The Mug Book

Summary

Podcast Summary: Criminal – "The Mug Book" (February 27, 2026)

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of Criminal, hosted by Phoebe Judge and featuring reporting by Lizzie Peabody (from the Smithsonian’s Side Door podcast), tells the story of Cheol Su Lee—a Korean immigrant wrongfully convicted of murder in 1970s San Francisco. Through a detailed account of institutional racism, failed justice, community activism, and pioneering journalism, the episode delves into how Lee was falsely accused and ultimately freed, spotlighting the work of reporter KW Lee and the birth of a pan-Asian American movement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Chinatown Murder and a Flawed Investigation

• Background: In 1973, gang leader Yip Yi Tak is killed in San Francisco’s Chinatown, with numerous unsolved murders destabilizing the area and threatening the city’s tourism-driven economy. (01:01–01:46)
• Lack of Community Cooperation: Fear of gang retaliation causes Chinatown’s residents to refuse cooperation with police, leaving only white tourist eyewitnesses. (01:10–01:50)
• Faulty Arrest: Police use mug books of Asian men for witness identification. Tourists identify a young Korean man, Cheol Su Lee, based on fleeting observations from a distance. (01:58–02:16)
• Weak Evidence: Ballistics tests (later proved faulty) and mistaken witness identification lead to Cheol Su Lee being charged, convicted by an all-white jury, and sentenced to life in prison. (02:40–02:51)

Quote:
“They [the police] were only able to get these white tourists who saw the killer for mere seconds from quite a distance away to come down to the station and look through mug books full of photographs of Asian men.”
—Lizzie Peabody (01:50)

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2. Personal and Community Reactions

• Personal Ties: Ranko Yamada recalls knowing Cheol Su Lee as “Charles Lee” and doubts his guilt, yet recognizes he’s alone and can’t afford a lawyer. (04:09–04:49)
• Silent Faith: A Chinatown community member assures Ranko that “Chosu didn't do that. We all know that he didn't do that murder,” giving her the first true conviction of his innocence. (05:20)

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3. KW Lee: The Journalist Who Wouldn’t Look Away

• KW Lee’s Principles: Informed by his immigrant experience and a career exposing corruption, KW Lee becomes obsessed with Cheol Su Lee’s case, sensing institutional failure and anti-Asian prejudice in the proceedings. (06:24–09:17)
• Immigrant Connection: KW’s empathy is heightened by his shared Korean background with Cheol Su Lee and his understanding of being marginalized by mainstream society. (07:03–08:48)
• Investigative Passion: Despite editorial pushback, KW investigates on his own time, seeking the truth behind the arrest. (09:57–10:23)
• Setting The Record Straight: KW publishes a two-part investigative series that shifts public perception, focusing on Cheol Su Lee’s struggles as an immigrant and the injustice faced in the American justice system. (14:24–16:17)

Quote:
“Thus began the Americanization of Cheol Su Lee with good intentions and benign ignorance, paving the road to a private hell for the bewildered boy from Seoul, Korea.”
—KW Lee (17:05)

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4. The Case Unravels: Police Errors and Eyewitness Flaws

• Ballistics and Mug Books: The police’s ballistics match is proven false before trial, but prosecution persists. Eyewitnesses were tourists asked to pick “similar looking” faces from mug books rather than true identification. (22:29–23:59)
• Cross-Racial Identification Issues: None of the eyewitnesses were Asian, introducing proven error into the identification process—research shows misidentification is over 50% more common across races. (26:28–26:30)
• Physical Mismatch: The shooter was described as 5’6–5’10 and clean-shaven; Lee was several inches shorter and had a mustache. (24:22–24:49)
• Suggestive Lineups: Witnesses were essentially guided by police suggestion—a classic illustration of confirmation bias. (25:13–25:50)

Quote:
“You almost can't fault the witnesses. The police slowly, over time, persuade them to believe that the person they have chosen is in fact the one.”
—Ranko Yamada (25:35)

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5. Birth of a Pan-Asian Movement

• Activism Sparks: Korean Americans in Northern California and college students rally, sparked by KW Lee’s articles. They begin fundraisers, spread Lee’s story, and form the Free Cheol Su Lee Defense Fund. (27:08–28:57)
• Spillover Effect: Community action expands into a broader Asian American solidarity, incorporating Chinese, Japanese, and other communities, reflecting the legacy of the Civil Rights and Ethnic Studies movements. (29:03–30:12)
• A Song for Justice: Even cultural forms, such as protest songs, are used to unify and amplify the cause. (30:37)

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6. Breakthroughs and Overturned Convictions

• Suppression of Key Witness: New investigators (funded by the movement) uncover Stephen Morris, a crucial eyewitness omitted by police and never consulted by Lee’s original defense—his statement exonerates Lee. (31:29–32:37)
• Legal Victory: The previous conviction is vacated on grounds of police misconduct. (32:37)
• Setback and Endurance: Meanwhile, Cheol Su Lee is separately convicted (and sentenced to death row) for the prison yard stabbing, highlighting the stakes and injustice in continuing prosecution despite rising doubts. KW Lee leaves his job to continue supporting Lee, founding a Korean American newspaper. (35:28–36:01)

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7. Community, Family, and Redemption

• Support Systems: Letters between KW Lee and Cheol Su Lee show a deep, father-son bond, with KW providing hope and encouragement during Lee’s darkest moments in prison. (36:14–37:10)
• Resilience: Even as Lee awaits his retrial on death row, the community keeps rallying, and their presence proves vital during the new trial. Supporters—young activists and elderly churchgoers alike—fill the courtroom. (37:32–38:13)

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8. Exoneration and Impact

• Retrial and Acquittal: The 1982 retrial brings new legal firepower and exposes weaknesses in the prosecution; Lee is acquitted after a single day of jury deliberation. The courtroom erupts in emotional release. (39:32–40:04)

