"Police Misjudgment" and a Profiler's Intuition: The 'Strange Object' in the Hands of a Tongyeong Murderer

[Victim's Son: It must have been around 6:30 a.m. The voice was so urgent, almost like a wail, that I knew something was truly wrong. Her entire body was covered in blood, the bed was covered in it, and there was blood on her hands. When the police arrived and examined her body thoroughly, they saw a wound on her neck and thought, this looks like an outside intrusion. (After checking the CCTV) It was an intruder.]

On the morning of June 10, a woman in her 60s, identified as A, was found dead at her home in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province.

Police, who were dispatched following a report from the family, determined that A had been murdered with a weapon around 2:00 a.m.

CCTV footage from the scene captured a man breaking into A's home, and also recorded him leaving the house one hour and 50 minutes later.

However, the object in the suspect's hand was peculiar.

He was holding a paper bag in his left hand and a 'life safety terminal' in his right.

[Victim's Son: You would expect someone to run away, but he just walked out. (Even after committing murder?) Exactly. They said he was carrying some kind of bag in his left hand, but it is not clear what was inside. In his right hand, he had that device elderly people use to report emergencies with a single touch.]

The police are tracking the suspect based on the CCTV footage, but have yet to identify him because he was wearing a hat, a mask, and gloves.

As the investigation faces difficulties, baseless information, including AI-generated photos, has been spreading on social media.

Experts point out that the possibility of this not being a simple robbery should not be ruled out.

[Bae Sang-hoon/Profiler: The target area of the attack is a bit ambiguous, and compared to the nature of the crime, not much was taken. It raises the question, 'Is that really a robber?' The police should consider other possibilities, such as a contract killing or a personal vendetta—things that we are not aware of from the outside.]

Experts advised that receiving tips from citizens would help in apprehending the culprit and that a swift transition to a public investigation is necessary.

[Bae Sang-hoon/Profiler: It seems there was an initial misjudgment that they could find the culprit just by questioning neighbors, assuming the perpetrator was someone familiar with the victim and the area. That is why they did not switch to a public investigation.]

Reported by Lee Seyoung | Video by Jang Yu-jin | Source: Curious Stories Y | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.