A Pierce County Superior Court jury has found 54-year-old Youngmi Shin guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of her husband, concluding a high-profile trial that centered heavily on domestic abuse and claims of self-defense. The verdict resolved weeks of intense courtroom testimony regarding the violent confrontation that occurred inside the couple's Parkland residence.
The jury panel, composed of seven men and five women, reached its decision on Monday morning following deliberations that spanned part of Thursday afternoon and the entirety of Friday. Jurors acquitted Shin of intentional second-degree murder but convicted her of felony second-degree murder, concluding that she killed her husband while committing or attempting to commit second-degree assault.
The conviction stems from the death of 62-year-old Jay Choi, a local business owner who died on November 27, 2024, the day before Thanksgiving. Shin took the witness stand during the proceedings, telling jurors that she acted strictly in self-defense by brandishing and swinging a knife while Choi, whom she identified as her abuser, drunkenly beat and threatened her inside their home.
Immediately after Superior Court Judge Shelly K. Moss read the verdict, defense attorney Teymur Askerov launched a motion requesting that the court directly acquit Shin of all charges. Speaking after jurors departed the courtroom, Askerov contended that the prosecution had failed to introduce sufficient evidence to overcome Shin’s self-defense claim beyond a reasonable doubt, maintaining that no reasonable juror could conclude she was guilty.
Judge Moss denied the defense's motion, stating that the court would not substitute its own perspective for the determinations made by the jury panel. While acknowledging conflicting testimony concerning the sequence of events, Moss noted that the record contained ample circumstantial evidence from which jurors could draw differing inferences and reasonably conclude that Shin’s actions did not constitute lawful self-defense.
Shin appeared visibly shaken and bowed her head as sheriff’s deputies placed her in handcuffs and escorted her from the Tacoma courtroom following the ruling. Judge Moss tentatively scheduled Shin's formal sentencing hearing for October 16.
The trial followed nearly two years of pretrial detention for Shin, who had been held at the Pierce County Jail on a $1 million bail since the 2024 incident. Her extended incarceration before trial drew substantial criticism from advocates for domestic violence survivors and criminal justice reform organizations, who asserted that the legal system was improperly penalizing a woman for defending herself against an abusive partner.
Pretrial proceedings were further complicated by disputes surrounding the actions of law enforcement investigators. Defense counsel argued in court filings that Pierce County Sheriff’s Office detectives improperly subjected Shin to a coercive two-hour interrogation during which they repeatedly disregarded her requests to speak with an attorney. Consequently, Judge Moss ruled that Shin's statements to investigators were inadmissible and excluded them from the prosecution's primary case.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors framed the fatal encounter as an act of calculated violence driven by marital strife. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Sarah Park argued during closing statements that Shin attacked Choi out of anger amid an ongoing dispute regarding a potential divorce. Prosecutors emphasized a recorded 911 call Choi placed from a workshop situated behind the primary residence moments before the stabbing, in which he reported to dispatchers that his wife was physically striking him.
Park detailed to the jury how Choi’s emergency call was abruptly interrupted when Shin plunged a blade through three separate layers of his clothing and into his back. The resulting wound measured 6.4 inches in depth, severed a major artery, and captured Choi expressing an audible sound of shock on the phone line before the audio feed fell completely silent.
In her closing remarks, Park urged the jury to consider the physical nature and location of the fatal injury, arguing that driving a knife so deeply into Choi's back undermined the theory of a spontaneous defensive reaction. The prosecution asserted that such a wound was wholly inconsistent with a scenario in which a victim fends off an oncoming physical assault directed at her front.
Conversely, Shin presented an extensive and differing timeline over multiple days of testimony, stating that the physical altercation escalated after Choi dropped the telephone and pursued her into the main house. Shin testified that Choi demanded both her phone and his vehicle keys before shoving her into a living room wall, kicking her, threatening her life, and pulling her by her hair into the kitchen.
Shin testified that during the peak of the confrontation, she initially picked up a knife and dared Choi to take her life before turning the blade toward her own neck with a threat of self-harm. She testified that Choi punched her again, knocking her to the kitchen floor and dislodging the weapon, but as he continued to strike her, she reached for a second knife to defend herself.
To provide context for Shin's actions and mental state, defense attorney Christopher Black cited testimony from Dr. Karla Fischer, an expert witness with three decades of research experience in domestic violence dynamics. Black recounted Fischer’s analysis regarding how individuals subjected to prolonged abuse learn to recognize specific behavioral cues and indicators signaling that an abuser's hostility is about to turn physically dangerous.
Fischer testified that Shin had developed an acute understanding of Choi’s behavioral patterns over the course of their relationship, specifically recognizing that his anger when combined with alcohol consumption routinely resulted in escalating physical violence. Black argued that these accumulated experiences profoundly shaped Shin's perception of imminent danger, driving her into an intense fight-or-flight response as she faced what she believed was a life-threatening assault on the night of the stabbing.
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