Soh's father, Changwoo Soh, is the CEO of Papa John's Korea. His mother is said to be related to the family behind Seoul-based electronics giant Samsung.
It's difficult to gauge how much the Soh family is worth, but the family's St. Louis attorney, Albert Watkins, values the stand-alone equity of Papa John's Korea at around $12 billion. In South Korea the Sohs are "the functional equivalent to the Kennedy family," says Watkins.
In the lawsuit filed last week in St. Louis City Circuit Court, the lawyer places Yongsang Soh's net worth at the time of his death "in excess of $300 million." Not bad for a kid who'd yet to start his career. But Soh was destined for great things, according to his family. A triplet, Yongsang — more so than his brother and sister — was the sibling pegged to succeed his father in business. So it was with money to burn and a dynasty at stake that the bereaved Soh family immediately began to question the official narrative of their son's death.
According to police, Soh tumbled not from his own balcony but from the apartment next door, a display unit that management left unlocked to show prospective tenants.
"The detectives observed a single set of footprints in the freshly vacuumed carpeting leading directly to a balcony which overlooks Skinker Blvd," reads the police report. "[T]he victim's body could be observed on the driveway in line with the balcony...it is believed the victim was the sole occupant of the apartment prior to his fall."
Within days of Soh's death, his family reached out to PDI Investigations Inc., a detective firm headquartered in Clayton. Internal emails and reports provided to Riverfront Times by Soh's attorney trace the path of the ensuing investigation. It's clear that Mike Barbieri, a security consultant with the agency, deemed Soh's death suspicious from the very beginning. (Barbieri confirmed the authenticity of the reports but declined to comment on specifics, citing confidentiality.)
"We believe that there is reasonable doubt regarding the death of Yongsang and the investigation should proceed on a criminal basis," Barbieri wrote in a November 2013 letter to Soh's family under the subject line "Yongsang Soh — Murder Investigation."
Just a few weeks after Soh's death, only his friends knew about the LSD use that night — Jim and the others hadn't shared those details with the cops. Still, Soh's apparent suicide appeared implausible to Barbieri, who found records of Soh's plans for Thanksgiving and the next week's World Series game in St. Louis. Soh had even confirmed a few shipping orders at high-end clothing websites such as Gilt, Yoox and The Corner on October 25, the day before he died.
Barbieri and his team also dug into Soh's Internet search history. They found no online searches for subjects associated with suicide. But they did find something else disturbing: reams of emails from a listserv that connected former members of the Phi chapter of Sigma Alpha Mu, also known as the "Sammy House," a fraternity with an infamous reputation at Washington University.
In 1999 the university levied a two-year suspension against the chapter for "poor leadership, financial woes [and] troubling behavior with alcohol," according the school's paper, Student Life. The chapter returned to campus in 2002, but in 2008 found itself in trouble when the university evicted the frat once more following a drug bust. Though officially homeless, the fraternity technically survived with its members resettling in nearby dorms or other housing, such as the Dorchester. Finally, a 2011 investigation by campus police into further incidents of drug use and hazing led to the chapter's dissolution in July 2012.
The listserv discovered in Soh's computer showed evidence that the Sammys' illicit activities were going strong until the end, and that Soh — along with Jim and others present the night of his death — may have been wrapped up in an Internet drug-trafficking ring.
"This listserve is very important to us as a brotherhood," read one email dated February 14, 2012. "You guys should use your list serve to organize yourselves, stay in touch and most importantly, share hilarious pictures/stories and sell each other drugs." An example of the "hilarious pictures" was a photo of an alleged fifteen-year-old girl passed out on a couch at a freshman mixer. The caption read "beached whale." Evidence of drug transactions included a photo of a five-ounce bag of psilocybin mushrooms for sale.
On March 29, 2012, a member of the listserv posted an alarming note referencing Jim and warning other Sammy members that the cops were investigating their group of friends living in the South 40 dormitory.
"Just a few hours ago, [Jim] and I think our common rooms got raided. We were at lunch and our suite mate called us and told us the following: Three people with black gloves and some sort of liquid in a bottle searched our common room for like an hour. They knocked on our individual doors but did not open any locked ones. Our suite mate followed these people to the [dormitory] police station."
The email's final line read: "Keep all your doors locked. Try to get rid of all illegal substances. Delete all text message."
By mid-January 2014, the Soh family's private investigators had interviewed Jim and another half-dozen of Soh's friends. Over the course of multiple interviews, Jim told the investigators about the LSD, and described Soh's erratic behavior that Sunday morning. The investigators built a detailed timeline of Soh's final night, starting with drinking and gambling at the Ameristar Casino, returning to the Dorchester, the first tab of acid between 2 and 3 a.m., the ride to John Donut — all the way to his downstairs neighbor noticing a shadow passing by her window.
On June 26 a hand-delivered letter from Watkins' law firm arrived at the office of Washington University chancellor Mark Wrighton. In its eighteen pages (and twelve pages of exhibits), the attorney laid out everything his clients now knew of Soh's death and placed the blame squarely on the university.
"Consistent with the traditions of Korean nobility," Watkins wrote, "my clients have directed me to extend this correspondence with an eye toward according The University the opportunity to reconcile its accountability for the incalculable loss sustained by the Soh family."
Near the end of the note, Watkins laid out the demands of his clients: The university would turn over its investigations of SAM members' drug trade and Soh's death to the proper authorities, completely overhaul its campus disciplinary system and — the kicker — pay the Soh family a settlement of $50 million.
The letter gave the university twenty days to respond. That deadline came and went.
