By Jessica McSweeney, Perry Duffin, Sally Rawsthorne and Clare Sibthorpe
Police are investigating whether a martial arts master who is in Westmead Hospital with stab wounds is linked to the horrific deaths of a husband, wife and child in Sydney’s north-west.
Min Cho, in her forties, attended Lion’s Taekwondo Martial Arts Academy in North Parramatta on Monday afternoon. Her body, along with that of a seven-year-old boy, was found at the martial arts studio on Tuesday, after both had allegedly been stabbed to death.
A man at the scene told the Herald it was business as usual at the dojo when he left work on Monday evening. He saw children practising martial arts.
“Then I came to work this morning and it’s a crime scene”.
Taekwondo instructor, Master Lion Yoo.
However, on Tuesday it emerged students and parents at the martial arts studio had been sent a concerning text moments before the woman and child were found dead inside the venue.
According to Nine News, the text explained lessons had been cancelled because the academy’s chief instructor, Master Lion Yoo, had been in a car accident and was in hospital.
His hospitalisation set off a chain of events that led police to the Baulkham Hills townhouse for a concern for welfare check, where they discovered the body of the dead woman’s husband, Steven Cho, at the front of the home they had shared since purchasing it in 2016.
The body of Min Cho was found two hours after her husband’s.
Detectives are now investigating links between the deaths and the injuries suffered by the martial arts master, who remains in hospital.
Forensics technicians and homicide detectives spent the day at the Baulkham Hills crime scene as shocked neighbours in the quiet complex looked on.
Until his death this week, Steven Cho had worked for construction firm Richard Crookes in Artarmon as a senior estimator, following a long career in the property sector.
His wife had been involved in a number of businesses, corporate records show.
Scores of police attended the North Parramatta martial arts studio in an industrial area on Daking Street on Tuesday, with homicide detectives and forensic staff working behind windows covered with black plastic to protect the crime scene from the public’s view.
“Crime scenes were established and examine by forensic police at both locations, which are currently being treated as linked,” police said in a statement on Tuesday.
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