"At the Time He Said He Had Spoken With Jang Mi-ran," Autopsy Suggested She Had Already Died

[Financial News] More lies are coming to light about Officer A, 34, who was arrested on suspicion of falsely closing the case of long-term missing Jeju Province resident Jang Mi-ran, 37. Officer A claimed he had spoken directly with Jang, but it is believed that she had already died by then.

According to Yonhap News and other outlets on the 27th, the Jeju Provincial Police Agency is continuing an intensive investigation into Officer A, who was arrested on the 25th.
Officer A is accused of lying to Jang's boyfriend, who reported her missing on May 15, by saying that he had "made contact" with her. He then closed the case on his own and deleted Jang's records from the missing-person profiling system's management list.
However, no call records were found between Officer A and Jang on either of their mobile phones. An autopsy of Jang's body also suggested that she had already died before the missing-person report was filed.

Officer A had continued to insist that he spoke with Jang until recently, but the autopsy findings seriously undermined the credibility of his statement. Cornered, he reportedly still denied the allegations, saying, "I did make a safety-check call, but I don't remember what communication method I used."
Police checked every communication device that could have been used in the workplace at the time, based on Officer A's account, but they have not found any call records so far.
The problem is that police wasted a significant amount of time chasing Officer A's false statements. When a second missing-person report for Jang was filed on July 19, Officer A again claimed that he had "made contact with Jang at the time of the first report." Police remained suspicious, but they prioritized locating Jang and spent about three weeks trying only to verify the actual call history. In the end, after failing to confirm any call records, police suspended Officer A on the 11th and booked him three days later, on the 14th, on charges including dereliction of duty.

Meanwhile, it was found that Officer A checked the location of Jang's mobile phone four times after the renewed missing-person report was filed last month.
According to materials submitted by the Jeju Provincial Police Agency to People Power Party lawmaker Park Sang-woong, Officer A checked Jang's location from 5:16 p.m. on the 20th of last month until around 2:20 p.m. on the 21st. However, Jang's phone had been turned off on the 16th, four days after she went missing on the night of May 12, so all location tracking attempts failed.
This means that even after entering false information into the missing-person profiling system's management list about two and a half hours after Jang's first missing-person report on May 15, stating that she had died in a car accident, he still tried to track her location again.
Earlier, when the first missing-person report for Jang was filed at around 6:43 p.m. on May 15, Officer A also checked her location seven times between around 7:08 p.m. and 8:55 p.m. However, the records of those inquiries were reportedly deleted on the 15th, after the three-month retention period for personal location data had passed.
Police plan to bring in profilers to determine Officer A's motive and other details of the case.
[email protected] Kim Su-yeon Reporter