Korea's murder-case reversal: opinion turned two cases into political labels
The killing of a Chinese student flipped from ‘a Korean killed a Chinese’ to a Korean-Chinese suspect; in Jeju's four-body case, the officer who took the missing-person report appears to have falsified it. What deserves real concern is not public safety but how opinion turns individual cases into political labels.
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The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
The killing happened at 2 a.m.; Chinese-language reports all got it wrong
Many reports on the Chinese internet said the young woman went to Jung's home at two in the afternoon on August 20; the surveillance footage released by Korean police shows that she in fact entered the home together with Jung at two in the morning on the 20th. About 20 hours later, Jung left the building wearing her clothes and carrying her suitcase, took a taxi to Dongdaegu Station, switched her phone off, changed back into men's clothing in a restroom and returned — manufacturing the impression that she had already left. Police pinned him down through that sequence of movements, and the supposed boyfriend's call to police did not change the direction of the investigation.
— Zhang ZheOne Korean-Chinese identity, and each side took what it wanted from it
When the case first surfaced, many people on the Chinese internet assumed a Korean had killed a Chinese national and worried this was a hate crime aimed at Chinese people; once word came out that the suspect was Korean-Chinese, the conversation shifted to a Chinese killing a Chinese. The Korean right and some Korean internet users used it to argue that Chinese people enter the country to kill, that the Korean government is soft on Chinese nationals, and that the suspect's prison term is being paid for out of Korean taxpayers' money. The same fact was put to opposite uses on both sides: Chinese opinion wanted it to prove Korean hostility toward Chinese people, Korean opinion wanted it to prove the threat of Chinese immigration.
— Zhang ZheCalls for deportation are wishful: even a death sentence would not be carried out
South Korea retains the death penalty in theory but has not carried out an execution in roughly 30 years, so even if Jung is sentenced to death he will not be executed. Under the principle of territorial jurisdiction, the case is handled by South Korea; extradition to China would require the agreement of all three parties — South Korea, China, and the man himself — and he obviously will not agree. The more realistic outcome is that he serves decades in a Korean prison and is then deported, by which time the Chinese internet will have long stopped paying attention. Which is why the calls online for deportation are mostly wishful thinking.
— Zhang ZheThe reason given for closing the case was invented by the officer who took it
Jang Mi-ran left home on the evening of May 12 and never returned; three days later her live-in boyfriend reported her missing, but the officer surnamed Bu who took the report told colleagues he had reached her, that she was safe and wanted to be alone, and the search was called off. When the family reported it again two months later, they were turned away because a ‘person located’ record already existed. Relatives later went to the police in Seoul, Seoul ordered the investigation reopened, and only on August 24 was the body found. When the records were pulled, it turned out the officer surnamed Bu had never spoken to her at all — he had made the closing rationale up himself.
— Zhang ZheThis was not a single lapse; it was a habit of closing cases
The officer surnamed Bu spent about a year and a half in the missing-persons unit and handled 298 cases; according to media reports, at least 10 were closed with the formula ‘person located, wanted to be left alone’. He was also found to have left fingerprints inside the women's restroom at the police station, and was only suspended on August 11. Another case, involving a 60-year-old man, was likewise taken by him and likewise written up as ‘wanted to be by himself’. The total volume of missing-person reports in Jeju is not abnormal, but in his hands the proportion and manner of suspicious closures already fall outside the normal range, and every case needs to be re-examined one by one.
— Zhang ZheThe suicide account is hard to accept, but the evidence has already rotted
The body was found at the edge of a stretch of palm trees by a roadside; for more than 100 days people worked the neighboring farmland every day and nobody noticed it. Media reports said she hanged herself, but palm trunks are brittle, and the road to the site has no street lighting and is full of potholes at night. Jang Mi-ran had said in life that the grove frightened her and that she would not go near it, and her home was only 400 meters from where she was found. Details like these make the suicide account very hard to accept in full — but the body was badly decomposed, and beyond the neck fracture, little further evidence can still be recovered.
— Zhang ZhePolice think she died that night, yet the phone powered on four days later
If, as police surmise, Jang Mi-ran died the night she disappeared, her phone nonetheless powered on for the last time at 9:44 on the morning of May 16, at Hallim Port two kilometers away. That signal falls within the two-kilometer span between her home and where she was found. Worse, the surveillance footage from after her disappearance could have been checked, but because the officer surnamed Bu had already closed the case, by the time the investigation reopened the footage had been overwritten, leaving only the images of her original departure from home. The gaps in the evidence chain make the case very hard to reconstruct, and leave room for all kinds of speculation.
