"I'm so sorry. I tried to live my life somehow. How can you beat Bang Yong-hoon of the Chosun Ilbo? I'm scared, but this is the only way." This is part of a voicemail sent by Lee Mi-ran, the wife of Korea Hotel President Bang Yong Hoon, to her brother Lee Seung-chul.

Around 11 a.m. the next day, Lee Mi-ran was found dead near the bridge. MBC's PD Notebook tracks the truth behind the death of Lee Mi-ran, wife of Korea Hotel President Bang Yong Hoon. Lee's brother Lee Seung-chul, who received the message, hurriedly reported her missing but couldn't find her whereabouts. Seven suicide notes were found in a car parked on the side of the road. The contents of the suicide note were surprising. It contained a confession that she had been abused by her husband, and that she had been driven out of her home with her children in a private ambulance.

"It all began to collapse from the day I was forced out," Lee Mi-ran said. Ten days later, she will venture into the Han River.

Lee Mi-ran's father-in-law was in great shock, and eventually accused Miran's children. But when the investigation began, strange things happened. The police charged the children with "co-existence injury" and sent them to prosecution on charges of harming their mother. However, the prosecution indicted them without detention under charges of mere coercion.

Lawmakers doubted the prosecution's investigation of the victim saying, "It is questionable that the crime changed from murder to mere coercion."

This was not the only suspicious move by the investigative agencies. On November 1, two months after Miran's death, her husband, Bang Yong-hoon and his son, broke into Miran's sister's house with an ice axe and a stone. However, controversy arose over the fact that the police and the prosecution completed the investigation by relying more on Bang Yong-hoon's statement than on CCTV.

Representative Pyo Chang-won, who was comparing CCTV and statement documents, said, "This is the result that would be most advantageous for the suspects," adding, "It is hard to say that the investigation wasn't conducted with malicious intention."

Why did Lee Mi-ran, a wife of Bang Yong-hoon, a family member of a prominent media company called the Chosun Ilbo, and the president of the Korea Hotel, choose to commit suicide leaving behind her children and a glamorous life?

MBC's PD Notebook, which recounts the mysterious incident, will air at 11:10 p.m. KST on March 5.

Additional source: (1)