Lee Yoon-hyung

Seoul, Nov. 28 (Reuters): Lee Yoon-hyung, an heiress to the wealthy family that controls South Korea’s Samsung Group, has committed suicide at the age of 26, a company official said today.

As with most things related to the secretive family that controls huge swathes of the country’s business, the unfolding story of her death, with more than a hint of mystery, has gripped South Korea.

Last week, newspapers ran front-page articles saying Lee the youngest daughter of Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee, died in a traffic accident in New York, where she was attending graduate school.

But today papers reported Lee had hanged herself with an electrical cord at her New York apartment, citing local police and medical examiners’ reports. Samsung spokesman Yim Jun-seok confirmed that Lee’s death was a suicide.

“At the time the story initially broke, we had an insufficient amount of information,” he said by telephone.

After later learning about the actual cause of death, company officials did not correct initial reports out of respect for the family and due to the personal nature of the episode, he added.

“It was a tragic incident and the family was already suffering from it.”

The heiress once enjoyed popularity in South Korea when she started a personal website called “Pretty Yoon-hyung” that described what is was like to be a daughter in a family that ran the country's top conglomerate.

Lee shared her father’s passion for fast cars and was working to increase her knowledge of art in order to help run Samsung’s cultural foundation, local media reported.

But newspapers speculated Lee, a graduate student at New York University, may have been suffering from depression.

Lee had shares in company affiliates worth about 179 billion won ($171.9 million), according to Medias Equitables, an Internet site that provides information on individual shareholders.