By Kathianne Boniello
A Bayside man who stabbed his estranged wife to death in the driveway of their 217th Street home last fall as their teenage son watched was sentenced to 17 years in jail for the crime on Sept. 10, the Queens district attorney’s office said this week.
At the time of the murder, police in the generally quiet 111th Precinct said the couple had a history of domestic violence and that Jin Sun Kim, 39, had obtained an order of protection against her husband, Young Hoon Kim.
During the violent episode, which occurred on Nov. 11, 2000, Young Hoon Kim assaulted his wife in front of her 217th Street home at about 9 a.m. as she was leaving for work. Young Hoon Kim stabbed Jin Sun Kim several times in the neck before turning the knife on himself, but survived the suicide attempt, police said.
The couple’s son witnessed the gruesome scene from the second floor window and called 911.
A spokeswoman for Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Young Hoon Kim, who was arrested shortly after the murder, was sentenced in September to 17 years in jail for the stabbing. Young Hoon Kim was charged with two counts of murder in the second degree, one count of aggravated criminal contempt and one count of criminal possession of a weapon.
Police at the 111th Precinct, which is headquartered a few blocks from the murder scene, said in November 2000 the couple had a history of domestic problems.
The month before the murder Young Hoon Kim had been arrested twice, police said, once for assaulting his wife and violating the order of protection she had gotten against him and for a second incident in Manhattan where both of them worked.
According to the criminal complaint filed with the Queens DA’s office in November 2000, Jin Sun Kim had obtained an order of protection against her husband on Oct. 20, 2000. The order of protection had been extended through Nov. 15, 2000, the complaint said.
The 111th Precinct’s domestic violence unit had put the couple on a “high propensity” list just before the murder, police said. Unannounced visits by police officers are part of the precinct’s domestic violence program.
Crime has dropped nearly 70 percent since 1993 in the 111th Precinct, and violent crime has been almost nonexistent, statistics show. So far in 2001 there have been no murders while in 2000 there were four reported murders.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
