LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Just days into the admission process for Soldiers of Christ, Sehee Cho was faint and feeble.
The 33-year-old had come to the Atlanta suburb of Lawrenceville from South Korea in July to heal from a traumatic experience. Instead, police say, the Soldiers group led by two Korean American brothers held her captive for weeks, torturing and starving her until she died.
Officers discovered her decaying body, weighing just 70 pounds (32 kilograms), in September in the trunk of a car, and prosecutors have charged the brothers, their mom, a third brother and three others with murder.
The gory details — covered widely in Korean news outlets in the U.S. — have shocked the large Korean community in metro Atlanta. Community leaders say the case is a wake-up call for Korean Americans to be more vigilant about religious cults and potential threats to new arrivals from South Korea.