The entire chain of command at Jeju Seobu Police Station has been placed on standby duty over the false closure of the missing-person case of Jang Mi-ran, 37. After a body believed to be Jang's was found on the 24th, 104 days after she went missing, police are conducting an internal probe to determine supervisory responsibility while separately investigating the officer in charge.
The Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) said on the 25th that it had placed four officials on standby duty, including current and former chiefs of Jeju Seobu Police Station, the head of its criminal affairs division and the leader of its missing-persons team. Those affected include both the station chief in May of this year, when Jang was first reported missing, and the current commanding officer. Police plan to review the entire process — the initial report, the closure and the response after the case was reported again — to check whether reporting and oversight were appropriate at each stage. The KNPA's internal affairs office dispatched headquarters personnel to Jeju the previous day to begin investigating the facts.
Officer Boo, a senior patrol officer at Jeju Seobu Police Station who handled the case directly, has been booked on charges of dereliction of duty and is under a separate investigation. Jang was last seen on May 12 of this year, when CCTV footage captured her leaving the lodging where she had been staying long-term, after which her whereabouts were unknown. Officer Boo, who received the missing-person report on the 15th of the same month, closed the case about two and a half hours later, saying that contact had been made with Jang. It was later found that data on Jang in the missing-persons profiling system's management list had also been deleted.
When they still could not reach her, Jang's family reported her missing again on the 19th of last month. Police, who belatedly began tracking her whereabouts, found a body believed to be Jang's in a palm tree forest in Hallim-eup, Jeju City, on the 24th. It was 104 days after she went missing.
Yoo Jae-sung, the acting commissioner general of the KNPA, said at a full session of the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee on the 24th that, based on a report from the Jeju Police Agency, the death was presumed to be a hanging. On the identity of the body, Yoo said it was "still at the presumption stage," but added that "the clothing, slippers and mobile phone are understood to be the same." Police plan to confirm the exact identity through examination by the National Forensic Service. No circumstances suggesting criminal harm have been found so far.
Police have begun strengthening procedures to prevent such improper closures of missing-person cases. The National Office of Investigation at the KNPA sent a "plan to strengthen missing-person investigations" to frontline stations nationwide the previous day, requiring officers to submit a written report of the reasons and results to the criminal affairs division chief after clearing a case from the missing-persons profiling system. Going forward, the agency plans to revise the system so that when an officer requests removal, a supervisor reviews the entry before granting final approval.
Yoo said he was "very sorry for causing concern regarding the investigation of the Jeju missing-person case," adding that police would "examine the entire system and make institutional improvements so that such a case never happens again." President Lee Jae-myung has also ordered a thorough investigation into the full course of the police handling of the case.
