Oh's family scarred by murder that shook city nearly 60 years ago

David Oh's family knows the violence possible on Philadelphia's streets. They knew it far before the councilman was stabbed outside his home Wednesday night.

In 1958, Oh's cousin was killed by a gang of young men who beat him to death at 36th and Hamilton Streets. In Ho Oh, a 26-year-old graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, was walking to a mailbox across the street from his home to send a letter to his parents in South Korea.

There was no clear motive. Police said the boys had been denied entrance to a neighborhood dance, some because they didn't have the 65 cents for admission. They might have been looking for money. They might have just been looking to make trouble, an official said the next day.

The incident became national news, because of the brutality of the crime but more because of what came after. In Ho Oh's parents, devout Christians, sent a letter from South Korea asking the courts for leniency. They started a fund to pay for the "religious, educational, vocational and social guidance of the boys when they are released."

"We thank God that He has given us a plan whereby our sorrow is being turned into Christian purpose," the parents wrote. "It is our hope that we may somehow be instrumental to the salvation of the souls and in giving life to the human nature of the murderers."

The murder happened before David Oh was born but has been a constant presence in his life. Last year, the councilman said a photo of his handsome, neatly groomed cousin, along with the letter from the man's parents, hung in his living room throughout his childhood. David Oh said his parents often pointed to the picture when he or his siblings would break a rule or get a bad grade, raising up the cousin as an example for him and his siblings to aspire to.

"As long as I can remember, there was In Ho Oh," the councilman said.

Yet he said his parents rarely spoke of the particulars of his cousin's death. In Ho Oh was living with the councilman's parents at the time of the slaying, and they were left traumatized, according to an article published shortly after the murder in the Reporter, a national news magazine. Wanting to leave the neighborhood where the crime happened, the couple moved for a short time into the home of the director of the local Red Cross.

"Even here," the director told the Reporter, "on the top floor, with my family all around them and police outside, they were filled with fear. I could hear Mrs. Oh pacing the floor of her room at 4 in the morning, night after night."

The crime highlighted tensions between Penn and the West Philadelphia community around it, and sparked outrage from many city residents who wanted none of the leniency sought by In Ho Oh's parents. There were protests, and in one case about 600 residents of the neighborhood where the murder happened confronted the then-police commissioner, according to a 2005 accounting by the Daily Pennsylvanian.

A historian described it to the newspaper as being a pivotal moment for the university that forced school officials to become more engaged with and invested in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Then-Mayor Richardson Dilworth, under pressure from the public for a swift response, called for understanding, speaking of the lack of services provided by the government for troubled youth and of the deep poverty many of the teens, who were black, were raised in.

"I just do not think that we can emphasize enough that man's inhumanity to man simply results in increased violence and evil," he said, according to the Reporter.

At the funeral, the mayor wept, then stood alone at the closed casket after the service had ended. He later set up a scholarship fund for a Korean student to attend Penn, donating the first $100 himself.

Nine people between the ages of 15 and 19 were ultimately charged with taking part in the murder, according to news coverage from the time.  One was sentenced to death, three to life sentences, and the rest to prison terms.

David Oh said the family's request for leniency was not taken seriously by the courts.

"The city wanted to make an example," he said.

Years later, the councilman said his cousin's death and his family's response to it left him with a deep belief in the power of forgiveness, something he spoke of on the Council floor last year when he introduced a resolution to rename the block where the murder happened In Ho Oh Memorial Way.

"The critical thing for me that applies to us today is this: forgiveness," he said. "It's a challenge for me. It's a struggle for me. It's not easy to do, I understand, but I think that forgiveness is a very important part of healing our city."