Crime Junkie - CONSPIRACY: The Frog Boys of South Korea
Episode Date: March 25, 2024When five young boys vanish from their village in South Korea, local authorities are quick to assume they ran away. However, their parents know that’s not what happened – and as their search for t...heir children expands, they become convinced that something terrible happened… and it’s being covered up.Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/conspiracy-frog-boys-of-south-koreaYou can learn more about The Good segment and even submit a story of your own by visiting The Good page on our website! Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllc Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at +1 (317) 733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, random photos of Chuck, and more!
Transcript
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Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Britt.
And the story I have for you today is one of the most infamous out of South Korea in the 90s.
It's about five little boys who wanted to spend their day off from school playing in the woods,
like they had so many times before.
Only this time, they wouldn't come home.
This is the story of Woo Chil Won, Jo Ho Yeon-yeon, Kim Young-gyu, Park Chan-in,
and Kim Jong-shik, aka the Frog Boys of South Korea. It's just after 1 p.m. when the phone rings at the home of Woo Jung Woo.
He answers, and he's surprised to hear someone from his son's Taekwondo academy on the
other end.
This person tells him that 14-year-old Chul Won didn't show up to his lesson today, which might have been more surprising on any other day, but today, March 26, 1991, isn't any other day.
You see, for the first time in 30 years, South Korea is holding local democratic elections.
So schools out, people are off work so they can vote.
I mean, it's a big deal.
And although Jong-Woo isn't all that happy that his son skipped practice, he's not exactly
panicked.
Right.
The whole family's routine is off.
Right.
And he knows his son had gone out to play with four other boys.
They're all kind of described as like the five musketeers.
Their houses form actually this circle there in the village, and they're all super close.
And listen, disclaimer, I'm going to try my best with pronouncing all the names and places
in this story, but I think we can all agree that pronunciations aren't exactly my strong
suit.
You tried really hard though.
I'm trying really hard.
And honestly, it's not just me, our whole team tries really hard to make it like the
best it can be.
So that being said, in this group of friends, I mentioned it at the top, you have Chul Won
and he's the
oldest at 14. Then there's Jo Ho Yeon who is 13, Kim Yong Gyu who's 12, Park Jong In
who's 11, and then Kim Jong-shik who's 10. Now if you're like me and you didn't already
know this, the traditional South Korean age calculating system can be a bit confusing
but stay with me a little bit.
The ages I read were displayed on a handout from the time,
but today they might be aged differently.
What's important is that they're all young,
like pre-teen, teen kind of age.
So all that said, they're probably all together,
being little boys, losing track of time.
So Jong-woo goes out searching for them.
I mean, yeah, find one of them, you find all of them.
That's what he's thinking, yeah.
But here's the problem.
I mean, he's walking all over their village and he's finding none of them, not out playing,
not at any of the other kids' houses.
And one by one, the other parents start realizing that something's not right.
I mean, not only are none of the boys home,
but the other parents confirm that their kids
never showed up to Taekwondo either.
So on the same mission now to locate their sons,
these parents start asking around.
And before long, they find someone who says
that he had seen all the five boys earlier that day.
According to an article for CNA Insider, this guy says that he had asked them where they were going,
and the boys said that they were going up this nearby mountain to look for salamander eggs.
Which is honestly instant relief. Like, oh, that's where they are. Makes sense.
Right. They aren't in the neighborhood because they're up on this mountain.
Yeah. And like, shame on them for skipping class, but they're probably all still up there.
They're going to come home eventually.
But as the afternoon turns to evening and it begins to get darker and darker, worry
begins to creep back in.
I mean, they're not worried that they might have gotten lost, but that they might have
gotten hurt either coming or going from the mountain because they know that there's a
farm actually at the base of the mountain with some pretty aggressive dogs on the property, so I think where their mind is going is like maybe one
of those dogs got out, they hurt the boys.
So as the sun dips below the horizon, the group of parents heads up the mountain to
look for their kids, but there is no sign of them anywhere.
And this is when they really start getting panicked.
