‘Fantastical and potentially absurd’: The lies of murderer Master Lion

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A taekwondo instructor who styled himself as “Master Lion” was indulging in fantastical thinking and grandiose lies in the lead-up to his murder of Steven and Min Cho and their seven-year-old son.

Kwang Kyung Yoo, 51, inspected multimillion-dollar properties in Rose Bay and Vaucluse, discussed with car dealerships the potential purchases of a Lamborghini and a Bentley, boasted of non-existent overseas holidays, and passed around photos of a harbourside house where he falsely claimed to live.

Steven and Min Cho on left, and Kyung Kwang Yoo on right.

He told his wife that he had met the mining magnate Gina Rinehart. In emails, he assumed the title of “Professor”.

In reality, he drove a Toyota Camry, was running behind on rent, and his bank accounts were in debit of around $10,000. He could not afford to return to Korea for his grandmother’s funeral.

Forensic psychiatrist Andrew Ellis told the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday that the lies Yoo constructed, including in relation to the murders, were demonstrably false and served his own ego rather than any practical purpose.

“They were in part to impress other people, but I think primarily to make him feel psychologically more secure because his own concept of his social standing and his financial standing were poor in reality,” Ellis said.

NSW police inside Lion’s Taekwondo in North Parramatta.

“Although it’s fantastical and potentially absurd … the person who is experiencing this type of fantasy is able to tell whether it’s real or not, particularly when confronted with evidence about it, and it’s more a form of wishful thinking.”

But Yoo did not present as a typical psychopath and Ellis was unable to conclude from their consultation that he had any type of psychiatric disorder, including narcissistic personality disorder. Neither was he able to extract from Yoo any motive for his crimes.

“He really had a limited ability to explain why he had done what he’d done.”

The Crown case against Yoo, who has pleaded guilty to murder, is that he was driven by hatred and jealousy for the Cho family, whose financial success was epitomised by the BMW driven by Min Cho, a stay-at-home mother who migrated to Sydney from South Korea in 2020.

According to an agreed statement of facts, CCTV footage captured Yoo on several occasions in the weeks before the murders driving into the Chos’ apartment complex in Baulkham Hills, before performing a U-turn and driving out again.

On the morning of February 19, 2024, he told his wife that he was excited to be collecting their new BMW that day. When Min Cho came to collect her seven-year-old son from his class at Lion’s Taekwondo Martial Arts Academy in North Parramatta about 6.15pm, he strangled her in the storeroom while the boy waited in the reception area.

He then taught his next class, while reassuring the boy that his mother would be coming soon and placating him with ice blocks. When his last students left the building, he strangled the boy.

Finally, he drove the BMW to the Cho’s apartment and stabbed to death the third member of their family, Steven Cho, a senior construction estimator for a large building company.

Police officers near the building where Steven Cho was killed in Baulkham Hills .

His body was not discovered until the next day when Min Cho’s friend, Soo Hong, went to the apartment because she was concerned that Min had not replied to her text messages, Steven had not answered her calls, and the boy had not turned up to school.

Looking into the back of the house, she saw a long object that had been covered with a blanket, and called the police.

It was Hong who Min Cho’s parents and older brother asked to read out their victim impact statements to the court on Thursday.

As she delivered the statements in Korean, Yoo slumped forward and bowed his head so that only the top was visible. The interpreter beside him wept.

“In just one day, the three most precious members of our family were taken from us in ways too horrific even to imagine,” the statement from Min’s parents, Sang Hwangbo and Jeong Hee Hong, began.

“Since that day, our lives have been utterly destroyed, and even today we are wallowing and fumbling in seemingly endless darkness … Even as we write this letter, we can barely breathe.”

Hong pinned a white daisy to her shirt – Min Cho’s favourite flower.