Late SNU student`s parents claim ‘rumors of depression, family poverty groundless’

Late SNU student`s parents claim ‘rumors of depression, family poverty groundless’. December. 26, 2015 10:57. windup@donga.com.

The parents of Seoul National University student identified by his last name Seo (19, sophomore), who committed suicide on December 18 after leaving a suicide note that mentioned "classes of spoons," uploaded a long post on the Internet on Thursday. They thus attempted to correct misunderstanding about their son’s death. Seo said in his suicide note,“The factor that determines one’s survivability is not the color of one’s frontal lobe but the color of his or her spoon (family’s economic background)," which caused spread of rumors suggesting that he committed suicide due to his family’s poor economic conditions.

However, in their post on the university’s online community SNU Life, which was uploaded on Thursday afternoon, Seo’s parents denied the alleged causes of his suicide that were in circulation as rumors including depression, his family’s poor economic condition and his failure in the pharmacy education eligibility test (PEET). They claimed their son was not the kind of person who would kill himself simply due to depression, while the result of PEET has yet to be out.

The parents cited another reason instead. Seo went to a trip to Gangwon Province with his friend by renting a car on December 14. The parents said a minor traffic accident occurred at that time, and his son felt mental burden in the process of resolving the accident. They said they had requested police to investigate the case of accident.

The post was uploaded by an anonymous person, but was reportedly uploaded by one of Seo’s friends at his parents’ request. The parents concluded the post by saying, “We need your prayers for his another life in heaven." Gwanak Police Station in Seoul said on Friday that it investigated Seo’s telephone calls with a rental car company, but concluded the case with charges dismissed due to lack of suspicion.