For decades, one woman used spiritual beliefs to control her family. When her niece finally tried to escape, the consequences were horrifying.

The restaurant had been open seven days a week for years. Customers loved the food, the familiar faces, and especially Lee, the woman who made everyone feel like a regular.

Then, in January 2024, the restaurant suddenly closed.

A few weeks later, it reopened. Lee was back, smiling and serving customers as usual.

But her parents were gone.

And their new manager was Lee's 79-year-old aunt, Shim.

(Nothing suspicious about a family business mysteriously closing, the owners disappearing, and a new manager taking over. Absolutely nothing. 🚩)

Nine months later, Lee would be dead.

And the reason? Her aunt allegedly believed she was possessed by an evil spirit.

Except the CCTV footage told a very different story.

(please tell me you read that in “Mother Gothel’s” Voice!)

Shim was a mudang, a traditional Korean shaman who claimed to have received spiritual enlightenment in 1986.

Over the following decades, she built a temple, attracted followers, and developed a very convenient explanation for practically every misfortune her family experienced.

Lost your job? Past-life sins.

Fell ill? You needed spiritual cleansing.

Something bad happened after she'd warned you about it? See? She told you so.

And the solution to all these problems?

Another ritual. Another offering. More money.

Naturally, Shim insisted that only SHE could perform the necessary cleansing.

(Imagine creating a problem, convincing everyone you're the only person who can fix it, and charging them for the privilege. Girl invented a subscription model for suffering 💀)

But her influence went far beyond money.

Shim isolated her four children from the outside world. They rarely went out unless work or their mother required it, and none of them married. They worked constantly, while their income helped support Shim's lifestyle and mounting debts.

Her younger sister's family wasn't spared either.

Shim convinced her sister that Lee carried bad energy and would bring misfortune unless she was repeatedly cleansed. Her sister believed her and spent millions of Korean won on these supposed rituals.

For years, Lee worked hard, helped run a successful restaurant, and built relationships with customers (and her freaking aunt was hell bent on proving her someone who would bring misfortune???? So freaking crazy) 

But Shim also had a problem that no amount of cleansing could solve.

She was drowning in debt.

Shim had tried running a restaurant herself. It failed, and following the pandemic, she was reportedly left with debts of around 1.6 billion won.

Her sister's restaurant, meanwhile, was doing just fine.

So Shim began maneuvering herself into control.

She persuaded her sister to leave Incheon for a remote island, claiming the move was spiritually necessary. The family also agreed to transfer the restaurant's legal ownership to Lee, supposedly to protect it from debt.

When the restaurant reopened, Shim became the manager.

Lee continued doing the actual work: cooking, serving customers, managing finances, and keeping the business alive.

But instead of the restaurant's earnings staying with the business, Lee was instructed to send the money directly to Shim's personal bank account.

Her aunt was using it to cover her mounting debts, pay off credit cards, and fund her personal expenses, while Lee worked herself to exhaustion trying to keep the restaurant running.

The restaurant's money was paying for Shim's life.

(Lee was basically running a business with one customer-facing job and one unpaid position as her aunt's personal ATM.)

Then, in September 2024, Lee finally started pushing back.

She stopped sending Shim the money and began managing the restaurant's finances herself.

Shim gave her an ultimatum: hand over the money and continue working under her control, or leave and move to the island where her parents had gone.

Lee chose to leave.

And honestly? Good for her. After everything, she was finally choosing herself.

But Shim wasn't ready to let go of the person keeping her financial empire afloat.

On September 18, 2024, Shim summoned three of her children and one follower.

She told them Lee was possessed by an evil spirit. If they didn't perform an exorcism, she claimed, the spirit would devour her.

And the people Shim had spent years conditioning didn't question her.

That afternoon, they constructed a metal structure on the restaurant's second floor.

Then they went to get Lee.

CCTV footage showed her struggling as several people dragged her upstairs. They forced her face down onto the metal structure, gagged her, and bound her hands and feet.

Then one of Shim's sons brought in a basin of burning charcoal and placed it beneath her.

Let that sink in for a second.

Lee had spent years working around restaurant grills, cooking meals that brought people together. Now, inside the very business she'd helped run, she was being tortured with burning charcoal.

According to the investigation, the ordeal began at 3:49 p.m. and continued until approximately 6:45 p.m.

Three hours.

The people involved took turns adding more charcoal to maintain the heat.

Medical experts described catastrophic burns and damage to Lee's body. Investigators reported that she showed signs of seizures and convulsions.

Still, nobody stopped.

(And before anyone tries to frame this as a ritual that got out of hand, remember: the footage showed Lee being restrained while the people around her kept the fire going.)

When Lee finally lost consciousness, the group attempted to cover up what had happened. They applied wet towels and even placed raw meat on her burns.

Yes. Raw meat.

They then wasted around an hour before calling for help.

Shim told paramedics that Lee had accidentally fallen onto burning charcoal while carrying it.

But Lee's injuries were catastrophic. She suffered multiple organ failure and died the following day, September 19.

She was in her thirties.

At first, the family stuck to the accident explanation.

But the emergency responders weren't convinced. They requested police assistance, and investigators examined the restaurant's CCTV system.

The footage showed the metal structure being assembled, Lee being restrained, and the charcoal being placed beneath her.

Three hours of torture, captured on camera.

There was no plausible accident to explain away.

On May 20, 2025, Shim, three of her children, and a follower were arrested. Investigators uncovered the years of alleged psychological manipulation and financial exploitation that had preceded Lee's death.

Friends also came forward, describing how Lee had spoken about her aunt's influence over the family.

But the most disturbing revelation was still waiting in court.

Shim continued insisting that Lee had been possessed and that the incident was part of a spiritual cleansing.

Then Lee's parents testified.

They asked the court to acquit Shim and the other defendants (you gotta be absolutely kidding me).

They repeated the claim that Lee had been possessed and described her death as a tragic accident during a legitimate ritual.

Their daughter had been tortured to death.

And they were asking the court to let the people responsible go.

(I'm sorry, WHAT?)

It's difficult to understand how parents could defend their daughter's killer. But Shim's influence hadn't started the day Lee died. It had been built over decades, through isolation, fear, financial dependence, and the constant insistence that Shim alone understood the forces controlling their lives.

By then, her beliefs had become the family's reality.

And even when confronted with what happened to Lee, her parents couldn't seem to break free of it.

In September 2025, Shim was sentenced to life imprisonment. Four accomplices, including her children, received prison terms ranging from 20 to 25 years. Two others convicted of aiding and abetting received ten years each.

The court recognized the brutality of the crime and the calculated manipulation behind it.

But no sentence could give Lee her life back.

It's tempting to look at this case and blame everything on a dangerous shaman.

But that would miss what makes it so disturbing.

Shim allegedly spent decades teaching the people around her to fear questioning her. She made misfortune feel like proof of her power, presented herself as the only solution, and used those beliefs to gain control over their money, their relationships, and eventually their actions.

And when Lee finally tried to leave, that control turned deadly.

The most heartbreaking part? Even after Lee was gone, the manipulation didn't end. Her parents continued defending the woman responsible.

They lost their daughter to murder. And they still couldn't bring themselves to reject the story that had helped make it possible.

Which brings us to this, detectives:

Do you think Lee's parents were victims of decades of psychological manipulation themselves, or is there a point where protecting your beliefs becomes a choice you have to take responsibility for?

Hit reply. We genuinely want to know what you think.

— The Crime Times

Your smartest friend who's dangerously obsessed with the weird stuff.