As the body of Jang Mi-ran, 37, who had been missing long-term in Jeju, was found not far from the lodging where she had stayed, controversy is growing over whether police responded appropriately at the outset and conducted a proper search.
According to the Jeju Provincial Police Agency on the 24th, Jang was found at a palm farm in Hallim-eup, Jeju City, on this day, 104 days after she left her lodging on the night of May 12. The site is only about 400 meters from the lodging where Jang had been staying long-term, about a 10-minute walk away.
There were closed-circuit (CC)TV cameras around the lodging at the time of her disappearance, but police failed to secure the footage in time. Video from 118 CCTV cameras in the Hallim-eup area was automatically deleted after the 30-day retention period, and the police made an official request to view it only 98 days after the presumed date of disappearance.
Some note that if the officer who first received the report had not falsely closed the case, the CCTV footage could have been an important clue to tracking Jang's movements.
Even after Jang's family filed another missing person report on the 19th of last month, it took more than a month until she was found. After the re-report, police for a time continued a search at the level of a routine missing person case, then switched to a large-scale search using helicopters and drones from the 20th as related reports followed one after another.
When police confirmed that Jang's cellphone location was near Hallim Port, they deployed about 140 personnel per day to search the surrounding area. However, the place where Jang was found was about 1 kilometer in a straight line from Hallim Port.
Police explained that the site was also within the radius of the base station that covers Hallim Port and was therefore included in the original search area. Their position is that in rural areas, base stations are not dense, so the radius of cellphone location information is broad.