The wife of a missionary to Maryland stabbed to death last month has spoken out for the first time.
Chung Hwan Park was attacked last month at the Anna Prayer Counselling and Retreat Centre where the couple worked. Park's wife, Au Suk Ko has spoken to the Washington Post about the couple's "broken plan."
Ko explained how she had welcomed Song Su Kim to the centre only for him to stab her husband to death five days later.
"He began stabbing my husband," Ko said. "Then he started stabbing me."
Ko, who was seriously injured by the stabbing, said she and Park had met 35 years ago. She was initially attracted by his good looks, she said, but ultimately fell in love with him for his generous personality.
Before moving to America, they had worked and raised their two sons at Mercy Seat Church in Suwon, about 19 miles south of Seoul. Whilst Ko cooked for the church's 2,000 parishioners, Park took care of the grounds.
Park worked constantly, going to bed after midnight and rising at 4am to open the church for the early service, Ko said. She and her husband believed their long hours and humble work "made God happy."
Following several mission trips to the USA, Park and Ko applied for visas to fulfil their dream of working and living in America.
After a four year wait, their permanent visas for the USA arrived. They sold their possessions and moved to work at the retreat centre in a secluded woodland in Maryland.
However a month after arriving, tragedy struck. According to records obtained in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, Kim has a history of mental illness and violence stretching back at least a decade.
Although she hopes to stay in the United States and carry on their dream, Ko speaks no English and has little money.
She said she is comforted by the thought that her husband is in heaven. But she added that she wishes she could have followed him.
"If he [the attacker] had killed me too, I think I might have been happy."