Quote:
“With tears brimming in his eyes after the nine man, three woman jury read the not guilty verdict, Cheol Soo Lee faced his supporters through bulletproof glass partitions of the maximum security facility and told them that his victory was in fact theirs... The audience wept. Even some sheriff's bailiffs showed red rimmed eyes.”
—KW Lee (40:32)

• Life After Prison: Though Lee stays formally convicted for the prison yard death, a plea deal sees him released in 1983 after nearly a decade in prison. His story permanently changes key players—Ranko becomes a lawyer and advocate; KW dedicates his career to mentoring and Asian American journalism. (41:29–43:09)

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9. Legacy of KW Lee and Cheol Su Lee

• Mentorship and Memory: KW Lee becomes a mentor for generations of young journalists and a symbol of integrity and compassion. He remains close to Cheol Su Lee until Lee’s unexpected death in 2014. (42:54–43:52)
• Cultural Recovery: Inspired by KW’s anger at society’s collective amnesia, Julie Ha produces a documentary on Lee’s fight for justice. KW passes away in 2025 at age 96, remembered as “the godfather of Asian American journalism.” (44:22–45:02)

Quote:
“I've known many, many brilliant people, people I would consider genius, and KW was one of them. Smart is just smart. But when you couple that with the compassion that he had and his integrity and his feeling for humanity as a whole, that's singular. That's the difference.”
—Ranko Yamada (45:16)

• Epitaph: KW’s essence captured by a former colleague describing him:
  “KW gives a shit… he really gave a shit.”
  —Sojin Kim (46:13)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It was just by the grace of God. I have eluded the faith that fell on [Cheol Su Lee] because there is a very thin line between him and me. I was lucky. He was not lucky.”
  —KW Lee (17:38)

• “You had a really… whole generation of young Asian Americans who were feeling quite empowered to try to work for themselves, to be seen and heard in a society that they felt was not seeing them and also discriminating against them.”
  —Lizzie Peabody (29:03)

• “The support and presence helped give the jury and the judge a conscience. It helped keep everybody honest.”
  —Lizzie Peabody (38:19, attribution to Ranko Yamada’s perspective)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:01] – The Chinatown murder and initial investigation
• [02:51] – Cheol Su Lee’s conviction and sentence
• [05:20] – Ranko Yamada learns of community certainty in Lee’s innocence
• [06:55] – KW Lee notices crucial errors in the investigation
• [14:24] – KW Lee’s first major exposé publication
• [17:05] – Exploration of Cheol Su Lee’s immigrant journey
• [22:29] – Flaws in police evidence and witness selection
• [25:13] – Police lineup and eyewitness fallibility
• [27:08] – Birth of the Free Cheol Su Lee movement
• [31:29] – Discovery of suppressed eyewitness Stephen Morris
• [36:14] – Letters of support between KW and Cheol Su Lee
• [39:32] – Acquittal and courtroom rejoicing
• [41:29] – Cheol Su Lee’s release and Ranko’s transformation
• [45:16] – Reflections on KW Lee’s legacy
• [46:13] – Summing up KW Lee’s character

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Tone & Language

The episode maintains a deeply empathetic, investigative tone, combining journalistic rigor with moving personal stories. The use of direct quotes and recollections from those involved (e.g. Ranko Yamada, Julie Ha, Sojin Kim, KW Lee) anchors the narrative in authentic voices, while Phoebe Judge and Lizzie Peabody provide clear, compassionate narration.

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Conclusion

"The Mug Book" offers a harrowing and ultimately inspiring portrait of American injustice and the power of community solidarity, centering on how determined individuals—supported by fearless journalism—can challenge wrongful convictions and change history. The story of Cheol Su Lee and the activism forged in his name lives on as a testament to the ongoing struggle against systemic bias and the need for compassionate advocacy.

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Related Links Mentioned:

• Free Cheol Su Lee documentary by Julie Ha
• Side Door podcast from the Smithsonian

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This summary captures the core narrative of the episode, structured for clarity and completeness, highlighting the systemic issues, key people, and community response central to the story.

Transcript

[Phoebe Judge]

Support for Criminal comes from Squarespace. If you're a business owner, you know that it matters how you present your business online. Squarespace has the tools you need to customize your website and advertise all the kinds of services you provide. Plus, you can choose the colors and fonts you like. Go to squarespace.com criminal for a free trial when you're ready to launch, use the offer code CRIMINAL to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. When things get hard, how do you talk to yourself? I'm Robinarsson, VP of Fitness Programming and head instructor at Peloton, and this week

[Narrator]

on my new podcast Project Swagger, I'm

[Lizzie Peabody]

sharing my strategies for how to build better self talk.

[Narrator]

It's time to work on befriending yourself. Follow Project Swagger wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lizzie Peabody]

On June 3, 1973, a gang leader named Yip Yi Tak was gunned down at a very busy intersection section in Chinatown.

[Phoebe Judge]

Julie Ha is a journalist and a filmmaker.

[Lizzie Peabody]

This murder was actually witnessed by probably dozens and dozens of people.

[Phoebe Judge]

When police arrived, they found a.38 caliber revolver, but they couldn't find any witnesses. Julie Ha says the locals in San Francisco's Chinatown were too afraid of gang retaliation to speak with the police. There were more than a dozen unsolved murders in Chinatown attributed to gang warfare.

[Lizzie Peabody]

It started to become actually quite a serious problem for the city of San Francisco because tourism in Chinatown was really like a main lifeblood of San Francisco's revenue.

[Phoebe Judge]

The police interviewed the only people willing to talk.

