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Maryland man indicted for murder in 2014 stabbing in Hamilton

Yoon Choi

A Mercer County grand jury has returned a three-count indictment charging a Maryland man in the death of a woman in Hamilton stemming from a 2014 stabbing.

Yoon Choi, age 50, of Silver Spring, Maryland, was indicted last week on one count of first-degree murder, one count of third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and one count of fourth-degree unlawful possession of a weapon. He remains in the Mercer County Correction Center in lieu of $750,000 bail.

On December 9, 2014, at approximately 1 p.m., Choi allegedly stabbed his former lover, Myung Jeon, multiple times in the back of the neck at the Subway sandwich shop on Sunnybrae Boulevard in Hamilton after she told him she had married another man. Police arrived to find her laying in a large pool of blood. Witnesses has a good description of Choi and his vehicle. The attack was also captured by video surveillance at the Sunnybrae Boulevard restaurant

Jeon suffered serious nerve damage, underwent multiple surgeries to repair her esophagus, and spent months in a rehabilitation facility. Prior to undergoing surgery at a Trenton hospital, she identified Choi as a former lover and said she arrived to meet him with checks intended to pay back $40,000 in loans he made to her. She had known Choi for three or four years, but they hadn’t spoken for about two years.

She died at age 49 in a Delaware County, Pennsylvania hospital on July 7, 2016, as a result of her injuries.

Choi surrendered the day of the attack and was later indicted on attempted murder and related weapons charges. He was 48 when he was arrested. Choi allegedly told police during a videotaped confession that he had threatened to murder Jeon if she ever married someone else. Choi’s lawyer, Matthew Jeon (no relation to the victim) has previously said his client, who lived in New Jersey from 2002 to 2013, believed he was meeting the victim as part of a previously planned rendezvous to Korea, and did not come to Hamilton with the intent to attack Jeon.