Four officials in the chain of command were relieved of duty on the 25th after it emerged that a police officer surnamed Boo, who improperly closed the missing-person case of Jang Mi-ran on Jeju Island, had recorded her in a computer system as a "traffic accident casualty." A detention hearing for Boo was held the same day, and a body found the previous day was confirmed through an autopsy to be Jang. With flaws exposed at nearly every stage — from the initial response to the renewed search to supervision — critics say the case points beyond one officer's misconduct to the entire police investigative system.
According to the Jeju Provincial Police Agency and other sources, Boo, who handled Jang's disappearance, closed the case at his own discretion about two hours and 30 minutes after the report was filed in May, entering "traffic accident casualty" as the reason for closure in the missing-persons profiling system. There was no evidence that Jang had been in a traffic accident.
Beyond a lax search, it remains unclear why Boo entered false information to close the case. Rank-and-file officers have also said they find it hard to accept. One official who works on missing-person cases said Boo would have known that falsely closing a case involving a missing woman could cause problems, making his actions difficult to understand. Whether he acted to avoid workload or for other reasons must be established through the investigation.
Boo appeared at the Jeju District Court that day for a hearing on his detention on charges including dereliction of duty, forgery and use of public electronic records, and obstruction of official duties by deception. Some argue the investigation should not stop at how the case was falsely closed. Of the 298 missing-person reports Boo handled, it must be determined whether more were processed falsely or carelessly, as in Jang's case. Since signs of false closure have already surfaced in another missing-person case, criminal liability should be weighed depending on the results of a full review.
The police search after the second report is also under scrutiny. Jang's family filed another missing-person report on the 19th of last month, but police did not begin an intensive search using helicopters and drones until the 20th of this month. Her body was eventually found only about 400 meters in a straight line from the lodging where she had been staying. How thoroughly the area around the lodging was searched after the second report, and why a nearby spot went unchecked for more than a month, remain open questions. Whether Jang could have been found earlier had the initial report been handled properly must also be examined.
Police belatedly relieved all four officials in the chain of command — the former and current chiefs of the Jeju Western Police Station, the head of its criminal affairs division and the leader of its missing-persons team — and launched an internal audit. They also decided to require final approval from a supervisor so that officers in charge cannot close missing-person cases on their own.
Critics say, however, that police keep repeating a pattern of identifying flaws and revising systems only after an incident occurs. In a March stalking murder in Namyangju, after criticism that police had failed to properly separate a victim from an assailant under a restraining order, authorities announced a full review and measures to share electronic monitoring information. In the recent murder of a high school girl in the Jang Yun-gi case, after controversy over the initial investigation and destruction of evidence by her father, a police officer, authorities drew up plans to bar officers from cases involving relatives and to expand rotational assignments.
Gaps in cooperation between police agencies over missing-person reports have surfaced again. In a case on the 23rd of this month in which a former police officer identified as A killed his wife, from whom he was seeking a divorce, in Seogwipo on Jeju, A's family filed a missing-person report with the Jungnang Police Station in Seoul. A had disappeared after leaving a note indicating he intended to take his own life and was under a restraining order barring him from his wife's residence over domestic violence. But a request for cooperation did not reach the Seogwipo Police Station until about 18 hours after the report. His wife was later found dead, and A was arrested about 40 hours after the report.
The body was confirmed to be Jang after a forensic dentist found that its dental records matched hers, according to autopsy results released that day. The autopsy found no clear signs of trauma such as unusual fractures, and police are also conducting an urgent DNA analysis. Some say police were premature in raising the possibility that Jang took her own life when the exact cause of death has not been determined.
Concerns about the police investigative system are mounting ahead of an overhaul of the criminal justice framework in October. Once prosecutors lose their supplementary investigative authority and a new Serious Crimes Investigation Agency is launched, police will bear far greater responsibility in ordinary criminal cases. A senior police official in Seoul said, "This case showed what can happen when an officer sets out to cover up a case," adding that "effective checks are needed on police investigations as well."
