Dr Gowun Park West Des Moines Iowa woman charged with murdering husband: Simpson college economics professor bound & gagged Sung Nam until he died.
An economics professor at a small liberal-arts college in Iowa has been arrested after the female educator bound and gagged her husband for hours, leading to his death.
Dr Gowun Park, 41, of Simpson college was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in the death of her husband, Sung Nam, also 41, West Des Moines police said according to a Wednesday release.
According to court records, Park used zip ties to bind Nam’s feet and hands to a chair at their home in the at 8300 block of EP True Parkway between 10.30am and 11am on Saturday.
Park is alleged to have tied Nam to the chair with rope, along with stuffing clothing into his mouth before using duct tape to attach a towel over his head.
Police said Park refused to untie him despite her husband’s repeated pleas.
Officers were called to the couple’s home shortly before 7pm on Saturday and found Park performing CPR on her unresponsive husband, whose lips had turned blue. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
‘Ms. Park made efforts to hide and conceal the binding items prior to the arrival of emergency personnel,’ according to a criminal complaint, cited by Des Moines Register. ‘The injuries sustained by Mr. Nam were not self inflicted.’
After an investigation, Park was arrested Wednesday at the West Des Moines Police Department and lodged in the county jail.
She made her initial court appearance on Wednesday and had her bond set at $5million.
‘Ms. Park’s actions and in-actions were directly responsible for Mr. Nam’s death. The injuries sustained by Mr. Nam were not self-inflicted. Ms. Park stated that the only people present during the duration of the events were her and her husband, Sung Woo Nam,’ court records showed KCCI reports.
‘I am just shocked. She was so nice—so normal.’
Simpson College’s student newspaper, The Simpsonian, reported that Park is an assistant economics professor at the school, where she was hired in 2017.
The school has since removed the female educator’s name from the college’s website.
‘I just had her last semester,’ said one Simpson economics student, weareiowa reports. ‘I am just shocked—it is hard to formulate thoughts right now. She was so nice—so normal.’
Park’s LinkedIn page indicates that she graduated from NYU with a Master’s degree in economics in 2010, before going on to earn her PhD from the City University of New York Graduate Center. From 2013-2017, Gowan Park worked as an adjunct instructor at NYC’s prestigious Hunter College and NYU.
Police have so far declined to comment on a possible murder motive.
Park is due back in court on February 28.
