Can we be free from authority and prejudice?
On the 20th, SBS 'The Tale of Biting the Tail' (hereinafter 'Kokkomu'), with the subtitle 'Tongue in the Mouth: Kidnappers and Puppets', highlighted the kidnapping of a child in 1980.
On November 13, 1980, at 8:00 p.m., a phone call came from a house in Mapo-gu. Son Woojin, who did not return home by that time. At this, the mother thought it was her son's phone and immediately answered the call. But it was the first time I heard a voice.
A voice over the receiver said that he had his son Woo Jin-i imprisoned in Suwon and told him to prepare 40 million won if he wanted to find him. Another phone call came from the startled mother, without time to calm herself down. He heard the voice of his frightened son Woojin. The kidnapper said that he was locked up because of Woo Jin-i's father and told him to prepare the money quickly.
The family who answered the phone urgently reported it, and the police started an investigation in top secret for the safety of the child. However, as the investigation progressed, there were too many strange things.
The kidnapped child is a first-year middle school boy who is taller than his peers. The detectives traced back the history of the day the child was kidnapped by kidnapping a middle school student for the first time. On this day, Woo Jin-i was going to the post office after stopping by the bookstore. And after that, he planned to meet the school PE teacher at the bus stop, but he did not show up.
Woojin was seen at the bookstore, but no one saw Woojin at the post office. Woojin disappeared on the street in broad daylight. However, there was no witness to see Woo Jin-i being kidnapped. The police then thought the culprit was a thief. He also began to investigate people who might have a grudge against his father or those around him.
Believing that the criminal would call again, the police intercepted and waited for the criminal to call. On the second day of the kidnapping, the phone finally rang, but it was the voice of a young woman, not the voice of a man in his 30s or 40s who had called for the first time. To the parents who wanted only their son to go away safely, the criminal heard Woo Jin-i's voice again. Woo Jin-i said, "Do what these people tell me to do, or I'll die." Phone tracking was impossible during the talk time too short. And even after tracking, they were all payphones.
On the third day of the kidnapping, a letter, not a phone call, arrived. The culprit pointed to Woo Jin-i's older sister as the money bag delivery system. Woojin-i's older sister went to the meeting place with her mother carrying a bag of money. However, the perpetrator made a phone call to the appointment time and changed the appointment place abruptly. While the police were undercover, the older sister could not move alone, so she continued the conversation with the criminal, and the criminal hung up the phone leaving only a message that he would contact him again.
There were those who suffered just as much as the disappointed families. It's Woojin's teachers and friends at school. Woo Jin-i was the brightest and most courageous child, despite his physical discomfort due to polio. As a result, he was loved by many teachers and friends. In particular, the gym teacher who promised to meet Woo Jin-i the day she was kidnapped, blamed himself for it and shed tears.
The investigation lasted over a month, and fingerprints were found in the threatening letter sent by the criminal. At that time, fingerprint collation had to match data with data one by one. Even part-time students were mobilized to check fingerprints for several days, and the fingerprints of as many as 2 million people were compared with the fingerprints of evidence. However, the owner of the fingerprint could not be found.
After that, the perpetrator set the meeting place and time again. However, the criminal did not appear, and that was not enough, so he cut off contact.
Four months after the incident, even the president, Woojin took an interest in the incident. As a result, there were 322 dedicated agents and 23,000 police officers mobilized. A single incident led to the largest public investigation ever conducted. The whole nation prayed for Woo Jin-i's safe return with one heart. However, the investigation went by without progress.
At that time, the investigative class leaders were determined to quit the police if they couldn't catch the culprit who kidnapped Woo Jin-i, and they continued to work on the investigation. Everything has been reviewed since the day of the kidnapping.
While thinking about who Woo Jin-yi could follow, he remembered the gym teacher who made an appointment with Woo-jin on the day of the kidnapping. However, it was not an easy task to suspect and investigate a teacher who had high school authority at the time and who came from a prestigious university and had no resentment in self-control.
Nevertheless, the investigative officers continued the investigation. The physical education teacher said that he was waiting for Woojin that day and moved to take a graduate class, but it turned out that he only attended and went home. There was a two-hour gap in his alibi.
Detectives then questioned him. Then he explained that he lied about his whereabouts on the day because of an affair, saying, "I was in an inn with a woman." Detectives met the woman he had been with to make sure his story was true.
However, the woman the physical education teacher met is Yang Hong, who works at a bar in Sinchon. However, the woman was a minor, not an adult. Also, the physical education teacher and Ms. Hong were revealed to have been priests, surprising everyone.
Physical education teacher Joo Young-hyeong worked at a girls' middle school before coming to Woo Jin-i's school. He also claimed that he met Ms. Hong at the time and became a lover. Since it was not an ordinary affair, the detectives immediately went to the girl's middle school and started an investigation.
And after a while, the detectives heard shocking information. A shocking content was captured in the student's diary that a citizen accidentally picked up. Master Joo had an inappropriate relationship with a middle school student. In particular, this student was a different student than Ms. Hong I had met earlier.
