Chol Soo Lee (August 15, 1952 - December 2, 2014) was a Korean American immigrant who was wrongfully convicted for the 1973 murder of Yip Yee Tak, a San Francisco Chinatown gang leader, and sentenced to life in prison. While in prison, he was sentenced to death for the killing of another prisoner, Morrison Needham, though Chol Soo claimed self-defense. Chol Soo served ten years of his sentence for the killing of Yip Yee Tak of which he was later acquitted, eight of those on death row. Investigative reporting by K. W. Lee sparked the formation of the Free Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee, which spurred a national pan-Asian movement. Chol Soo finally won his freedom in 1983 through the help of the Free Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee and Tony Serra. Background Lee was born in Seoul, Korea in 1952, the son of a Korean woman who was raped and abandoned by her family. His mother then married a US soldier and emigrated to America, leaving Lee with an aunt and uncle. In 1964 she returned to Korea to bring her twelve year old son to the US. Not speaking English or having parents to guide him, he had a difficult life. The San Francisco public school system and juvenile authorities declared that Lee was mentally disturbed by 1965, diagnosing him as an adolescent schizophrenic and committing him to the McAuley Institute at St. Mary's Medical Center after a suicide attempt while being held at juvenile hall. He was later admitted to Napa State Hospital in March 1966 for three months, then transferred to a foster home in Hayward after being declared sane. Lee ran away from his foster home in October 1966; after he was picked up by authorities, he served a 13 month sentence with the California Youth Authority starting in the summer of 1967, leaving him with limited education and experience in America outside of detention facilities and mental hospitals. Lee was arrested on June 7, 1973 for the murder of Yip Yee Tak. At the time, Lee was under probation from a charge of grand theft from a person; he had pleaded guilty in December 1971 and sentenced to 180 days in county jail and three years' probation in January 1972. The probation portion of his sentence started on June 5, 1972. Murder of Yip Yee Tak Tak was a youth advisor for the Wah