The news of that day has passed, but its meaning remains with us today. "That Day in Today" reads the present through records of the past.
"My entire life has been ruined."
On July 8, 2020, six years ago, the appellate court ruling was handed down in the Jeju childcare teacher murder case. The defendant, who stood trial as the sole suspect, was acquitted just as in the first trial. The following year, the Supreme Court also confirmed the acquittal, leaving Jeju's own "Memories of Murder" ultimately an unsolved case.
◇ The Last Taxi, a Reinvestigation Nine Years Later — The Beginning of Jeju's "Memories of Murder" = The case began in the early morning of February 1, 2009, in Yongdam-dong, Jeju City. Lee, a woman in her 20s working as a childcare teacher, took a taxi to her boyfriend's home after drinking with high school friends. But she left within three minutes after an argument and called a taxi through the 114 directory service. That was her last known trace.
Her family reported her missing when she failed to return home. Six days later, a bag containing Lee's wallet and mobile phone was found. Two days after that, on February 8, her body was discovered in an agricultural drainage ditch in Aewol-eup. Because of the location where the body was found and its shared trait of being a long-unsolved case, it earned the nickname "Jeju's Memories of Murder."
Police pursued the last taxi that carried Lee, investigating 5,000 taxi drivers across the island, and identified Park, a taxi driver who had passed near the scene on the day of the incident, as a suspect.
However, the autopsy estimated the time of death as "within 24 hours of the body's discovery." This result conflicted with the police's initial theory that the killing had occurred on the day of the disappearance. Park's alibi was later accepted, and the investigation returned to square one.
◇ A Court Battle Without Direct Evidence — Acquittal in Both First and Second Trials = When the statute of limitations for murder was abolished in 2015, interest in the long-unsolved case revived, and the following year police formed a dedicated team to reinvestigate.
They re-estimated the time of death, mobilizing the country's first decomposition experiment using the carcasses of pigs and dogs. The results shifted the weight toward the actual death having occurred close to the day of the disappearance. In addition, fibers similar to the fur of the mustang jacket the victim had been wearing were newly identified in Park's taxi. Based on this, police arrested Park again in May 2018 after he had relocated to North Gyeongsang Province.
Prosecutors sent Park to trial on charges of murder in connection with rape. At the first hearing in March 2019, Park's defense attorney denied all the charges, stating that Park had never even met the victim on the day of the incident, foreshadowing a fierce court battle in the absence of direct evidence.
In July that year, the first-trial court delivered a verdict of not guilty. The court found that "the microfibers found on the victim's clothing were mass-produced at the time, so it cannot be concluded that the microfibers from Park's taxi and the victim's belonged to the same source." Prosecutors immediately appealed, citing an error of fact.
The dispute continued in the appellate trial. Prosecutors reanalyzed the mustang fur to highlight the possibility of contact between Park and the victim, and requested life imprisonment, effectively the maximum sentence.
The defense countered that "the microfiber analysis results cannot even be discussed in terms of identity, and the evidentiary value is low." At the final hearing, Park read from a prepared memo and vented his anguish, saying, "Over the past two years of enduring this trial, my entire life has been ruined."
On July 8, 2020, the Jeju First Criminal Division of the Gwangju High Court again delivered a verdict of not guilty in the appellate trial. The court found that the killing could not be proven by animal fur, microfibers, and closed-circuit television (CCTV) analysis alone, and pointed out that "the prosecution appears to have conducted its investigation on the premise that the defendant was the perpetrator."
◇ Supreme Court Confirms Acquittal — The Lingering Possibility of a "Third Taxi" = A year later, at the final appeal hearing held in October 2021, the Second Division of the Supreme Court (presiding Justice Cheon Dae-yeop) dismissed the prosecution's appeal and confirmed Park's acquittal.
The Supreme Court ruled that "the mere fact that fibers of the same color were detected, as mass-produced fibers, cannot lead to the conclusion that they came from Park's and the victim's clothing."
Immediately after the ruling, Park confided: "From the beginning, everything started from conjecture, and throughout the entire process, the court and the media alike were all like shackles to me." He added, "I have lost too much in my life, and every situation is too difficult." He later filed a claim for criminal compensation of 77 million won with the Jeju District Court.
Meanwhile, it also became known that in the early stages of the case, another taxi driver had reported carrying a woman resembling the victim's appearance on the day of the disappearance.
The court ruled that "considering reports such as the one from another taxi driver who said he had carried a female passenger resembling the victim's appearance at the time of the incident, it is difficult to exclude the reasonable doubt that the victim may have boarded a vehicle or taxi driven by a third party rather than the defendant."
In the end, what vehicle last carried the victim, and who took Lee's life, remains unknown even now, 17 years after the incident. Who is the true culprit who killed a woman on her way home, evaded the law, and has been in hiding for 17 years?
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