Citizens who caught this reported this to the Office of Education and protested at the school. The school quickly checked the situation and found out that many other students were entangled with Master Joo. The school questioned Master Zhou. Then Master Joo stubbornly denied it, saying, "It's ridiculous. The children were playing a joke. I think I was very nice to the children." And the children who had been rumored shut their mouths and said that the teacher's story was all true.
Both the school and the school district believed in Master Chu's innocence. A swift decision without any fact-finding. They decided that the incident was "a childish prank of teenage middle school girls who were in love with a young handsome teacher." The school, which had to take action because of citizens' protests, transferred Teacher Joo, and the place he transferred was to Jini Woo's school.
The police have an intuition that these rumors are serious. In response, the police confirmed that there were as many as 22 female students that Master Joo had taken to the inn. Teacher Joo called the children out of school for various excuses, and then he seduced the children, saying, "Do you like the teacher? I also want to have a special relationship with you," and then took them to an inn and sexually assaulted them. He brainwashed love by saying, "You and I are lovers, and between us is our secret."
Master Joo was a typical predator and unscrupulous juvenile sex offender who used his position and authority to hunt children.
Yang Hong, who claimed his alibi. He was actually brainwashed by Master Zhou and claimed his alibi with manipulated memories. Upon learning of this, the police summoned Master Joo. With an anxious and anxious face, he harbored a suicide note pleading for his injustice. In particular, he made the listeners angry with his brazen story, saying, "You will see that the highest good has been turned into the most cruel evil."
However, the police were also hesitant about his attitude. I'm afraid he'll actually commit suicide. In addition, the school strongly opposed and protested against his investigation, and the upper-level police also put a brake on him.
At that time, when the troubles deepened, the detectives decided to listen to his story using a lie detector with the National Forensic Service Inspector Kim Jeong-gil. One day, one year after Woo Jin-i was kidnapped, Master Joo was summoned to the lie detector. However, Master Joo's negligence continued.
At this, the detectives took out the trump card. Woo Jin-i mixed the new gloves he wore on the day of the kidnapping, showed him 9 pairs of gloves, and interrogated him. Because the glove was a cage glove, the only people who saw the glove were Mom and Woojin, the three criminals, so if he was the culprit, he would surely react. And the prediction was right. According to the polygraph analysis, the probability that Master Joo was the kidnapper was 97.3%.
The detectives, convinced that the criminal was right, had a final negotiation with him. And he brought Ms. Hong, who had injected a fake alibi in front of him. Master Joo opened his mouth in 2 days and 1 night. He said, "There is no way out anymore. I kidnapped Woojin."confessed that
When asked where Woojin is, he closed his mouth. In the end, Woo Jin-i was found on the banks of the Bukhan River in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi-do. buried in the ground.
At that time, the head of the investigative team said, "I heard him confess with a very heartbreaking heart. The teacher who takes care of him the most asked to meet him, but he couldn't go somewhere.
After 1 year and 17 days, 383 days after Woo Jin Yi was kidnapped, he returned to his family. The police presumed that Woo Jin-i died on the day of the kidnapping or the next day. The voice on the phone was recorded and heard later.
The motive for the crime of Master Joo, who kidnapped Woo Jin-i, was money. He had a gambling debt worth 18 million won, and he abducted his students to pay off the debt, and used other disciples to live on his own. Teacher Joo's accomplice was a 17-year-old student, Lee Yang. The reason that the fingerprints of the letter could not be found was that this sheep was a minor. Yang met Master Joo in middle school and maintained a romantic relationship, not a lover, and did whatever he asked.
Yang Lee attempted suicide not long before Master Joo was arrested. The reason for his suicide attempt was at the direction of Master Joo. Master Joo tried to destroy evidence by making this sheep commit suicide under the guise of companion suicide.
Woojin's funeral was held shortly after. And three years later, another funeral was held. Woojin's mother went with Woojin. He sent his son that way and tried not to collapse, but eventually fell ill and died.
Joo Young-hyeong, who was arrested, did not feel any remorse. He insisted that he did not kill himself, but that the child died on his own. Joo Young-hyung said, "I just tied him up, but Woo-jin was dead," and begged him to apply the charge of homicide rather than murder. In addition, he said at the trial, "I have no criminal record, and I have been working hard as a teacher. There is a saying that even if you hate sin, don't hate people. Please forgive me."
However, the first, second, and third counts were all sentenced to death, and executions were carried out eight months later. And the accomplice was given a relatively light punishment of not more than 5 years, with a short term of 3 years and a long term of 5 years. This also caused controversy at the time.
Then, criticism poured out in the education world, demanding measures to prevent recurrence of the affair between students and teachers. However, the measures taken by the education community at the time to prevent recurrence were found to be chastity education for female students, making listeners perplexed.
Before passing away, Woo Jin-i's mother said, "If he repents and turns to religion, some merciful god may forgive him. But society must not forgive him. If society does not punish him, society itself becomes a sinner. Do you have the ability to punish?" he said, raising the alarm to the society that failed to stop his crimes despite numerous signals.
Also, looking at those who had been deceived by the long and protracted deception of the person we trusted the most, we asked ourselves if we were confident that we would not be blinded by authority or prejudice.
Ailee said, "The person with the most authority for me has to be me. The person I can trust and hold my center of should be me, not anyone else."
(SBS Entertainment News Editor Kim Hyo-jung)