"Veterinary Student Daughter Went Missing, and the Culprit Was a Male Classmate": 90-Year-Old Father Faces Trial in 20-Year-Old Missing Person Case

[Financial News] The father of Lee Yoon-hee, who disappeared 20 years ago at the age of 29 while studying veterinary medicine at Jeonbuk National University (JBNU), has been sent to trial on charges including spreading false information.

According to Yonhap News Agency and others on the 13th, the Criminal Division 2 of the Jeonju District Prosecutors' Office, led by Chief Prosecutor Lee Gyeong-seok, said it had indicted Lee, 90, without detention on charges including defamation and violations of the Act on the Punishment, etc. of Stalking Crime.
Lee is accused of spreading false information on social networking services (SNS) from last year until recently, while accusing A, a classmate of his daughter Yoon-hee, of being responsible for the disappearance.
YouTuber Park, 54, was also indicted without detention on the same charges.
They are also accused of stalking A by placing a life-size standee of Yoon-hee along A's commute route and staging a one-person protest at A's workplace.
As the stalking continued, including banners and standee photos being installed around A's home, A filed a complaint against Lee and Park on charges including violations of the Act on the Punishment, etc. of Stalking Crime and defamation.
In April last year, the court issued a provisional stalking order No. 2, which bans approach. The court ordered Lee and Park not to come within 100 meters of A's residence, workplace, and other places in daily life for a certain period. However, investigators found that they continued to repeat claims suggesting that "A was the culprit in the disappearance case."
A's legal representative said, "Right after the disappearance, A helped Lee Yoon-hee's father distribute flyers searching for the missing person and wanted the case resolved more than anyone else." The representative added, "How can it make sense to suspect as the culprit someone who helped in the search?"

Meanwhile, Lee Yoon-hee disappeared after attending a year-end gathering with about 40 professors and classmates on June 5, 2006, while enrolled in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at JBNU. She had returned to her studio apartment in Deokjin District, Jeonju, about 1.5 kilometers from the gathering place at around 2:30 a.m. the next day, and then went missing.
At the time, police failed to properly preserve the scene of the disappearance and allowed Yoon-hee's friends to clean up the one-room apartment. Even though there were signs that someone accessed Yoon-hee's computer a week later, investigators were unable to determine exactly what happened. Because of the police's poor initial investigation, Yoon-hee's fate remains unknown even 20 years later.
[email protected] Kim Su-yeon Reporter