[Lizzie Peabody]

The police were only able to get these white tourists who saw the killer for mere seconds from quite a distance away to come down to the station

[Phoebe Judge]

and look through mug books, mug books full of photographs of Asian men. The white tourists were asked to point out anyone who looked like the shooter. A couple of people stopped on the same photo of a young Korean man. His name was Cheol Su Lee.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Cheol Soo Lee was involved in a gun accident at his place the day before the murder.

[Phoebe Judge]

According to the police, Cheol Su Lee had accidentally fired a gun in his apartment and they'd questioned him about it. When police looked at the type of gun, it was a.38 caliber revolver. They did a ballistics test on the bullet from his apartment.

[Lizzie Peabody]

When their ballistics expert did a test, they said it was a match, that the bullet that Cholsul fired from his gun came from the murder weapon.

[Phoebe Judge]

Chol Suli was charged with first degree murder. An all white jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison. When the verdict was read, a reporter from the Sacramento Union wrote that Cheol Su Lee spat at the prosecutor and lunged toward him as jurors were filing out of the courtroom.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Later, after he was restrained and put in a holding cell, that same newspaper reporter described Chol Su Lee as having tears welling in his eyes.

[Phoebe Judge]

Chol Su Lee insisted he was innocent, but no one believed him for years until a journalist heard about his story and wrote an article that would change both of their lives. This story comes from our friends at side Door, a history podcast from the Smithsonian. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Here's Side Door's host, Lizzie Peabody.

[Narrator]

It was a lazy summer afternoon in 1973 when Ronko Yamada was killing time at her friend's apartment. She was lying on the floor, flipping through the San Francisco Chronicle when she saw an article that snapped her out of her summer haze.

[Ranko Yamada]

There was an article about all the killings in Chinatown, all the people arrested, and this person named Cho Su Lee had been arrested for murder.

[Narrator]

Ranko knew Cheol Su Lee as the Korean kid hanging around her sister's jewelry shop in San Francisco's Japantown. He was sweet and they were friends, but she knew him as Charles Lee.

[Ranko Yamada]

And I thought, this. This sounds like a Korean name. Is this the Charles that I know?

[Narrator]

So she made a few calls and confirmed that, yes, Charles Lee was in fact Cheol Su Lee. And he was being charged with murder.

[Ranko Yamada]

I really didn't think that he had done this, but I wasn't 100%. I didn't know.

[Narrator]

Ranko did know one thing for sure, though. Cheol Soo could not afford a defense attorney. Ranko was a college student, so she couldn't afford one either. But she figured she could at least support her friend during his trial. So she drove to the courthouse in Sacramento. And while she was sitting there in the courtroom, a young Chinese man approached her.

[Ranko Yamada]

And he was from Chinatown, San Francisco. And he said, you know, Chosu didn't do that. And he knew who had killed Yip Yi Tak. He said, we all know that Josu didn't do that murder. That was the first time that someone told me that he was actually innocent.

[Narrator]

Three years later, in 1977, a journalist named KW Lee caught wind of Cheol Su's story. He was talking to a social worker in Chinatown named Tom Kim when Tom happened to mention he was really saddened

[Sojin Kim]

by the fact that there was this young Korean immigrant who was in prison for a crime that he didn't commit.

[Narrator]

Seojin Kim is a curator at the Smithsonian center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

[Sojin Kim]

This social worker felt like he hadn't had the means to be able to do anything to help or support him.

[Narrator]

Kw was working as an investigative reporter for the Sacramento Union, the largest paper in California's capital. And he could tell right away that something smelled fishy.

[KW Lee]

And I followed the smell and things shouted at me.

[Narrator]

Kw said that the first thing that failed his sniff test was the court record. The arresting officer, while he was on the stand kept referring to Chol Su Lee as Chinese, calling a Korean a Chinese.

[KW Lee]

Anybody who has a smattering, you know, of understanding the Asian culture, who do

[Ranko Yamada]

find it, you know, very unreal.

[Narrator]

Chol Soo Lee's story resonated with Kw Lee, who both have the same last name because they both immigrated from Korea. KW was a generation older, though. And before we go any further, there's something you need to know about kw.

[Ranko Yamada]

He's a character.

[Lizzie Peabody]

He cursed every other word. I was like, wow, I didn't realize you could use the F word in so many different parts of speech.

[Narrator]

Kw is one of those people you remember meeting.

[Sojin Kim]

The first time I saw him in person was at a community forum that was held in the LA Times building in downtown Los Angeles.

[Narrator]

SEO Jin is one of KW's unofficial biographers.

[Sojin Kim]

And KW got up there and was like, foaming at the mouth and like, yelling. And I was at the back of the room and I could see like the saliva, like gathering at the sides of his mouth as he yelled into the microphone.

[Narrator]

Kw had a reputation for absolutely hating corruption and wrongdoing. For him, it was personal. See, Kw Lee had left Korea for the United States in 1950.

[Sojin Kim]

His full name is actually Kyung Won Lee and he was born in 1928. And he first he comes to the United States as a student to study after World War II. And right on, literally the eve of

[Narrator]

the Korean conflict, Kw despised the political corruption that had taken hold in his native South Korea. His plan was to get a degree in the United States and then return to Korea to speak out against authoritarianism. But he soon found himself in Tennessee writing about lunch counter sit ins in protest of racial segregation. Then he moved to West Virginia, the heart of coal country, where he sees

[Sojin Kim]

a corrupt political system. And it really, like, really angered him because he thought, in this country, you know, I'm seeing this thing that, you know, I wanted to go back to Korea and through, you know, an independent press. And so I think he dives into that here in his new home, whether

[Narrator]

it was coal miners struggling to put Food on the table, politicians personally profiting from their office or entire systems that seemed to favor the powerful over the vulnerable.

[Sojin Kim]

He really was like a champion or an advocate for the underdog.

