The news of that day has passed, but its meaning remains with us today. "The Day in Today" reads the present through the records of the past.
"Someone I know took my granddaughter."
On June 12, 2008, the body of Heo Eun-jung, a sixth-grade elementary school student (then 11) who had been abducted by an assailant in Yuga-myeon, Dalseong-gun, Daegu, was discovered. With the only witness, her grandfather, also dying the same year, the perpetrator has not been caught to this day.
◇Signs of an Acquaintance Everywhere… Investigation in the Fog = On May 30, 2008, two weeks before the body was found, Heo woke around 4 a.m. to the dull sound of a collision coming from her grandfather's room. When she pushed open the door and entered, her grandfather, who was in his 70s, was being indiscriminately beaten by assailants. Heo wedged her body between them to block the attack, but she was overpowered, and in the end she was dragged into the darkness barefoot.
While Heo resisted, her younger sister ran to a neighbor's house to seek help. By the time the neighbor reached the scene, it was already too late. Only the grandfather was gasping for breath, and there was no trace of Heo anywhere.
Police placed weight on the theory that an acquaintance was behind the crime from the early stages. Testimony emerged that unfamiliar men had been loitering around Heo's home the day before the incident, and it was difficult to view the crime as motivated by money. Heo's grandfather made a living collecting wastepaper, and in fact nothing was stolen.
The forms of address exchanged at the crime scene also supported the possibility of an acquaintance. Experts judged that the way the assailants addressed the grandfather ("You son of a XX") and the words Heo blurted out while resisting the perpetrators ("Mister, why are you doing this?") were closer to expressions unlikely to be used between complete strangers.
The key to the investigation was the only witness, Heo's grandfather. But his statements struggled to maintain consistency. At first he said there was one perpetrator, then changed it to two; he said "Someone I know took my granddaughter," then reversed himself and said it was a stranger.
◇Investigation Shifts After Body Found… Ultimately Unsolved = On June 12, two weeks into the abduction, Heo returned home as a cold body, buried in a shallow grave on a hillside about 1.5 km from her house.
The fact that the hill was chosen as a burial site raised the possibility that the perpetrator was someone familiar with the local geography. Police shifted the investigation to a public one and distributed composite sketches nationwide. A suspect was identified based on the sketch, but in the end the investigation failed to prove the charges.
The body of Heo discovered at the time was naked, and her clothing was found hanging from tree branches about 300 m from where the body was found. Her skull was severely crushed and her bones were shattered. Traces of indiscriminate beating were etched into her remains. Police began an autopsy, also bearing in mind the possibility of a sexual crime. The autopsy, too, produced no meaningful evidence.
The decisive turning point came on August 21 of that year. Heo's grandfather, the only witness, died as his chronic pneumonia worsened. It was 84 days after the incident.
Police tried to draw out his statements, assigning a caregiver and having detectives take turns guarding his hospital bed, but Heo ultimately did not open his mouth. He only repeated that he "could not remember," and refused to cooperate with four attempts at hypnosis investigation and a polygraph examination.
His attending physician at the time said the grandfather appeared to have clearly recognized the circumstances of the incident but chose silence on his own. Heo's younger sister also could not shake her suspicion that her grandfather seemed to know the perpetrator but concealed it. With the witness gone, the investigation effectively fell into a labyrinth.
The younger sister, who had hidden under a blanket at the crime scene, meticulously wrote down what she remembered over 10 years in an effort to find clues to her older sister's case. Her records also included that the perpetrator had threatened Heo to keep quiet.
A broadcast production team even attempted hypnosis investigation on the younger sister, but no decisive clue ever emerged. In the end, the perpetrator who abducted and killed Heo remains shrouded in mystery.
The Sinjeong-dong Serial Murders, Unsolved for 20 Years… The True Culprit Was a Deceased Building Manager
