My Son Stole My Sacred Hymns and Sold Them to a Seattle Megachurch for $85,000 — Then I Sang the Unpublished Second Verse in Front of His Congregation
Arthur Pendelton arrived at my apartment a few days later. The small, one-bedroom space felt even smaller under his professional gaze, a stark contrast to the grand cathedrals and polished offices he was accustomed to. I offered him a cup of barley tea, which he accepted with a polite nod.
“Mrs. Park,” he began, settling onto my worn sofa, “this smear campaign is aggressive. Daniel is attempting to discredit you entirely.”
I looked at my hands, clasped tightly in my lap. “I know. My neighbors… they look away.”
“We need to fight back with concrete evidence,” he said. “Do you have any original manuscripts, anything physical that predates Daniel’s claims?”
I hesitated. This was not something I spoke about easily. These compositions were too personal, too sacred. They were pieces of my soul, dedicated to my late mother, held close to my heart for decades.
I rose and walked to a corner of the living room, where a dark, intricately carved wooden chest sat. It had made the long journey from Busan with me in 1988, carefully packed with my most cherished possessions. The wood was old, smooth under my fingertips, smelling faintly of cedar and forgotten memories.
I knelt, inserting a small, ornate key into the lock. The click echoed in the quiet room.
Inside, nestled beneath layers of silk and linen, was a single, hand-bound leather manuscript. It was slim, its cover softened with age, the edges slightly frayed. I handled it with reverence, the way one might hold a precious relic.
I presented it to Arthur.
He took it gently, his eyes widening as he opened the cover. The pages were thick, creamy parchment, filled with my precise, elegant musical notation, alongside Korean calligraphy for the lyrics. He flipped through, his expression becoming more focused with each page.
Then, his finger stopped. He leaned closer, squinting slightly.
“Mrs. Park,” he said, his voice hushed with professional awe, “look at this.”
He pointed to measure 14 of “Song of the Quiet River.” Across the staff lines, barely visible to the casual eye, was a faint, dark smudge.
“Is that… a coffee stain?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes. I was working on it late one night, in Busan. My mother had just passed. I was very tired.” A pang went through my chest, even after all these years.
Arthur carefully turned a few more pages, then flipped to the inside cover. There, faded but still legible, was a circular stamp: “Busan Municipal Library – 1988.”
His head snapped up, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.
“This is it, Mrs. Park,” he declared, holding the manuscript carefully. “This is our smoking gun. Daniel’s digital submissions, the ones he filed for copyright? They have a faint shadow artifact, a ghost, right over measure 14. I thought it was just poor scanning. But it’s this. Your coffee stain. Your original. We can prove his copies are derived directly from your work.”
He smiled, a genuine, warm smile. “And this library stamp,” he added, tapping the cover, “establishes irrefutable proof of authorship and provenance from 1988. This is everything.”
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