[Lizzie Peabody]

And if he sniffed out injustice, he was going to write about it, he was going to expose it.

[Narrator]

In 1970, KW left Appalachia and headed to California to work for the Sacramento Union.

[Lizzie Peabody]

That would be when, for the first time, he said, he would get to write about a fellow Korean immigrant like himself in the story of Cheol Su lee.

[Narrator]

It was 1977 when KW Lee heard of Cheol Su Lee and his interest was piqued. What if this young Korean American was innocent? But KW was a Sacramento reporter. The murder of Yip Yi Tak had happened in San Francisco.

[Lizzie Peabody]

His city editor's like, you're my chief investigative reporter. You're supposed to be working on like capital exposes. And so KW had to sort of make a deal with his city editor. You know, he said, okay, let me work on this on my own time at first. Let me see if I can uncover enough evidence to show that this guy may be innocent.

[Narrator]

So off the clock, KW got to work.

[Lizzie Peabody]

KW actually was quietly investigating this without even contacting Chol Soo Lee. first he said, because he didn't want to get this guy's hopes up. Because if in fact he uncovered evidence to show that this guy was guilty of this murder, he was just going to drop it and like quietly walk away. Instead, he was uncovering evidence, you know, that was quite alarming to him and that was proving that this guy was likely innocent.

[Narrator]

But this evidence wasn't the only thing that was alarming during his investigation. A news report flashed on KW's TV screen. Inmate Cho Su Lee is charged with murder in the stabbing death of a fellow prisoner.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Chosu Lee said that he killed this man who was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang in self defense. But authorities charged him with murder. Because this was his second murder charge, this would become a death penalty case.

[Narrator]

The guy KW suspected to be falsely accused of murder had just appeared to commit another murder while in prison. But KW did not stop his investigation. Instead, he wrote a letter to Cheol Soo in prison.

[KW Lee]

Dear Cheol Soo Lee, My name is Kyung Won Lee and I am a Korean who came to America in 1950 at the age of 20 to study. I attended universities and have been working as a newspaperman since 1957. I have been a reporter with the Sacramento Union since 1970. A few months ago, I met Tom Kim of San Francisco's Korean Community service center. He said his gut feeling was that you got a raw deal in a San Francisco shooting case and that you couldn't have done it. Tom Kim feels, and I feel the same way that nobody has given a damn about troubled Korean boys trying to make go in their adopted country. Also, recently I was shocked to learn that you were being charged with slaying an inmate at Tracy. It may be late, but never too late. I can do one thing at least. I want to write about the problems you have run into as a bewildered and helpless Korean boy in America. And maybe society will listen. Sincerely, Kyung Won Lee.

[Narrator]

When Cheol Soo Lee got the letter, he wrote to his friend Ranko Yamada.

[KW Lee]

Dear Ranko, what I'd like to know right now is as much as I can about Kyung Won Lee because I want to be sure to know if he is for me or against me. Mr. Lee told me he's known Tom Kim for some time and I would like for you to talk with Tom Kim and let me know his views on Mr. Lee. And is Mr. Lee sincere in wanting to be an aide to me? Love, Cheol Soo.

[Narrator]

Ever since she'd sat in that courtroom at his trial, Ranko hadn't stopped working to free her friend Cheol Soo. She even started going to law school to learn every legal option available. She became Cheol Soo's person on the outside. So after he wrote that letter to Ranko, he fired off another one to

[Ranko Yamada]

KW should get to know this woman, Ronko Yamada, who's my friend and who has been helping me. And so finally KW and I were able to get together. That's how we met.

[Narrator]

It was a dark and stormy night in Sacramento when Ronko met kw. Really, she said. The rain was blowing sideways as she looked out the window of the coffee shop and told him everything she knew about Cheol Su Lee. After the meeting, KW would spend the next few months interviewing Cheol Soo in prison, going to Chinatown to talk to sources and diving deep into court documents. And on January 29, 1978, people in Sacramento opened their Sunday edition of the Union to see the headline the Americanization of Cheol su Lee, Part 1 Lost in a Strange Culture by KW Lee

[KW Lee]

Deep in the volatile Tracy prison for young convicts, a 25 year old Korean man waits in a maximum security cell facing a possible death penalty. Convicted killer Cheol Su Lee stands accused of fatally stabbing a fellow inmate last October 8th, a first degree murder offense with special circumstances. Calling for capital punishment. At the time of the prison slaying, Lee was serving a life term for the 1973 street corner killing of a reputed gang leader as a hired gun in San Francisco's Chinatown.

[Narrator]

This was the first in a two part series. You might expect that this story would go into detail about the killing in Chinatown, but that's not what KW did.

[Lizzie Peabody]

The first story actually just delves deeply into Cheolsoul's background, his personal story, his biography.

[Narrator]

Chol Soo Lee was born in South Korea. He never knew his father and spent most of his childhood with his aunt and uncle in Seoul. When he was 12 years old, he moved to San Francisco to join his mother there. He said that he thought she must be rich because she had hot water and a gas stove. But really, she was living in poverty, working two jobs. And while she struggled to pay the bills, Cheolsoo struggled at school. He didn't speak English, so the school placed him in a bilingual class for Chinese students. He did not speak Chinese either, and they didn't differentiate between a Korean kid and a Chinese one. The article goes on.

[KW Lee]

In classrooms, he found himself in regular lessons, in a sink or swim situation, in school yards or on hallways. He was constantly picked on because he was very short for his age and he didn't know English except how to say his name and age.

[Lizzie Peabody]

At school, he's bullied because he doesn't know the language. He doesn't know how to speak English. Cheol Soo actually fights back against the bullies and is often disciplined.

[Narrator]

In one of these cases of bullying, a vice principal accused Cheol Su of being the aggressor. The this made him so angry he kicked the vice principal instead of getting help. He was arrested, convicted of battery and sent to juvenile hall. Later he was sent to a mental institution.

