After failing to admit guilt or show remorse, convicted murderer of Fauquier-based Zen Buddhist Monk Mogu sentenced to serve 20 years

In the Warrenton Courthouse on Monday, March 14, 2022, Wong Yong Jung, 63, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with 10 suspended, for the 2008 murder of Fauquier-based Zen Buddhist Monk Mogu, whose given name was Du Chil Park. Jung, an acquaintance and former business partner of Monk Mogu, had been a person of interest in the June 24, 2008, stabbing death of the monk from early in the investigation spearheaded by Fauquier County law enforcement and the FBI. And while having been interviewed by 2010, in Las Vegas while jailed on unrelated charges, Jung was not arrested for the murder until November 2020. After about three hours of deliberation a jury convicted Jung of Second Degree Murder on September 30, 2021.

The second-degree level murder conviction came as a result of a perceived lack of premeditation on Jung’s part. At trial Jung admitted to having come to Mogu’s residence June 23, 2008, to ask for help in paying off a gambling debt. Testimony indicated that he brought alcohol with him, believing if he could get the monk to drink with him Mogu would be more susceptible to agreeing to help him pay off a substantial gambling debt. Former associates of the monk present at the trial noted that testimony of an interviewing agent indicated that Jung admitted to the nickname “Coma” due to a propensity to blackout from the overconsumption of alcohol. Jung claimed to have awoken the next morning on the monk’s couch, to find his host stabbed to death in his bed with no memory what had happened.

Won Yong Jung was arrested in Atlanta suburb in late Nov. 2020 for 2008 murder of Zen Buddhist Monk Mogu in Marshall, Va. A jury convicted him of 2nd Degree Murder last Sept. in Warrenton. The 63-year-old is facing 20 years in prison after Monday’s sentencing hearing. Courtesy Photo Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office

Monday’s sentencing brought a long-sought sense of closure to Temple associates of Mogu, including two with ties to Front Royal and Warren County to whom we spoke the following day, Glenda Mikulak and Albert Stapf.

“I came back to Virginia for the sentencing and as I was traveling my mind traveled back to our happy memories of Monk Mogu, how kind he was and his special gift for healing. I looked at old photos and relived memories. I think of him often – a very special monk with amazing gifts of healing whose life was cut too short,” Mikulak told us. “I was thinking also of how Monk was tortured as a political prisoner in Korea and how he rejected that pain and used it as motivation to relieve pain in others; only to be subjected to it again in his violent death.”

Du Chil Park, aka Monk Mogu, was recalled by local friends for his spiritual commitment ‘to help alleviate pain for all sentient beings’. He was perhaps best known for his physical pain relief methods. Courtesy Photo Jungtosa Zen Buddhist Temple

Mikulak testified at the sentencing hearing on impacts to his temple associates of his death, and his loss to those he healed, not only spiritually, but physically as well. “I spoke of my deep friendship with Monk and how he helped my son Glenn, myself and friends with his amazing healing techniques. I also told of the trauma of having to clean up the murder scene where a dear friend had been brutally stabbed to death while sleeping. I tried to stay calm and deliberate in my testimony, looking occasionally at his killer, so I was told later.”

We asked about Jung’s appearance and testimony at the sentencing hearing.

“Yung’s statement to the court was a long rambling message predicated on the idea that somehow the FBI had arrested him in error as his name was spelled incorrectly. He asserted this many times, referencing another Korean man in the Atlanta jail also being extradited to Virginia with only a single letter separating their names. But the convicted killer was the one that woke up to the dead body at the temple,” she noted.

“There was a particular animosity towards FBI Agent Song, Yung implying that he tricked him into saying some incriminating things. He actually said he wanted Song arrested for his part in his conviction.

“He also said nothing that showed any remorse for the murder of his so-called friend. To me he seemed sociopathic as if his friendship with Monk was transactional and only for his benefit, in this case money.

“Yung also appears to have an addictive personality, drinking, gambling to the point of detriment. And he was violent to former girlfriends and a wife,” Mikulak noted of the now-convicted murderer’s background. “And then ‘Coma’ as he was nicknamed for his excessive drinking blackouts, spoke of the Monk talking about the attainment of the afterlife, seeming to imply a positive aspect to Monk’s death despite its circumstance, which I found odd.

“I am glad that he is getting 30 years, even with the 10 suspended. At last justice: ‘The devil went down to Georgia’,” Mikulak observed with a musical reference to Jung’s post-murder return to his outside of Atlanta residence. – “However, The FBI and Fauquier County Law Enforcement got their man. We are very grateful to them 14 years later.”

The Monk’s history

Information released by Fauquier authorities in the wake of his 2008 murder indicated Park came to America in 1998 and established the Jungtosa Zen Buddhist Temple in the Springfield area of Fairfax County, moving the temple to Marshall in March of 2004 and continuing his healing work in acupuncture and moxibustion, the latter also “an oriental medicine therapy”.

Park was born in Kyong Ju, South Korea around 1951-52, Fauquier authorities also noted that “in the 1970’s/80’s Park was an activist against former Korean military governments. He was imprisoned in 1974 for hiding an activist on the run and then became a Monk in 1978” and “operated a small temple in Chung Noung, a part of Seoul, where he treated poor people with acupuncture and moxibustion.”

Mikulak and Stapf said that rather than his death, Monk Mogu should be remembered for his life and his healing work, noting he often travelled to the Front Royal area to treat children and adults, some with serious physical disabilities. “His Mantra was always ‘to help alleviate pain for all sentient beings’,” Mikulak reminded us of a life devoted to the healing of others.