powerless rookie actress. I want to relieve myself from this pain.”
In a text conversation that Jayeon had with her closest friend, Ms. Lee, Jayeon can be seen telling her that Jangho had been preparing a criminal investigation on Kim Jong Seung.
Jangho had told her that if she wrote down everything that happened to her, he would guarantee that Jayeon’s identity would be kept a secret and that she would be released from her contract.
This did not end up happening. Jangho claimed that the document he made her write was her suicide not, which greatly discredited her claims to the police.
The report also revealed that Jayeon’s family did not want the note to be public and they just wanted the whole thing to pass by quietly.
They demanded that Jangho burn the note but even though Jangho respected the family’s wishes to an extent, he had made several copies of it that he would later sell to the press.
Another thing that was revealed through Dispatch’s report is that as much as Kim Sunghoon is to blame for Jayeon’s passing, Yoo Janghoo and fellow actress Lee Misook were definitely just as guilty.
Jangho created his own agency in August 2007, after he left The Contents Entertainment, where he worked as a manager.
He ended up taking Song Sunmi and Lee Misook with him and Jayeon was left behind.
Misook was sued by the company for breaking her contract before its expiration date.
What is important to the case is that Jayeon named Lee Misook as another victim of the CEO in her note, which means that they were both going through the same things.
But after Jayeon’s death, Misook told the police that the two were under the same company but did not really know each-other.
She also said that she was not aware of Jayeon’s documents but the texts that Dispatch revealed between Misook and Jung Seho say the opposite.
According to the texts, Jayeon had gone to Misook crying and asking for a favour.
She also mentioned that Jayeon came to her after writing a document for Yoo Jangho, which contradicts her initial statement.
Netizens were angered that Jayeon fought for Lee Misook to also get justice and was thrown under the bus so another greedy person could take revenge on the company.
But even with the investigation and the new facts that were revealed, the outcome did not change at all and Jaeyon has not gotten justice to this day.
