Parents starve then kill their adopted daughter

"They could hear the child getting scolded from downstairs, so they realized that there's a kid there, but how could this terrible thing happen..."

Residents of a gyeonggi-do apartment complex were shocked and confused as they spoke to reporters where an alleged homicide of a 6-year-old girl by her adoptive parents took place.

Many in the building knew the couple -- 'A,' a 47-year-old man and his wife, 'B,' a 30-year-old -- because they always used the stairs to access their lower level unit and because the husband was noticeably smaller in stature than the wife.

Strangely, however, not very many people remember seeing, 'C,' their 19-year-old "niece" and the 6-year-old girl who also lived in the same household.

One resident who lived on the 11th floor of the same building said, "I saw the wife often in early mornings when she would go grocery shopping but never talked to her...she is a bit heavier so I remember her, but I had never seen the child outside."

A, B, and C, were all arrested for homicide and damaging and abandoning a body.

On September 29 around 11PM, the father moved his daughter's dead body from their residence to a mountain nearby his workplace. He then burned her body and buried the remains.

After the police investigation that continued until late October 2, the extent of abuse was revealed.

The parents routinely punished their daughter by hitting her with a fly swatter or binding her hands and feet with tape, claiming that she was too greedy with food and disobedient. On the night of September 28, the abuse became even more brutal; the little girl was tied up with tape then left in the apartment from 11PM until 4PM the next day. She was not given anything to eat for 17 hours.

Upon realizing what they had done, the couple abandoned and burned the victim's body, then conspired to fabricate a story to cover up their actions. They went to a festival about 60 miles from their residence then submitted a false missing child report.

It was also revealed that the child was not legally adopted by the couple who had been together for almost 10 years but was childless. The biological mother of the 6-year-old had given the child to the couple, who were her friends, but stayed in contact with the family. The 19-year-old female was also in a similar situation; her father had asked the couple to take care of her because he had to work in a different city.

The little girl's biological mother claims that she knew nothing of the abuse even though she and the couple talked on the phone several times a week.