NSW: Man killed family and fled to South Korea court told

AAP General News (Australia)
02-01-2000
NSW: Man killed family and fled to South Korea court told

By Gavin Lower

SYDNEY, Feb 1 AAP - A man killed his wife and two young children, stuffed their bodies
in suitcases and buried them in bushland before fleeing to South Korea with his girlfriend,
a court was told today.

Sung Eun "Nick" Park, 29, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Qian Qian "Susan"

Park, 31, daughter Amy, two-and-a-half, and son Andrew, three-and-a-half, on or about
October 17, 1996.

Prosecutor Tim Hoyle, SC, told the New South Wales Supreme Court the skeletal remains
of Park's wife and children were found by accident 10 months after they were reported
missing.

Bushfire brigade volunteers doing a controlled burn in the Watagan State Forest, on
the NSW central coast, found the body of Mrs Park in one suitcase and the bodies of Amy
and Andrew in another.

"DNA tests showed they were Susan Park and her two children," Mr Hoyle said.

He told a jury of seven women and five men that Park fled to South Korea about 10 days
after he became aware police were making inquiries about the disappearance of his wife
and children.

Park was extradited back to Australia in May, 1998.

Mr Hoyle told the jury they would hear evidence relating to Park's conduct, which the
prosecution would submit demonstrated a consciousness of his guilt.

He said Park and his wife, from China, met in Brisbane about 1990-91 and were married
in Sydney in 1992.

They rented a unit at Eastwood, in Sydney's north-west, and lived there until shortly
after the birth of Amy when the marriage became troubled and Park moved out.

Park began a relationship with a Korean student called Demi Hwang, then aged 19, and
they moved into a unit together in Ashfield, in Sydney's west, telling the real estate
agent that they hoped to marry.

Two days after Mrs Park found out her husband was in another relationship she drank
a large amount of potent Korean wine and went into a coma.

After recovering in hospital she told counsellers that she was depressed about Park's
infidelity and thought he did not love her or their children.

Mr Hoyle said that on the day after Mrs Park was allegedly murdered Park went to an
Eastwood real estate office, where he submitted a notice that the unit was being vacated.

He said the Eastwood unit was where Mrs Park and her children most likely met their deaths.

Park then went to a Commonwealth Bank where he withdrew $400 from investment accounts
opened for his children using withdrawal slips with his wife's forged signature, Mr Hoyle
said.

A palm print taken from one of the withdrawal slips matched that belonging to Park's
left palm print, the court was told.

The trial before Justice Harold Sperling is continuing.

AAP gl/was/br

KEYWORD: PARK NIGHTLEAD

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