— Zhang ZheNone of the conspiracy theories has evidence; the procedural failure does
South Korea ranks first in the OECD for suicide, while its intentional homicide rate is only mid-range. So the Jeju police leaning toward classifying the four bodies as suicides is not baseless, judging by the data and the forensic evidence that survives. The problem is that the key evidence vanished because of that first wrongful closure, and the police tend toward closing cases quickly — which has instead enlarged the space for conspiracy theories. As it stands there is no direct evidence for gangs, a serial killer, or police cover-up; the most solid accusation is procedural dereliction.
— Zhang ZheIn their own words · checked verbatim
The man back in China who claimed to be her boyfriend was taking part in posting about it. And then the suspect, the one surnamed Jung — when he called the police he also claimed to be the girl's boyfriend.
国内那个自称男友的那个人参与着发帖。 然后那个姓郑的犯罪嫌疑人，他在报警的时候也声称自己是这个女孩的男朋友
Zhang Zhe20:58
At first you thought it was a Korean killing a Chinese. Right, and so what everyone focused on was, public safety in Korea is terrible right now. Yes. And now it's become a Chinese killing a Chinese, and Koreans breathe a sigh of relief, I suppose.
一开始你以为是韩国人杀中国人。 嗯，然后大家的关注呢就是韩国现在治安很差啊。 对，然后现在呢就变成中国人杀中国人，韩国人也松一口气吧
Zhang Zhe27:07
I think it comes back to the same line. It's not as good as we imagine, and it's not as bad as we imagine. Right. That's it. Uh, a lot of people say it, you look at the specific situation and analyze the specific situation — every place has crime, obviously.
我觉得就是还是那句话吧。 没有我们想的那么好，也没有我们想的那么差。 对。 就是。 呃，很多人讲就是还是具体情况，具体分析嘛，肯定每个地方都有犯罪的嘛。
Because I think a lot of the information on X and ths can't be trusted. Mm, just last night I was seeing a lot of big accounts on X posting information about these cases — some of them specialize in posting news, right. My sense is that what they post is all problematic. Because none of them understand Korean, they're just grabbing it from somewhere else.
因为我觉得X和ths上面很多的那个信息是不能相信的。 嗯，昨天晚上还看到就X上面有很多有一些大大博主在那里发这些案子的信息嘛，他们有一些就是专门发什么新闻的嘛。 我感觉发的都是有问题的。 因为他们都不懂韩语语，但是从别的地方抓过来的。
We may be relatively slower, not as fast. And we also won't come across as especially aggressive — you know, saying things when there isn't yet, uh, really sufficient evidence, right? But at each point in time, we help everyone lay out what has actually happened so far. I think that still matters a lot.
我们可能会相对慢一点，没那么快。 然后呢也不会显得特别的激进，就是还没有什么呃非常充分的一些证据，就说什么东西，对吧？ 但是呢在。 每到一个时间节点，我们帮大家梳理一下目前到底发生了一些什么这样的事情，我觉得这个还是很重要的。
Figures
| Missing-person reports filed in South Korea per year | about 70,000 | 43:05 |
| Share of missing-person cases closed the same day | 90% | 43:05 |
| Share of missing-person cases closed within a month | 99% | 43:05 |
| Total missing-person cases handled by the officer surnamed Bu | 298 | 43:05 |
| Cases the officer surnamed Bu closed as ‘wanted to be alone’ | at least 10 | 43:05 |
| Time Jang Mi-ran left home | 10:15 p.m., May 12 | 37:40 |
| Gap between the woman entering the home and Jung leaving in her clothes | about 20 hours | 11:44 |
| Last signal from Jang Mi-ran's phone | 9:44, May 16, Hallim Port | 49:27 |
| South Korea's intentional homicide rate, OECD ranking | mid-range | 53:32 |
| South Korea's suicide rate, OECD ranking | first | 53:32 |
Glossary
- NPD (narcissistic personality disorder)
- The show uses the term to describe Jung's inflated self-regard and lack of boundaries; it is internet shorthand, not a formal diagnosis.
- one room
- The single-room rental apartment common in South Korea — very small, mostly used by students and people living alone.
- Territorial jurisdiction
- Whichever country a crime is committed in is the country whose courts have jurisdiction, which is why extradition to China is very unlikely here.
How to listen
Chinese-language readers who follow Korean society, students and professionals living in Korea, and anyone following the story on social media who needs a reliable timeline.
If you're short on time, the second half of the Jeju segment discussing Jeju tourism and infrastructure can be fast-forwarded without losing the thread of the case.