The parents file missing persons reports with the local police, but the police aren't
nearly as worried as they are.
According to the documentary In Search of the Frog Boys, which was the main source material
for this episode, the police basically say they're probably just late getting home,
they stayed out too late playing, it's not that big of a deal.
But these parents' spidey senses are tingling. They know their kids wouldn't have just stayed out too late, and even if they did, they
would have made their way home by now, so something must have happened. By the next
day, the boys still aren't back, and this finally seems to make police take things
a little more seriously. They begin a search of the mountainous terrain with
groups of officers, residents, even helicopters. They also conduct a search of the mountainous terrain with groups of officers, residents, even helicopters.
They also conduct a search of the village itself, focusing on empty houses, arcades,
spots where kids could get snacks or places like that.
But there's no sign of them anywhere.
By the third day, the parents are beside themselves with worry knowing that something must have
happened to them. And just when they feel completely lost, the parents of Zhang Xik, the 10-year-old, get
a call from someone who says, quote, I have the children.
They are all suffering too, are very ill.
Now the call isn't long.
They're just instructed to get a lot of money and meet this mysterious caller on a specific
street in the village
And even though I'm sure this sends fear coursing through them
It also gives them an answer of where their boys are and a bit of hope that maybe their kids are gonna be returned to
Them so when the time comes they head to this meeting spot money in hand
So did they tell police about this or are they just going rogue?
Oh, no, please sir
They are too like ready and waiting to confront whoever the caller is.
But all of them, parents, police, everyone, they just keep waiting and waiting.
It's 20 minutes, 40 minutes. Eventually a whole hour passes and there's just nothing.
No sign of a mystery man and no sign of their kids.
So was it a hoax or did the cops being there maybe scare them?
Well, in the end, they think that it was most likely just a hoax.
So over the next few days, media outlets outside of the village get word about what's happening.
And now that the election news has kind of died down, the public focus really turns to
these missing boys and their story finally becomes, I mean, really national news.
They're dubbed the Frog Boys for, I think, just a flashy headline because the news outlets
reported early on that they had gone out to catch frogs, not like looking for salamander
eggs like we heard early on.
So somehow this nickname just stuck.
But regardless of what they're called, the national attention is great.
I mean, the parents even get to go on this live TV program called
The Square of Public Opinions, where they talk about their kids
and their frustrations with the police response.
Which, by the way, at this point, they were still frustrated with,
because despite outwardly seeming like police were finally taking
the disappearances seriously, the parents actually explain on the program
that it just doesn't seem like they actually care.
I mean, for instance, they show a missing poster that the police have created pointing
out that the poster says, run away, not missing.
Which has a really different connotation.
Exactly.
I mean, these parents are more than frustrated.
They're rightfully angry.
And they know in their guts that their kids didn't just run away.
So the assertion that
they did just creates a further rift between the parents and the police.
So much so that on this TV appearance, they're like, you know what, just contact us with
your leads.
I mean, there is even a phone line set up and calls start coming in one after another,
like while they're doing this program.
And then something wild happens.
So again, literally while they're still on the air, the phone rings and the person on
the other end says that they are 10-year-old Jong-Shik.
The voice on the other end sounds like a little boy.
I mean, he's crying for his mom.
And Zhang Xixi's mother says it sounds like her son.
But then the call gets cut off.
The group managing the phones tries to call the number back, but they can't get him back
on the line or whatever.
And then they try and track where this call came from.
Eventually they do.
But unfortunately, they find out that it was just another hoax.
But despite that prank, the TV show keeps the missing boys in the national news.
And there's national effort to find the kids.
I mean, the president of South Korea at the time even makes a statement and
directs 300,000 police officers to search for the boys.
I mean, not even just in their village.
Hwang Sung-Yoon reports for Korea Jung-Ang Daily
that as time goes on, searches also extend to reservoirs,
bus stations, and terminals across the country.
But even with all this effort,
weeks pass with no sign of the boys,
and it makes the parents question if the search teams are even really searching.
