The six chilling words a woman heard before her husband tried to kill her has been revealed.
Chae Kyong An will spend more than 13 years in prison for the horrific attempted murder of his wife Young An in October 2022.
The 54-year-old beat, stabbed and bound his wife before taking her to nearby bushland.
He then threw her in a shallow grave and tossed dirt over her in attempt to bury her alive.
Incredibly, the 42-year-old mother survived the brutal attack, spending 12 hours trapped in the shallow grave before wriggling her way out to freedom.
During Kyong An’s sentencing hearing, she recounted begging him for mercy and pleading for him to think of their children.
But he had just six chilling last words for her after stating that he “didn’t need anything”.
“Today, I’m going to kill you,” she recalled him saying.
Young said she and her children are still living in fear following the traumatising attack.
“After that day, I and my children’s life was crushed,” she said.
“I have to live my life with emotional trauma and health issues for the rest of my life.”
Despite the terrifying situation, Young managed to use her Apple watch to alert family and 911 at some point during the attack.
“Dispatch advised they could hear muffled screaming and sounds of a struggle. Officers arrived and found the garage door to the residence open,” police wrote at the time of the crime in October 2022.
“Shortly thereafter the children of the resident arrived home and told officers their mother and father were at the home when they left to go to the store about a half an hour prior.
“Officers cleared the home and no one was located. There was used duct tape found in the home; it is believed to have been used on the victim.”
After making her way out of the dirt hole, she walked between 20 and 30 minutes and banged on the door of a local house to ask for help.
“My husband is trying to kill me, help me,” the woman said, according to Fox Seattle affiliate KCPQ.
Kyong An was arrested after a person walking along a trail discovered his vehicle nearby.
He ultimately reached a plea deal with prosecutors, who asked him to be sentenced to the higher end of the sentencing guidelines, according to Seattle NBC affiliate KING.
His lawyers argued that Kyong An, who worked as a military intelligence warrant officer for three decades, lived with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was homeless at the time of the crime.
“Psychological testing by both the State and Defense agree that Mr. An was experiencing PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) related symptoms during the events of October 16, 2022,” attorney Michael Austin Stewart wrote.
He was apparently “isolated from friends and family” and “overmedicated and undertreated” for his PTSD at the time of the crime, according to his lawyer.
It was added that he lives with “regret and remorse every day.”
“I wish that I could go back and never enter that house that day and walk away,” Kyong An said, addressing the courtroom.
A Thurston County Judge gave him the maximum sentence and ordered he have no contact order with Young.