Police Massively Expand Search Months After Mishandling Missing Person Case

[Anchor]

In the case of Jang Mi-ran, who went missing in Jeju last May, the assigned detective closed the case, claiming to have "made contact with Jang." However, there was no record of any such phone call at the time. Having wasted precious time, the police have only now launched a full-scale search.

JIBS reporter Jung Yong-gi has more.

[Reporter]

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

After the responsible detective closed the case on May 15, there was a staggering two-month period with no active search or checks on whether she was alive until a second missing person report was filed.

Because security CCTV cameras typically store footage for only about 30 days, tracing her movements faces severe limitations, and investigations into private CCTV cameras installed by local business owners are also proving difficult.

[Merchant near Hallim Port: (The police) did look at the CCTV footage, but I am not sure what they saw. They looked once or twice, or maybe three times. Since there was (no one) there, they probably did not see anything.]

On the second day of the public search for Jang, a massive police force was deployed.

The number of search personnel increased fivefold, with around 140 people mobilized for intensive searching.

Jang's final movements point to two primary locations.

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

Scent-tracking search dogs specialized in detecting human scent have even been deployed to remote streams.

The police are vastly expanding the search radius, centering on the accommodation where the missing person stayed and the locations where her final whereabouts were confirmed.

The fallout is growing as police investigations revealed flaws in the case handling, including the absence of any call logs between Jang's phone and the assigned detective.

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

(Video Journalist: Kang Myung-chul, JIBS)

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