In October 2024, the Hwacheon Bukhan River murder case occurred in which active-duty military officer Yang Gwang-jun murdered a female military civilian employee, mutilated her body, and abandoned it.
[(Do you have a word to say to the victim?) …….]
Yang Gwang-jun, whose life sentence was finalized, called the police at the time of the crime and attempted to cancel a missing person report by mimicking a woman's voice and pretending to be the victim. Controversy arose as it was revealed that the police simply accepted the call as belonging to the victim, even though they had recorded the caller's gender as male.
In November of the same year, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency analyzed this case and drew up an internal document titled "Measures to Improve the Missing Persons Investigation System."
It noted that safety should have been directly verified through reliable means such as in-person contact, but missing persons cases were closed based solely on the reporter's intent, that there were no manager verification or approval procedures in the system, and that the process of closing missing person reports was inadequate.
Improvement measures for closing missing person reports, such as "missing persons must be directly met and verified," were included. In particular, it was revealed that improvement plans for the "Missing Persons Profiling System," which was exposed as a critical loophole in the recent "Jeju false missing person case closure incident," had already been proposed to the National Police Agency at that time.
The proposals suggested that requesting the cancellation of a missing person report should require a manager's approval process, reliable safety verification procedures should be carried out, and the reasons should be documented.
There was also a proposal to add a "pop-up function in the system" to check whether safety was verified in person.
Manager approval procedures and other measures were included in the counter-measures announced by the police this time following the Jeju incident, meaning there was an opportunity to fix things already two years ago.
The National Police Agency explained that it had planned to rebuild the system reflecting the suggestions at the time, but only secured design budget, and that it would push for a budget increase this year.
Reported by Ha Jeong-yeon | Produced by Lee Seyoung | Video by Kim Yong-woo | Video Editing by So Ji-hye | Produced by SBS Digital News
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