BLOOMINGTON – Dongwook Ko, 21, was sentenced to 24 years in the Indiana Department of Correction for hiring a hitman to murder the father of a girl that he stabbed in Bloomington.
He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, a Level 2 felony on Nov. 23.
In July 2019, Ko stabbed a 13-year-old girl with a knife at IU’s Jacob School of Music during a Strings Academy summer camp in 2019. He was sentenced to eight years on house arrest. He lured his female victim from the practice room in the Music Annex building to the fourth floor of Merrill Hall, where he stabbed her with a knife and attempted to strangle her. An employee heard the girl’s screams and intervened. She was beaten, strangled, and suffered more than a dozen wounds that required stitches.
Ko was arrested on charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery, strangulation, kidnapping, and kidnapping armed with a deadly weapon. He pleaded guilty to criminal confinement while armed with a deadly weapon in a negotiated plea deal.
Days after Ko was sentenced, immigration agents picked Ko up at his mother’s Kensington Park home and took him into custody. Ko’s temporary U.S. residency visa was revoked. He was ordered deported and has been held on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention order at the Clay County Jail in Brazil, Indiana. He was awaiting deportation when he allegedly devised his murder plot.
Ko instructed the would-be hitman on what type of violent retaliation should be inflicted. Ko reportedly wanted the hitman to also murder at least a dozen other victims. The victims included the victim’s parents, witnesses, and two prosecutors.
Ko allegedly offered to pay his cellmate $20,000 and also provided a map to the cellmate where the victim’s father lived and worked. He also allegedly told his cellmate he would arrange to post the cellmate’s $2,500 bail so he could carry out the murders. According to court records, Ko’s mother was depositing money into the cellmate’s commissary account at Ko’s request.
The cellmate, who was working with investigators, was able to record conversations with Ko about his murder plots.
