The Person Who Sent ‘I Want to Fall Asleep Holding You’ Wasn’t Kim Soo-hyun ... Police Forensics Identify ‘Another Celebrity’

[Financial News] A police digital forensic investigation has revealed that the KakaoTalk messages presented as decisive evidence in the allegation that actor Kim Soo-hyun dated a minor—raised by YouTube channel Garo Sero Research Institute (Gaseyeon) and the bereaved family—were manipulated. The other person in the messages was a different celebrity, not Kim Soo-hyun, and investigators also confirmed signs that Gaseyeon deliberately changed the anonymized sender name.


According to law enforcement sources and a Dispatch report on the 13th, police conducted an exhaustive analysis of several mobile phones used by the late Kim Sae-ron (iPhone 7, 8, SE, and 13 mini) and more than 200 screenshots of KakaoTalk conversations stored in the cloud.
As a result, the actual sender of the 2016 KakaoTalk messages that Gaseyeon had presented as key evidence for its allegations that Kim Soo-hyun dated a minor and sexually exploited them was identified as Celebrity A, not Kim Soo-hyun.
At the time, Gaseyeon released messages including ‘When can I fall asleep holding you?’ and ‘Then I think I’d be able to sleep really well,’ claiming that Kim Soo-hyun had sent them. However, police analysis found that in the original conversation Kim Sae-ron called A by their full name at least twice, and that the other people in the conversation were A’s colleagues, unrelated to Kim Soo-hyun. The sender’s usual spelling habits (including the Korean endings ‘get’ and ‘eot’) and conversational style also bore no resemblance to Kim Soo-hyun’s linguistic habits.
Police concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever to support the allegation that Kim Soo-hyun had dated Kim Sae-ron while she was a minor: she first saved Kim Soo-hyun’s contact information in October 2017, a year after the conversation, and the two had only three phone calls between 2017 and 2018. The photos Gaseyeon had presented as evidence were also found to have been taken in 2019 and 2020, after Kim Sae-ron became an adult. In July, police had previously decided not to refer Kim Soo-hyun to prosecutors over alleged violations of the Child Welfare Act and other charges, citing ‘insufficient evidence.’

Signs of systematic manipulation by Gaseyeon also emerged during the investigation. According to police, the name of the other person in the original screenshot of the 2016 conversation was listed as ‘Unknown.’ However, Gaseyeon head Kim Se-eui instructed a staff member to change the sender name to ‘Kim Soo-hyun,’ and the staff member reportedly admitted to doing so during police questioning. Investigators also found signs that the bereaved family had deleted or distorted A’s full name before passing the information to Gaseyeon.
Prosecutors believe Gaseyeon obtained unjust gains totaling 169.4 million won by airing dozens of such false exposé broadcasts, including 115 million won in advertising revenue and 54.4 million won in donations such as Super Chats.
Meanwhile, Gaseyeon head Kim Se-eui, who was arrested and indicted last June on charges including defamation through the dissemination of false information under the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, and violations of the Sexual Violence Punishment Act and the Stalking Punishment Act, appeared on the 15th at a bail hearing before the 26th Criminal Division of Seoul Central District Court, presided over by Judge Hyun-Kyung Lee, and requested release.
Kim’s lawyer argued, ‘He is being held in a single cell because of threats to his safety, but his mental illnesses, including panic disorder, are severe, raising concerns for his health,’ adding, ‘His prison funds have been seized, so he cannot even buy medicine, and he has a fixed residence, so there is no risk of flight.’ In a statement of his own, Kim claimed he was innocent, saying, ‘Kim Soo-hyun’s side has filed a civil lawsuit in the 15-billion-won range, and my apartment is under provisional seizure. I have no reason to flee, not least because I need to protect my valuable assets. We didn’t broadcast one-sided claims; we did our own reporting first.’
Prosecutors, meanwhile, strongly urged the court to reject the bail request. They said, ‘Kim continues broadcasting from inside the detention center by sending out letters, and he is leaking court-related documents for purposes other than those for which they were intended.’ They added, ‘If released, he is highly likely to cite the granting of bail as grounds for claiming innocence and again spread distorted false information; there is also a high risk of harm to the victim.’ The court said it would decide whether to grant bail soon after considering both sides’ arguments.

[email protected] Moon Young-jin Reporter