The sergeant who falsely closed the case of a missing person surnamed Jang in Jeju also entered Jang into a computer system as a "traffic accident casualty," revealing serious flaws from the earliest stages of the police response. Beyond the Jang case, a series of recent violent crimes — including the Namyangju stalking murder and the Jang Yun-gi case — have seen police lose leads through poor initial responses, prompting calls for a review of the entire investigative system.
According to the Jeju Provincial Police Agency on the 26th, the sergeant handling Jang's disappearance closed the case at his own discretion about two hours and 30 minutes after the report was filed in May, entering the reason for closure as "traffic accident casualty" in the missing-persons profiling system. There was no evidence that Jang had actually been in a traffic accident.
Beyond simply neglecting the search, it remains unclear why the sergeant went so far as to enter false information to close the case. Frontline officers have also expressed disbelief. One official involved in missing-persons work said it was hard to understand, noting that the sergeant would have known that falsely closing a case involving a missing woman could become a problem. Whether it was to avoid a heavier workload or for some other reason must be determined through the investigation.
Some argue the investigation should not stop at the circumstances of the false closure. Of the 298 missing-person reports the sergeant handled, it is necessary to check whether others were falsely or carelessly processed like Jang's case. As signs of false closure have already emerged in other missing-person cases, criminal liability should also be weighed depending on the results of a full review.
The police search after the case was reported again is also subject to scrutiny. Jang's family filed another missing-person report on the 19th of last month, but police did not launch an intensive search using helicopters and drones until the 20th of this month. Jang's body was ultimately found only about 400 meters in a straight line from the lodging where Jang had been staying. How thoroughly the area around the lodging was searched after the second report, and why a nearby location went unchecked for more than a month, are also questions that must be resolved. Whether Jang could have been found sooner had the initial report been handled properly must also be examined.
Police belatedly placed all four members of the command chain — the then and current chiefs of the Jeju Western Police Station, the head of the criminal affairs division and the leader of the missing-persons team — on standby and launched an internal audit. They also decided to introduce a final approval step by supervisors so that officers in charge cannot close missing-person cases on their own.
At the same time, the Jeju District Court issued a detention warrant the previous day for the sergeant, who faces charges including dereliction of duty, forgery and use of official electronic records, and obstruction of official duties by deception. The court found there was a risk of flight and destruction of evidence.
But critics say the pattern of finding flaws and revising the system only after a case erupts keeps repeating. In the Namyangju stalking murder in March, when criticism arose that police had failed to properly separate a perpetrator under a restraining order from the victim, authorities produced 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 the destruction of evidence by the victim's father, a police officer, authorities drew up plans to expand a conflict-of-interest recusal system and rotational assignments.
Flaws 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, Jeju, A's family filed a missing-person report with Seoul's Jungnang Police Station. A had disappeared after leaving a note suggesting he would take his own life and was under a restraining order barring him from approaching his wife's residence over domestic violence. But the request for cooperation was not passed to 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.
An autopsy the previous day confirmed the body was Jang's, based on a forensic dentist's opinion that the teeth matched Jang's. The autopsy found no unusual fractures or clear external injuries, and police are also conducting an emergency DNA analysis. Some, however, argue that police were hasty in mentioning the possibility of suicide when the exact cause of death had not been confirmed.
Concerns over the police investigative system are growing further ahead of an overhaul of the criminal justice system in October. Once prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority is abolished and a serious crimes investigation agency is launched, the responsibility police bear in ordinary criminal cases will grow even greater. A senior police officer in Seoul said, "This case has shown what can happen when an officer sets out to cover up a case," adding, "Police investigations also need effective checks."