[Lizzie Peabody]

The doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia and then later a Korean speaking nurse talks to him and they realize that he just can't speak English.

[Ranko Yamada]

It must have been just such a nightmare for him. Quite alone.

[KW Lee]

Thus began the Americanization of Cheol Su Lee with good intentions and benign ignorance, paving the road to a private hell for the bewildered boy from Seoul, Korea.

[Sojin Kim]

I feel like in retrospect and KW probably be like it sounds like psychological babble, but it's also about him. It's also about KW.

[Narrator]

KW later said he saw himself in Chol Su Lee. He told journalist Sandra Jin in the 1994 interview.

[KW Lee]

It was just by the grace of God. I have eluded the faith that fell on him because there is a very thin line between him and me. I was lucky. He was not lucky.

[Narrator]

Part two of KW's story on Cheol Su Lee came out the next day. This one was a deep dive into the case against Cheol Su.

[Phoebe Judge]

We'll be right back. Thanks to Squarespace for their support. Making a website can be intimidating, especially because it's often the first thing people see about your business. If you want to build a website that makes a great first impression on people, you don't need years of coding experience. You just need Squarespace. It's the all in one website platform made to help you stand out online. Squarespace has the tools you need to make your website look exactly how you want it to look. Sell your services and get paid no matter what business you're in. You can choose from a library of templates designed by professionals, or if you don't want to scroll through all the template options, Squarespace's blueprint AI can build a website for you in just a couple of minutes based on a few prompts. It'll pull from different templates. To create the website you need. Go to squarespace.com criminal for a free trial when you're ready to launch, use the offer code CRIMINAL to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Support for Criminal comes from Mint Mobile. Right now Mint mobile is offering 50% off three, six or 12 month plans of unlimited Premium Wireless. You can bring your own phone and even your own number. They say. You can activate with ESIM in minutes and start saving immediately. And if you change your mind, they offer a seven day money back guarantee. Our friend uses Mint Mobile and he says it couldn't be easier and he's already saved a bunch of money. Ready to stop paying more than you have to? New customers can make the switch today and for a limited time, get unlimited Premium wireless for just $15 a month. Switch [e-mail] Phoebe that's mintmobile.com Phoebe upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required or $15 a month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only over 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies. Additional terms apply. See mintmobile.com.

[Narrator]

In a Sunday edition of the Sacramento Union in 1978, journalist KW Lee had introduced the people of Sacramento, California to Chol Su Lee, a young Korean immigrant facing a death sentence. The next day, Kw ran the second part of his two part story, posing a question to his readers.

[KW Lee]

Did Cheol Su Lee assassinate yip yitak in 1973? On a contract from the Watching gang amid a rash of gangland murders in San Francisco.

[Narrator]

This is an excerpt from that article which he titled Alice in Chinatown was murder case.

[KW Lee]

The Sacramento jury believed that Lee was the hired gun who cold bloodedly pumped three bullets into the 32 year old tuk at the intersection swarming with sunny tourists and inhabitants.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Kw, in his investigation, he went into Chinatown in San Francisco many times to just to do the legwork, to talk to people in the community. And they said it defied common sense for this Chinatown gang to to hire chol Soo Lee, a Korean, to kill this very high profile Chinatown gang leader.

[KW Lee]

The prosecution's thrust based on intelligence reports that the Korean acted as a trusted Chinatown gang enforcer for money defies the common sense and experiences of the Asian community.

[Narrator]

KW's article lays out a detailed outline for why Cheol Su Lee was unlikely to have committed the Chinatown murder. And he found that the biggest flaws in the city's case against Cheol Su boiled down to two things. The murder weapon and the witnesses. To refresh, the police uncovered a.38 caliber gun near the crime scene. And they had matched it with the bullet Cheol Su Lee had accidentally fired into his own wall the day before the murder.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Before the murder trial took place though this was challenged by chol Soo's then defense attorney. They challenged that ballistics test and they discovered that it was not a match and that this was a mistake. The police department actually admitted it was a mistake before the murder trial. But still the police and the DA they still went ahead with the prosecution of chol Sooly.

[Narrator]

The gun wasn't actually a match and the police knew it. But they thought they still had a case against Cheol Su Lee because of the witnesses. But remember, nobody who lived in Chinatown came forward as a witness. They were too afraid of the gangs. So the only eyewitnesses were out of towners. And the IDs made by these witnesses were not as rock solid as jurors were made to believe. Ronco says after the shooting, six witnesses had been brought to the police station. There, officers handed them a photo book full of Asian men's faces or mugs

[Ranko Yamada]

and they were told, oh, just pick anything that's similar. Pick any similarities with the person that you saw.

[Narrator]

Some of the witnesses picked Cheol Soo because his hair looked similar to the killer or maybe his eyes. But they told the police they weren't actually identifying the person in the photo as the suspect. They were pointing out similar facial features.

[Ranko Yamada]

And some people even said I'm Picking this because something looks similar. But I know for a fact it wasn't him. This is not the person I saw.

[KW Lee]

They chose a total of five mug photographs having characteristics similar to the man they saw shoot the victim. They made no identification of the suspect.

[Narrator]

What's more, the witnesses noticed that the person who shot Yip Yi Tak was about the same height. So when they described the killer, they

[Lizzie Peabody]

said it was a person who was between 5 foot 6 and 5 foot 10.

[Narrator]

Cheol Si was actually quite short.

[Lizzie Peabody]

People often describe him as around 5 foot 2. At most, he was 5 foot 4. By no stretch of the imagination would you imagine him being between 5 foot 6 or 5 foot 10.

