Some of South Korea’s strangest cases are almost unknown in English. Two inspired famous films. Each case file here is checked against Korean court records and news reports.
Jo Hee-pal promised 70,000 Koreans monthly rent from bathhouse massage chairs, then slipped out to China on a fishing boat while a Coast Guard sting watched, by one informant’s account. In 2012 police announced he had died there, and the main proof was a 51-second funeral video. Prosecutors closed the case in 2016. His victims still do not accept it. Listen to the narrated true crime podcast episode.
In 1997 a 22-year-old student stepped into a Burger King restroom in Seoul and never came out, and the two American teenagers inside each said the other did it. Korea convicted the wrong one first, let the other leave the country, and needed a mother’s petition, a feature film and 20 years to finish the job. Listen to the narrated true crime podcast episode.
In 1991, more than 300,000 people searched for five schoolboys from Daegu. Their faces were on cigarette packs. In 2002, an acorn gatherer found them on the hill behind their homes. Listen to the narrated true crime podcast episode.
Police earned points for every “vagrant” sent to Busan’s Brothers Home. At least 657 died. The owner served two and a half years. Listen to the narrated true crime podcast episode.
A homeless man was sold to a salt farm on a remote Korean island. Escape was impossible, because everyone on the island was watching. Then he drew a map and mailed it to his mother. Listen to the narrated true crime podcast episode.
In 1991 a calm, polite man called a Seoul family more than 60 times about their kidnapped son. Police recorded his voice. He was never found. The true story behind Voice of a Murderer. Listen to the narrated true crime podcast episode.
Police once stopped him while he wore a victim’s watch, and let him go. The true story of South Korea’s Hwaseong serial murders, the case behind Memories of Murder. Listen to the narrated true crime podcast episode.