Police said they will request a handwriting analysis of the suicide note left by a Yangpyeong County official who was found dead after being questioned by the special counsel investigating Kim Keon-hee.
A police official said at a regular press briefing on the 13th, "We have secured the note and plan to request a handwriting analysis." When asked, "Can the note be made public?" the official said, "It cannot be disclosed."
The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency will perform an autopsy on the body of A, a man in his 50s who was a grade-5 official at the Yangpyeong County Office, on this day.
A was questioned as a reference witness by the special counsel team on the 2nd in connection with the "alleged preferential treatment in the Yangpyeong Gongheung District development." Afterward, because he lived alone, when he did not show up for work and could not be reached, A's coworkers went to his home on the 10th of this month and confirmed that he had died. There were reportedly no signs of foul play.
The Gongheung District preferential treatment allegation is that ESI&D, the first lady's family company, failed to complete the development project within the deadline from 2011 to 2016 but, with Yangpyeong County's help, was neither assessed nor paid development charges. In 2016, A was the Head of Team in charge of imposing development charges related to the Gongheung District project. It is reported that when the Gongheung District preferential treatment allegation resurfaced in 2021, he was investigated but received a no-charge disposition from the Yeoju Branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office.
However, as the special counsel team recently revisited the Gongheung District preferential treatment allegation, the investigation resumed, and A was said to have expressed frustration to those around him.
In A's handwritten memo disclosed on Facebook by People Power Party lawmaker Kim Seon-kyo (Yeoju–Yangpyeong), he wrote that there was coaxing and coercion during the special counsel's investigation, making things difficult. The special counsel team responded that "there was no coercive questioning."