[Narrator]

The witnesses also described the shooter as being clean shaven. And Cheol Soo had a mustache at the time of the murder. But even though Cheol Soo Lee didn't fit the description, he was the only person from the mug book that police brought to the station for a physical lineup. Cheol Soo was marched into a room, stood shoulder to shoulder with a handful of random men, and the witnesses were asked to make an ID of the shooter.

[Ranko Yamada]

And they choose Chosul. But it's not even that this is the person that they saw in Chinatown kill Yip Yitak. This is the person that they remember really from the mug book.

[Narrator]

Ranko and KW argued that police had been pushing the witnesses toward Chol Su Lee the entire time.

[Ranko Yamada]

You almost can't fault the witnesses. The police slowly, over time, persuade them to believe that the person they have chosen is in fact the one.

[Narrator]

But even if the police hadn't steered the witnesses toward Cheol Su Lee, there was another problem with their IDs, one that's explained in this TV news investigation of the case. Now, what would be the problem, say,

[Ranko Yamada]

with the witnesses who were standing over on that corner?

[Narrator]

Why couldn't they make a positive identification?

[Ranko Yamada]

Well, if you take a.

[Narrator]

If you look over there, there's an Asian couple standing. Now look away because you only had no more than three or four seconds. Suppose that you're looking at a book with hundreds of Asian faces in it and asked to pick out a few faces a few hours later. See how difficult it is? Cross racial id.

[Ranko Yamada]

It's one of the enormous problems.

[Phoebe Judge]

If you're not Asian, you're not likely

[Narrator]

to identify someone who is Asian as easily. Research has shown that, quote, an eyewitness trying to identify a stranger is over 50% more likely to make a misidentification when the stranger and eyewitness are of different races and not a single one of the witnesses identifying Cheol Su Lee was Asian. KW's articles about cheol Su Lee hit the mainstream, and the majority of people read them and moved on with their lives. But not everyone. Some Korean Americans who read the stories were shaken enough to take action.

[Lizzie Peabody]

There was a small group of Korean Americans living in the Davis Sacramento, California area, and they decided that they were going to form a defense committee to help chol Soo Lee, whom they believe was innocent. After reading KW Lee's newspaper articles, There

[Narrator]

were maybe 10 Koreans in this group. But Ranko Yamada had already begun to rally college students and youth activists in the Bay Area. The Koreans in the valley were welcome allies in their fight to free Cheol Soo Lee, which KW had helped them take public.

[Ranko Yamada]

If Chosu was going to be convicted in the courtroom, at least we could have him tried in the public.

[Narrator]

KW's articles became the opening argument in a trial of public opinion. Activists and concerned Korean Americans took the article, ran to the nearest photocopier, and started shoving copies into the hands of anyone who would take it.

[Sojin Kim]

So it might be something that would show up at a university or in a meeting of students, but it became something really tangible that people could then use in a sense, as evidence and

[Lizzie Peabody]

support for mobilizing and just word of mouth. Little by little, as news spread that there was this Korean immigrant man who was likely railroaded for a murder he did not commit in San Francisco, people just started joining the movement and they wanted to do something to help this man, even though he was a stranger.

[Ranko Yamada]

So it was KW who had spelled it out in a very clear outline and we followed it and this movement was created.

[Narrator]

The article had given voice to a broad swath of Americans who felt voiceless and unseen.

[Lizzie Peabody]

We're coming on the heels of the civil rights movement, on the heels of ethnic studies movement, on the heels of the anti war movement because of the Vietnam War. And you had a really like this whole generation of young Asian Americans who were feeling quite empowered to try to work for themselves, to be seen and heard in a society that they felt was not seeing them and also discriminating against them.

[Ranko Yamada]

Everybody had an incident, either through themselves or their relatives or their friends, when they had been treated quite unfairly or gone through, you know, a terrible, terrible process due to no fault of their own. But because they were Asian, something in

[Lizzie Peabody]

Cholsul's story resonated with each of them and really touched them deeply.

[Narrator]

Kw had hoped to rally Korean Americans to chol Soo's side.

[Sojin Kim]

The irony of it, though, is that what he Helps to mobilize is a Pan Asian American movement.

[Narrator]

Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans and many more joined the fight. College students sold hot links and held car washes to raise money for the Chol Su Lee Defense Fund. Older Asian Americans spoke at churches and asked for donations. Some supporters even wrote a song. A man with blindfolded witnesses.

[Ranko Yamada]

Three out of town tourists barely recollected

[Narrator]

Econo look like this one, but they look alike.

[Ranko Yamada]

Cops in a hurry want to close

[Lizzie Peabody]

the case, Handcuff Chol Su Lee.

[Narrator]

Proceeds from all these efforts went to the defense fund, and eventually they had raised enough money to reinvestigate Cheol Su Lee's case. The Free Cheol Su Lee Defense Fund hired new lawyers for Cheol Su Lee. Leonard Wineglass, who'd defended the Chicago 7, took the lead, and he hired a private investigator named Josiah Tink Thompson. Tink soon discovered another witness that Cholsuli's original defense attorney never knew about. And that's because the police never told him. A man named Stephen Morris.

[Lizzie Peabody]

He is a man who actually witnessed the murder from a closer distance than any of the witnesses who testify at Tulsa's first murder trial. And actually he called the police station after the murder and said, I witnessed this. The police apparently talked to Stephen Morse briefly, but then never called upon him again as they investigated the case.

[Narrator]

Stephen Morris had been ready to testify on behalf of chol Soo Lee, but he never heard from the police again. And nobody who was defending Cheol Su Lee was made aware of his existence.

[Lizzie Peabody]

He said the killer was taller. Also, you know, when he looked at Cheol Su Lee at the courthouse one day, because the defense's private investigator brought him in to just take a look at Cheol Su Lee and ask him, is that the killer you saw that day? You know, Stephen Moore said, no, that's not him. Chol Soo Lee is very handsome. He's beautiful. You know, he's like, actually the killer was kind of ugly. And so he was able to say that definitively this was not the killer that he saw.

