The case of a teacher letting a student "go": The teacher's words when arrested were chilling

On February 10, the incident of a female teacher in her 40s teaching at a Korean elementary school "letting go" of female student Kim Ha-neul (8 years old) shocked public opinion. On February 13, she was summoned to work with the authorities.

After news broke that the suspect who "let go" of an 8-year-old elementary school student that has shocked the Korean public recently was diagnosed with depression, some people have debated whether this mental health condition is related to the suspect's crimes.

Police found the teacher and the student on the second floor of Daejeon Elementary School, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, at around 6 p.m. on February 10. The girl's parents had reported her missing after an after-school class. The rescue team took the girl to the hospital in an unconscious state. She was later pronounced dead from blood loss. The teacher, who had injuries to her neck and arms, was still conscious. The first person to discover the suspect and the girl was the girl's grandmother, who had been alerted by the family and police to Ha-neul's disappearance and began searching for her using the location information on her phone.

On February 10, the female teacher in her 40s stabbed first-grader Kim Ha-neul at an elementary school in Daejeon, causing the girl to tragically die. According to police, the teacher was diagnosed with depression in 2018. On December 9 last year, she applied for a six-month leave of absence due to mental illness, but returned to school after 20 days, after receiving a doctor's certificate confirming that she was fit to continue her work.

"I felt angry when I first returned to work. Someone stopped me from going to class," the teacher told police. Police revealed that the suspect had been treated for depression in 2018, and had thought about going insane while on six months of sick leave, starting in December 2024. But after only three months of leave, the teacher returned to school. On the day of the incident, the suspect bought a weapon before returning to the school to find a target. The teacher told police that she waited for the students to leave class with the intention of killing one of the children. "I told the last child that I wanted to give him a book. Then I took him to the function room, then did what you saw at the scene."

On February 13, the female teacher confessed that at around 1:30 p.m. on the day of the incident - during her lunch break - she went to a kitchenware store and bought a knife. When she bought it, she asked, "Is this knife sharp?" When the staff asked her what she was buying the knife for, she replied, "To cook raw fish."

After buying the knife, the female teacher returned to the school and waited until class ended to lure Ha-neul into the audiovisual room on the second floor of the school. The image of the female teacher returning to the school with a knife in hand scared many people. She immediately took action against the student. The female teacher also used the knife to kill herself, but was given emergency treatment and is currently recovering in the hospital.

Police have asked the National Forensic Service to conduct an autopsy on the student to help determine the exact cause of death. Days before the incident, the teacher had also shown signs of aggression, twisting a colleague’s arm when he asked her about it, but the incident was not reported to the authorities.

Some media outlets have reported online comments such as: “Should people with depression be allowed to teach?” “Depression is not a crime, but working with children seems wrong”; and “How can someone with a mental illness even think about going back to work?”. However, mental health experts point out that depression is a mental illness that “poses a very low risk of harming others,” noting that people with depression “usually do not exhibit such behaviors.”

"It is difficult to find out whether the cause of this incident was due to the suspect's depression or (known) mental health," Lee Byung-chul, a professor at Hallym University, told The Korea Herald. "Depression is a disease with a very low risk of causing harm to others and is usually not associated with a tendency to harm others."

The case of a female teacher who killed a student in Korea: The grandmother's heartbreaking story when she saw her grandchild Mặc Lan15:03:29 11/02/2025On February 10, a female teacher in her 40s stabbed to death an 8-year-old female student at Daejeon City Central Elementary School (South Korea). This incident shocked public opinion in Korea and the world.