![Lee Eun-hae, identified as the main perpetrator in the 'valley murder' case. [Photo: SNS capture]](https://image.ajunews.com/content/image/2026/04/23/20260423082732286879.png)
According to political circles on the 23rd, the party’s Seoul chapter said the previous day that “because this is a case that sparked public outrage, we have decided to review from scratch whether the candidate’s qualifications are appropriate.”
It said Hong’s nomination followed a recommendation by the Guro district party committee chairs and that the Seoul chapter’s nomination committee decided on the nomination after an interview on April 19. The party added that “during the interview process, no facts related to the reported content were presented.”
The Seoul chapter’s nomination committee on April 19 selected Hong, head attorney at the Yesung Joint Law Office, as its sole candidate for Guro District mayor. The dispute grew after reports said he had served as Lee’s legal representative.
The “valley murder” case refers to the killing of Lee’s husband, identified as Yoon, who was pushed into the water and killed in a valley in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi Province, in June 2019, prosecutors said. Lee acted with her lover, Jo Hyeon-su, the report said.
Investigators also found that before the killing, Lee tried and failed to kill Yoon by feeding him food mixed with pufferfish reproductive organs and blood at a pension in Yangyang, Gangwon Province, in 2019. In May that year, she also allegedly tried to drown him at a fishing site in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, but a bystander found and rescued him, the report said.
Lee and Jo were found to have committed the crimes to obtain Yoon’s life insurance payout. Lee is serving a life sentence after being convicted of murder, attempted murder and attempted violation of the Act on the Regulation of Insurance Fraud, among other charges. Jo was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
![Hong Deok-hee, the People Power Party’s sole-nominated candidate for Guro District mayor in Seoul. [Photo: SNS capture]](https://image.ajunews.com/content/image/2026/04/23/20260423082314639441.jpg)
Hong addressed the issue on his social media account.
“I chose responsible work over work that looks good,” he wrote. He said Lee’s father “was a person with a disability who had to rely on a wheelchair,” and that he spent two weeks in Seoul’s Seocho-dong legal district trying to find a lawyer, only to be turned away because “public opinion is a burden.” Hong said the father eventually came to his office, and that what he heard suggested there were “legal points that could be disputed.”
Hong added that what he found “surprising and devastating” was that “regardless of what the truth is, no one is willing to defend that claim.” He wrote that even if “everyone in the world throws stones and condemns” a defendant, there must be “one last person” willing to listen, calling that the constitutional purpose and public duty of defense counsel.
He said that if he had avoided that responsibility out of fear, he would not be qualified to ask voters to entrust him with the lives of “410,000 Guro residents.” He said he intends to stay in the race, pledging to stand by residents “to the end” as a “reliable shield.”
* This article has been translated by AI.
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