▲ Seogwipo Police Station in Jeju
It has been revealed that a man in his 50s, a former police officer who allegedly murdered his wife in Jeju while undergoing divorce proceedings, was under a restraining order due to conflicts with her when he went missing after implying suicide.
Although a violent crime could have been anticipated from the time the missing person report for the suspect, A, was filed, it took more than a day to discover the victim's body and apprehend the suspect.
With police responses already under scrutiny following the missing person case of Jang Mi-ran, critics point out that police fell short in identifying criminal suspicions and coordinating during the missing person process.
According to police and related authorities today (the 25th), the missing person report for A, a man in his 50s, was filed at the Seoul Jungnang Police Station at 2 p.m. on the 23rd.
A is known to have left home after leaving a note hinting at making an extreme choice.
The Jungnang Police Station, having confirmed A's recent whereabouts at a billiards hall in Guri, Gyeonggi Province, which he frequented, requested cooperation from the Guri Police Station at 7 p.m., 5 hours after the report.
Up to this point, police completely failed to consider the possibility that A might attack his wife, victim B, a woman in his 50s.
Due to domestic violence, A had been issued a restraining order regarding B's residence in Seogwipo from last March through August of next year.
Having grasped this fact, the Guri Police Station requested cooperation from the Seogwipo Police Station on the morning of the following day, the 24th, asking them to check if B was safe.
Staff from a jurisdictional substation under the Seogwipo Police Station were dispatched to B's residence at 8:22 a.m. that same day.
However, they withdrew simply because there was no response after ringing the doorbell and sounding a siren.
Police who returned to check the scene again only at 7 p.m. finally discovered B collapsed on the floor in a pool of blood.
This was 30 hours after the receipt of the missing person report suspected of suicide by the suspect.
Following the discovery of the body, police hurriedly switched the case from a missing person to a violent crime investigation, apprehending A in Guri at 12:30 a.m. on the 25th.
The time of the crime ascertained so far is around 3 a.m. on the 23rd, which is before the family's missing person report was filed.
This means that even if the police had responded immediately after the missing person report, they could not have prevented the crime.
However, the approximately 40 hours from the crime to the apprehension was ample time for the suspect to flee abroad or take his own life, raising the possibility that the investigation could have been compromised.
Regarding this, the Jungnang Police Station, which initiated the initial missing person investigation, explained, "Since the report was regarding suspected suicide rather than contents related to domestic violence, it was difficult to recognize the connection to a crime in the early stages," adding, "As the location where he was spotted was identified as Guri, we focused on rapidly transferring the case to the jurisdictional Guri Police Station."
A served as a police officer in Jeju for about a year before retiring.
It was investigated that he subsequently moved his residence to Seoul and had been living separately from his wife.
Police believe A committed the crime out of resentment over the ongoing divorce proceedings and plan to escort him to Jeju to investigate the exact motive for the crime.
A is known not to be denying the crime.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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