[Narrator]

A judge ruled that since the police suppressed the existence of the witness Stephen Morris, Cheol Su Lee's murder conviction had to be thrown out and a new trial had to be held.

[Phoebe Judge]

We'll be right back. Support for criminal comes from Home Chef. Cook like a chef in your own kitchen. With Home Chef, they've worked with chefs like Gordon Ramsay to bring restaurant quality recipes straight to you. You can pick your meals from their different collections, like the Express Collection for Quick Meals or the Culinary Collection, which has premium ingredients. The recipes are all designed to help you feel confident in your kitchen. I liked that I could pick the types of meals I wanted, like protein packed or fiber rich recipes, and that I could customize how much time I wanted to spend cooking. They even have oven ready meals and quick microwave lunches for busy days. For a limited time, Home Chef is offering criminal listeners 50% off and free shipping for your first box. Plus free dessert for life. Go to homechef.com criminal that's homechef.com criminal for 50% off your first box and free dessert for life. Homechef.com criminal must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert.

[KW Lee]

Disney plus wants to know are you

[Lizzie Peabody]

ready for Marvel Studios Thunderbolts the New

[KW Lee]

Avengers now streaming on Disney let's do this.

[Narrator]

One of the best Marvel movies of

[KW Lee]

all time is now streaming on Disney.

[Ranko Yamada]

Hey, you weren't listening to me.

[KW Lee]

I said Thunderbolts the New Avengers is now streaming on Disney.

[Phoebe Judge]

Meet the New Avengers. That's cool.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Then Marvel Studios Thunderbolts the new Avengers

[KW Lee]

rated PG13 now streaming on. You guessed it, Disney.

[Narrator]

It was 1979 when Cho Soo was granted a retrial for the killing of Yip Yi Tak nearly six years earlier. With additional evidence and a crack legal team by his side, there was hope. But there was also dread because in the meantime, Chol Su Lee had to be tried for the prison yard stabbing. The jury in that case had no idea that Chol Su's earlier murder conviction had been overturned and they found him guilty because it was his second murder charge. He was sentenced to to death and transferred to San Quentin's death row. Chol Soo Lee sat on death row in San Quentin for the next three years awaiting his retrial. And during that time, KW upended his life to stay on the case.

[Lizzie Peabody]

He took a leave of absence from his newspaper, the Sacramento Union, because his editors finally said, we can't have you our chief investigative reporter, still working on the same case.

[Narrator]

So KW said, look, I'm sorry, but I have got to see this through to the end.

[Lizzie Peabody]

And so he takes a leave of absence and he starts a Korean American newspaper in Los Angeles.

[Sojin Kim]

He starts the Koreatown Weekly, which is

[Lizzie Peabody]

a weekly newspaper, and one of the key stories that they follow in that newspaper is the Cheolsoo Lee case.

[Narrator]

Kw rearranged his entire career to stay on top of Cheol Su's case, running himself ragged to get this new paper off the ground. And at the end of each day, he stayed up late to write to Cheol Soo at San Quentin because he

[Lizzie Peabody]

knew, like Cheol Soo was probably waiting for that kind of human contact from him, you know, from that letter of encouragement. And so he just couldn't let him down. I mean, the letters between those two are so beautiful. Really encouraging each other. In the darkest moments, KW really wanted

[Sojin Kim]

to keep his morale up. He wanted to give him a sense of what the possibilities were. He wanted him to feel proud of who he was and what he had endured.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Even Chol Su after being placed on death row. And you can imagine what he was going through at that time. But he writes such a comforting letter to KW after that.

[Sojin Kim]

You see Cholsu, you know, encouraging him, you know, like, it's great.

[Ranko Yamada]

I saw the issue.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Great job.

[Sojin Kim]

It must be really hard, but it's great. I'm glad you're doing this.

[Lizzie Peabody]

I remember KW saying like, oh my gosh, like here you on death row and you're comforting me. Chelsea never knew his own father. And so I think in many ways KW sort of filled that role in his life.

[Narrator]

August 11, 1982. Nine years after Yip Yi Tak was killed in Chinatown, Cheol Su Lee's retrial began.

[Ranko Yamada]

Not so much was different in the second trial.

[Lizzie Peabody]

It was like night and day, those two murder trials.

[Narrator]

This time, Cheol Su Lee had a community of supporters behind him.

[Lizzie Peabody]

You had not only these young college age activists there, you had these churchgoing grandmothers, Korean immigrant grandmothers, some of them wearing their traditional Korean silk dresses, showing up in the courthouse, smiling at and waving at Chol Soo Lee at the defendant's table.

[Narrator]

And while this community support didn't have any legal power, Julie says it had an impact on the trial.

[Lizzie Peabody]

I think it was Ranko who said, you know, that the community's support and presence helped give the jury and the judge a conscience. It helped keep everybody honest.

[Narrator]

Community support and a top notch defense was good and all. But Cheol Soo's fate would ultimately come down to the evidence and testimony that was presented to the jury. Remember, there was no evidence tying Cheol Su Lee to the murder of Yip Yi Tak. The ballistics didn't match. So his conviction rested purely on eyewitnesses, the very same witnesses who testified in 1974. But this time the result was different.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Cholsley's attorneys were able to actually show how outrageous it was that they could be describing a killer who looked nothing like Chol Su Lee. And it still led to his conviction. This is what happens when you actually have competent defense attorneys who believe in their client's innocence.

[Narrator]

After nearly A month long trial. The prosecution and defense rested their cases. The jury began to deliberate. Ranko KW and chol Soo's supporters were hopeful all their work would free chol Soo.

