In Brave Detective 4, detectives pursued the perpetrator to the end with meticulous investigative skills and relentless determination.
On Oct. 31, the 56th episode of T-cast E Channel's Brave Detective 4 (directed by Lee Ji-seon) featured Jungnang Police Station Criminal Division 2 Chief Park Won-sik, Uijeongbu Police Station Investigation Division 2 Chief Lee Yoon-hyung, and Korean Crime Scene Investigation (KCSI) former commissioner Yoon Oe-chul, along with Detective Kim Jin-su, who laid out the investigation logs.
The first case introduced that day began with an urgent radio call to the violent crimes unit in the early morning saying, "A woman is lying unconscious on a hiking trail." The caller was a hiker who found the woman about 20 meters into the trail in the woods. The victim was found dead, face down on a mat; her top was pushed up and her lower garment was pulled down. There were signs of a search through her bag, and her wallet was missing. Forensic inspection found a sneaker print by the victim's flank, faint fingerprints on her neck, and five strands of body hair.
The crime scene connected to nearby mountains, widening the possible tracking area, but the investigation team continued door-to-door work, checking each of the six to seven access road CCTVs on foot. The victim, a woman in her 50s, died of asphyxiation and showed no signs of sexual assault. One of the recovered hairs was identified as belonging to an unidentified man, but it could not be conclusively linked to the perpetrator. With a series of violent crimes against women occurring at the time, the investigation team judged a new approach was necessary. They publicly disclosed through the media that they had secured hairs from the scene, and a call came to the police station the day after the report.
A man who identified himself as a person surnamed Choi said, "What happened to that woman?" and then claimed he was the perpetrator. Feeling the tightening net of the investigation, he surrendered. After his arrest he said, "I only meant to take money and didn't know she was dead," but footage captured him laughing while watching pornographic videos on an illegal adult site immediately after the incident, which shocked investigators. He answered "false" to all questions related to sexual crimes on a lie detector. He stole 15,000 won from the victim, and said the sneaker print by the victim's flank was made when he pressed to check the situation, provoking public outrage. Choi was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Next, the Korean Crime Scene Investigation nearly went unnoticed, but a single question from a detective revealed the brutal truth of a case. The incident began with a report that "a man with a strong smell of glue is wandering around." The responding detectives encountered a man in his 30s carrying a black bag who reeked of glue. His home was in disarray as if long neglected, and when asked about the "family he lives with," he replied, "I returned from prison four years ago, and since then my mother has been gone." He added that he did not know when or why she left.
Detectives focused on the possibility that his mother was missing and conducted interviews. Neighbors said the mother, in her early 60s, had difficulty with one leg but lived diligently collecting recyclables. She disappeared in the winter four years earlier, and the son claimed she had gone to her maternal home for health reasons. The missing person report was filed by the man's sister. After inquiries, detectives uncovered signs that the man had forced his mother to repay card debts and even coerced her into a deposit-secured loan. A detective suspected the mother might already be dead, and on the day the glue-inhaling man was being transferred, he resolved, "I will make clear your mother's whereabouts before I quit the police," leading to a determination to pursue the case.
The investigation team focused on the possibility that a vehicle had been used to transport the body, and confirmed that the man had borrowed a friend's car four years earlier to visit his father's grave, but they did not find evidence. However, the absence of any prescription records for medication his mother would have needed after heart surgery provided grounds for a warrant, and the man was summoned to coincide with his release date. He eventually wrote on a piece of paper, "I killed my mother," and confessed. He said an argument over nagging that began because of glue inhalation escalated into a fight about repaying debts; he pushed his mother, who fell and hit her buttocks, and the next day she was not breathing. He then moved the body in a friend's car to his father's grave site, but because the ground was frozen and a shovel couldn't dig, he said he scattered the remains in a nearby reservoir, shocking investigators. Because the body was not found, he was not charged with murder and was sentenced to one year in prison for concealing a corpse.
[Photo] Broadcast capture
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