Monday, 25th July 2005 - A language teacher who killed his wife then chopped her body into nine pieces and put it in the freezer was jailed for five years today. Paul Dalton, 35, killed wife Tae Hui Kang with a single punch before dismembering her and storing her in the freezer. He then fled the country, leaving his father to discover the corpse. The punch had shattered the jaw of his Korean wife in two places, but rather than help her Dalton left her to drown in her own blood. He set about disposing of the body, buying a deep freeze from Currys and an electric saw from Argos. He dismembered her corpse into nine pieces and stored it in the freezer at their home in Kingston-upon-Thames, south-west London. He had planned to dump the body, taking trips to see if he could find a suitable stop on the south coast or along the Thames. But Dalton abandoned that plan and instead flew to Japan.
...Jailing him for two years for manslaughter and three consecutively for preventing a burial, Mr Justice Gross said: "You lashed out at your wife in the course of an argument, after no little taunting on her. The blow was spontaneous and you didn't intent to kill or cause really serious injury. You struck her with one punch but it was a blow of sufficient force to fracture her jaw in two places. She fell backwards and struck her head. You didn't seek to assist her. Subsequently you cut up your wife's body into nine parts and placed them in a freezer bought after the death for that purpose. You contemplated disposing of the body parts but in the event didn't do so - you fled to Japan. Your counsel described your conduct after the killing as horrific, strange, misleading and wrong. That is as moderate a summary of your conduct as could be put.
...[T]he pair had married in the late 1990s and gone on to set up a succesful language school in Kingston. Although ostensibly successful the pair had their troubles, with the teacher's mother observing that the 38-year old wife treated him "like a slave"...Dalton, a mild mannered tee-totaller...admitted cutting up Tae Hui, but denied murder, claiming his marriage to Tae Hui was an impossible one. He...told the jury how her behaviour had driven him to distraction. He told how she was dominating and obsessive and treated him like a slave. She kept all the money from the business school and would order him around. Giving evidence, he said: "She always got what she wanted. Everyone was scared of her." He said that he only married her because she said she was pregnant by him and needed a visa. But after the marriage she revealed that she had lost the child...more and more...