[Ranko Yamada]

But you, you still. You never know. You never know until the verdict comes out.

[Narrator]

Deliberations lasted one day. At 8pm the jury announced that they had reached a verdict. Everyone filed into the courtroom to hear their decision.

[Lizzie Peabody]

The verdict is read and it's not guilty. The courtroom just erupts into screams and shouts of elation.

[Ranko Yamada]

Oh, people went crazy. People just jumped up and started yelling in the courtroom.

[Narrator]

One of the members of the defense committee, J um, had told activists in the courtroom to stay quiet after the verdict. Don't make a scene.

[Lizzie Peabody]

But as soon as he heard the not guilty verdict, he screamed. He screamed he couldn't control himself.

[Narrator]

This is how the verdict was covered in KW Lee's Koreatown newspaper.

[KW Lee]

With tears brimming in his eyes after the nine man, three woman jury read the not guilty verdict, Cheol Soo Lee faced his supporters through bulletproof glass partitions of the maximum security facility and told them that his victory was in fact theirs. It's a verdict not only for myself. It has been your support, your faith that has made this possible. God bless you. The audience wept. Even some sheriff's bailiffs showed red rimmed eyes.

[Narrator]

This Pan Asian movement of old and young. Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans and many others had come together and they had freed a young Korean immigrant from death row. But chol Soo Lee was still a convicted murderer for the prison stabbing in 1977. His lawyers though were able to strike a plea deal.

[Ranko Yamada]

So he settled with the conditions that there'd be no other association with the courts. When he walks out, he walks out for good. He said okay.

[Narrator]

In March of 1983, he walked out of prison a free man. Cholsu Lee had spent nearly 10 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. And during that entire time, Ranko Yamada never lost focus on getting him back home.

[Ranko Yamada]

It was the issue that really did change me and created me, just made me who I am.

[Narrator]

It inspired her to go to law school and become a champion for the underdog. But it wasn't just her life that was changed.

[Lizzie Peabody]

Working on the Cholsuli case really changed KW's life.

[Sojin Kim]

I think that he would probably say it was probably one of the most important relationships and experiences that he had.

[Lizzie Peabody]

After meeting Cheolso Lee, he said it sort of awakened his latent Korean American identity.

[Narrator]

KW Lee left mainstream English language newspapers and dedicated himself to journalism about Korean Americans and for Korean Americans. He was also working hard to train a whole new generation of journalists.

[Ranko Yamada]

He was mentoring all these Korean students and all these young people in journalism and how to be an excellent journalist.

[Narrator]

That's how Julie met KW Lee in 1990.

[Lizzie Peabody]

I was 18 years old, had just graduated from high school, and he just started a Korean American newspaper called the Korean Times English edition. He was espousing this principle of how all people, all communities, including Korean Americans, deserve to be known, seen, and heard in our full human context, warts and all. And that was sort of a signature phrase of his.

[Narrator]

KW stayed friends with Cheol Su Lee for the rest of his life. He was his mentor, a guiding hand that helped Cheol Soo when he struggled to adapt to life outside prison. KW was like a father figure to him, which made it even harder when Cheol Soo died unexpectedly in 2014.

[Lizzie Peabody]

And he was in such anguish when Chol Soo died at age 62.

[Narrator]

But KW was also angry at the funeral.

[Lizzie Peabody]

He stood up and he was clutching this Buddhist monk's walking stick that Cheolsoo had carved for him out of a tree. And he was a little bit angry. And he said, why is the story of Cheolsoo lay, like, underground after all these years? You know, why don't people know about it?

[Narrator]

That speech inspired Julie to make the documentary Free Cheol su Lee. And KW was at the film's premiere in 2022. Three years later, in the spring of 2025, he died at the age of 96.

[Lizzie Peabody]

When he passed, I described it as like the brightest flame going out. You know, that's what it felt like because his. His force and his spirit felt that big. And so when he passed, it did feel like the brightest flame just blew out.

[Narrator]

KW Lee has become known as the godfather of Asian American journalism. Armed with a typewriter, he spent his life bringing people together to build a community. And he challenged people to find the strength to protect that community.

[Ranko Yamada]

I've known many, many brilliant people, people I would consider genius, and KW was one of them. Smart is just smart. But when you couple the that with the compassion that he had and his integrity and his feeling for humanity as a whole, that's singular. That's the difference. He was a great, great person.

[Narrator]

Sojin Kim says KW can be summed up in a letter she once saw sitting on his desk. It was from a former colleague of his at the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia. This was years after they had worked together reporting on coal miners.

[Sojin Kim]

He wrote what struck me at the time was how much you really cared about these people. And he said, except back then I wouldn't have said it that way. Back then I would have said that KW he gives a shit and I think that's how I think of him. Yeah, he really gave a shit.

[Narrator]

It.

[Phoebe Judge]

Thanks to Lizzy Peabody and the podcast side Door from the Smithsonian. We've got a link to the side Door podcast in our show notes. It's great and we hope you'll follow them. We've also got a link there to Julie Ha's documentary Free Cheol Su Lee. Special thanks to Ranko Yamada, Julie Ha, Sojin Kim, Rick Lee, Sebastian Yoon and Matsuko Adachi. Side Door is produced by James Morrison, Lizzie Peabody and Ann Conanon, fact checking by Natalie Boyd and and mixing by Tarek Fuda. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our Senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see [e-mail] and you can sign up for our [e-mail] Newsletter we hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program Criminal. Plus, you can listen to Criminal, this is Love and Phoebe reads a mystery without any ads. Plus you'll get bonus episodes. Recently we put one out about a mystery. Someone was stealing manuscripts, but no one could figure out why. To listen and learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com we're on Facebook at thisiscriminal and Instagram and TikTok at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at YouTube.com criminalpodcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great [e-mail] I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.