Two Hollister residents accused of the murder of laundromat owner Yoon Ji in December 2017 are scheduled for a preliminary hearing Jan. 22 and 23 at the San Benito County Courthouse.
Suspects Sang Ji, 49, and Jung Choi, 45, are both charged with the murder of Sang Ji’s wife on Dec. 2, 2017. Both have remained in custody at San Benito County Jail since they were arrested by sheriff’s deputies.
If the preliminary hearing proceeds as scheduled later this month, prosecutors from the San Benito County District Attorney’s Office will seek to present enough evidence of the suspects’ involvement to convince the judge to set a trial date.
Sheriff’s investigators found Yoon Ji’s remains in December 2017 off Salinas Grade Road between San Benito and Monterey counties, according to authorities. Yoon Ji and Sang Ji owned Hollister Laundromat before the woman’s death.
Following the suspects’ arrest, Sang Ji initially told county law enforcement that the co-defendant is his cousin, according to a separate claim for wrongful death in civil court. The civil claim—filed by Sang Ji and Yoon Ji’s adult children—alleges that Jung Choi and Sang Ji were having an extramarital affair.
Yoon Ji’s daughter and sister, who live in Los Angeles, reported the woman missing Dec. 2. The daughter told sheriff’s authorities that she had not heard from her mother since about two weeks earlier, which was an unusually long time to pass without contact, according to police.
Just before reporting her mother missing, the daughter received a message from her father, Sang Ji, saying her mother had traveled to South Korea unexpectedly, according to authorities. The daughter then contacted family in South Korea, who said the mother was not there and they weren’t expecting her.
The daughter became increasingly concerned about her missing mother and contacted the sheriff’s office report her missing, police said. Authorities acquired a search warrant and found evidence that suggested Yoon Ji had been killed.
The wrongful death lawsuit filed by Sang Ji and Yoon Ji’s daughters in late December 2017 alleges that their parents’ marriage had been on the rocks in the weeks preceding their mother’s death. Sang Ji and Jung Choi conspired to remove more than $175,000 worth of “community property assets” from a safe in the family home in Hollister, and transfer the proceeds to an associate in South Korea.
The lawsuit claims the property had belonged jointly to Sang Ji and Yoon Ji, and Sang Ji did not want to divorce his wife of 23 years for fear of losing a portion of these assets.
Yoon Ji allegedly died of “multiple cranio-cerebral injuries,” according to her daughters’ lawsuit. The defendants allegedly stuffed her body into a suitcase and buried her remains in a ravine on the 2300 block of Salinas Grade Road.
On Feb. 20, 2018, San Benito County Superior Court Judge Harry Tobias ordered Sang Ji and Jung Choi to pay each of the two daughters $20 million in damages. The order was a default judgment issued after the defendants missed a deadline to respond to the initial wrongful death lawsuit.
