What Were They Doing for Two Months? Massive Search Deployed Late in Missing Person Case

[Anchor]

In the case of Jang Mi-ran, who went missing in Jeju last May, the assigned detective closed the case after claiming to have "made contact with the individual," resulting in a two-month investigation vacuum. Facing criticism for a shoddy investigation, the police have belatedly launched a re-search.

Reporter Jung Yong-gi from JIBS.

[Reporter]

There was a significant gap in the search and investigation for Jang Mi-ran, who has been missing for over three months.

After the assigned detective closed the case on May 15, there were no searches or checks on her daily activity for a staggering two months until the second missing person report was filed.

Because the storage period for many security CCTV cameras is around 30 days, tracking her movements has run into limitations, and investigations into private CCTV cameras installed by business owners are also facing difficulties.

[Merchant near Hallim Port: (The police) looked at the CCTV footage, but I am not sure what they actually saw. They looked once or twice, maybe three times. Since there is (no person) there, they didn't see anything.]

On the second day of the public search for Jang, a large number of police personnel assembled.

The search force increased fivefold, with around 140 personnel deployed for an intensive search.

Jang's final movements point primarily to two locations.

The search is centered around the place where Jang left her accommodation on the night of May 12 and Hallim Port, where her cell phone base station signal was last detected on the morning of May 16, four days later.

Scent-tracking dogs trained to follow human scent have even been deployed to search secluded streams.

The police are vastly expanding their search, focusing on the accommodation where the missing person stayed and the locations where her final movements were confirmed.

According to police investigations, call records between Jang's cell phone and the assigned detective were not found, exposing flaws in how the case was handled and causing the controversy to grow.

Her family is desperately waiting for even the smallest clue to shed light on Jang's whereabouts.

(Video by: Kang Myung-chul / JIBS)

Jung Yong-gi, JIBS
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.