Despite the death of the prime suspect, the detectives doggedly uncovered the truth of the case.

On the 9th episode of E Channel‘s ‘Brave Detectives 4’, which aired on the 8th, Gwangju West Police Station’s Violent Crimes Unit 3 Superintendent Jang Ok-soo, former Superintendent Yoon Oe-chul of the Scientific Investigation Unit (KCSI), and Superintendent Kim Jin-soo appeared and revealed the investigation logs they solved themselves. Following last week, singer DinDin appeared as a guest and showed off his skills once again.

The first case introduced began with a report that his 75-year-old older cousin, who lived alone without family, had not been able to contact him. The older sister had died in the house, and a thick nail was found stuck through the scarf around her neck. It was a whopping 11cm long, and her torso was intact except for the nail head. The cause of death was excessive bleeding due to a damaged carotid artery. The victim had not been contacted since returning from her trip. The victim was caught on CCTV on his way home, and as soon as he got off the elevator, a man with his hat pulled down low followed him from the direction of the emergency stairs.

The man who came up the emergency stairs seemed to have been waiting for the victim to return home. The man who went down the emergency stairs again got into a car and left the apartment. The car was headed to another apartment in the next block, surprisingly. When checking the household members, the owner of the car was the youngest daughter who did not live in the area. The investigation team called Mr. Yang, a man in his 50s who seemed to have used the car the most among the family, but his phone was turned off. The detectives arrested Mr. Yang on an emergency basis, and he immediately admitted to the crime.

Mr. Yang‘s mother and the victim were close friends and sisters for 20 years, and Mr. Yang often saw the victim. A few months ago, Mr. Yang asked his mother for money for stock investment. The mother, who gave him 5 million won, said that it was money borrowed from her younger sister. At that time, the mother complained that she envied the victim who did not have to worry about money. After running up 10 million won in debt from his business in a few months, Mr. Yang decided to commit a crime against the victim. He followed the victim into the house, and when the surprised victim screamed for help, he assaulted her and stabbed her with an awl on the table. Then the handle of the awl came off. The awl with the handle removed looked like a nail. Mr. Yang said that he searched the victim’s house and cried because he was so devastated by the lack of cash. He took 75,000 won in cash from the victim‘s bag. Mr. Yang was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The case of the scientific investigation team was then introduced. The case began with a call from a detached house requesting 119 dispatch. When the father in his 80s did not answer the phone, he went to the house, but there were traces of a strong fire inside the house. The house was over 100 pyeong in size, and the fire was naturally extinguished due to lack of oxygen in a closed room with all the doors inside the house closed. Above all, the grandson in his early 30s who lived with his father was also found dead in a small room, causing shock. Both of them had already died from serious fractures before the fire started.


When the ashes were cleared away for a detailed examination, someone’s movement path was discovered. With a large 280mm foot, it seemed that the two bodies were moved to the small room, the fire was set, and then they escaped through the small room window. The forensic team found fingerprints of a third person, not a family member, outside the house. The owner of the fingerprints was a man in his 30s who lived in another region and was the same age as the grandson. Since he had a history of paying fines for illegal sports gambling in the past, the investigation team suggested that they meet about this without any suspicion. However, the accident occurred 30 minutes before the scheduled time. A passenger car crossed the center line and crashed into a 7-ton truck on the other side, and the driver of the passenger car was the suspect.

As a result of the investigation, the suspect was an elementary school classmate of the grandson. The investigation team considered this man a strong suspect, given the circumstances of the intentional accident and his gambling history. On the day of the incident, he drove his father‘s car to the village where his classmate was. He entered and exited the village three times, and it seemed that he was trying to kill two people and destroy evidence. The suspect seemed to have targeted the deceased grandson after seeing his SNS posts about foreign cars and luxury watches and the home address he left for his friends to visit. However, the man died in a traffic accident, so a confession could not be heard.

However, it did not stop there. The scientific investigation team examined the pedal of the vehicle driven by the suspect. Since there were bloodstains at the scene, if he had been driving while wearing bloody sneakers, DNA would have been found on the pedal, and as expected, the victims’ DNA was found. They also found sneakers that looked like bloodstains, and they also secured evidence that the grandson‘s luxury watch was sold for 7 million won. However, the case was closed due to lack of prosecution as the suspect died.

Hong Se-young, Donga.com Reporter projecthong@donga.com