Super Junior’s LeeTeuk bids farewell to late family members

Lee Teuk. AP FILE PHOTO

SEOUL, South Korea—The leader of popular South Korean boy band Super Junior bade farewell Wednesday to his father and grandparents who died in a suspected murder-suicide this week.

Local TV footage shows LeeTeuk, dressed in a black suit and tie, crying when other Super Junior members moved one coffin to a black limousine at a Seoul hospital Wednesday before leaving for a crematorium.

South Korean media reports said LeeTeuk’s grandparents were found dead in bed while his father was hanging by a robe around his neck at their home Monday. The reports cited unidentified police officers as saying LeeTeuk’s father left a suicide note suggesting he committed suicide after strangling his parents.

“I will go to the heaven with my parents,” LeeTeuk’s father was quoted as saying in the suicide note, according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

The 30-year-old star’s father had been suffering from depression and economic difficulties while living with his parents, both of whom were suffering from dementia. He divorced his wife in 1998.

Police said Wednesday they couldn’t confirm the reports.

LeeTeuk, whose real name is Park Jeong-su, has been serving mandatory military service since October 2012 and was given emergency leave to attend the funerals, according to the media reports.

Super Junior, known for their boyishly polished looks and synchronized dance routines, has enjoyed heartthrob status across Asia amid increasing popularity of South Korean pop culture in the region and elsewhere.

The band, which debuted in 2005, gained wider fame in Asia in 2010 after a YouTube video clip showing a group of dancing Thai policemen impersonating its members became a sensation. The officers shimmied and swung their hips in the five-minute video spoof of “Sorry Sorry,” a hit song by Super Junior.