They get the feeling that the police are just out there because they have to be,
not because they actually care about finding the boys.
And really, without any physical leads,
rumors begin spreading about what could have happened to them.
The biggest of which is that their disappearance
has something to do with a nearby military base
and a shooting range up the mountain.
I think the rumor is that maybe somehow these kids
had wandered to like the wrong place, gotten shot,
and then it was all covered up by the military
or someone within the military.
And at first, when this rumor starts,
the parents are skeptical
because the shooting range is well-marked.
Everyone knows about it.
So it's unlikely that their kids
would have just wandered in accidentally
and gotten in the line of fire, you know what I mean?
Yeah, it seems like it's something
that wasn't a secret or anything.
Exactly, I mean, the kids knew about it.
But this rumor actually seems to hold water
when they learned that someone had heard a gunshot on the day that the boys went missing. Apparently,
according to the doc, one of 14-year-old Chulwon's friends heard a shot, what sounded like a
scream and then just nothing.
And this happened near the base, I assume?
Well, that's the impression I get, or at least somewhere near the mountain, but nothing
in the source material explicitly states that.
But with all these rumors flying around about the military potentially being involved, you'd
think that police would, I don't know, look into this idea?
I mean, especially with Chulwon's friend's story about hearing the gunshot and the scream,
but the police don't.
And from the way it's presented in the documentary, I don't know if they even necessarily have authority to though.
Like maybe only the military can investigate the military?
Yeah, that's how it seems. Either that or they don't think that there's enough stock
in the military rumor to warrant an investigation. I can't totally tell. And just for some context,
South Korea had been fluctuating between democracy and a dictatorship for decades
before this with the military having a lot of control and power.
I'm not going to get into all the details here because we'd be here for hours, but
even though the current president during all of this in 91 had been elected democratically,
the country as a whole was still very much settling into the idea of democracy.
So considering the power that the military had in the past
and really still does, I mean, it makes it difficult.
I think it would make it difficult
for the local police to investigate that.
It doesn't make sense to me completely though.
I mean, there's only one shot and one scream.
That doesn't take out five boys.
Five kids, yeah.
I think the theory is that maybe there was an accident and then one of the boys was killed
and then they killed the others.
I mean, I guess potentially in another way to like cover it up or whatever.
I mean, again, it doesn't make total sense or we don't have all the pieces, but it's
just a theory.
And then since no one investigates the military to confirm this or shut it down, this theory
just kind of lingers.
It's just like out there still.
Right.
So since police aren't really like getting answers, the parents feel like it's their
job to do that.
So actually, all of the fathers of the boys kind of band together, they quit their jobs
to go look for their kids full time.
They rent this truck, they outfit it with photos of their boys like on the the side of it, with the message, please help find our missing children printed below.
And they drive this truck nationwide searching for their kids, passing out flyers, raising
awareness for their plight everywhere they go.
And are the police doing anything at this point?
They are. I mean, they're mostly doing searches and they have cast a very wide net searching
areas. I mean, specifically with higher crime rates, fishing boats, even some religious
organizations, which side note, I think might include organizations with religious affiliations
like orphanages even for instance. And it might be a good time to point out that our main source
is the documentary. It was originally in Korean but subtitled in English, so it's possible
that some of the translations, like I don't know if they were lost, but the translations could be
pretty vague. But anyway, even the sea and several islands outside of mainland Korea are searched.
But really, I mean, again, even though they're going far and wide, they're really like,
at least the police homing in on this area where the boys were last seen, and then like kind of
scoping out a little bit from there. But it's the parents who are really like getting all over.
And this, I mean, this kind of like, you know, them going out, the police still searching,
this goes on for a year with no sign of the boys.
But according to the doc, their parents do get support from the National Organization
of Missing Children, which I think also might be a translation issue in the documentary,
because I can't find any record of this organization existing.
There is something called the National Organization of Finding Missing Children and Family, which
I think might be what they mean, especially because one of the men interviewed in the
doc and credited as the chairman of the NOMC is actually the head of the National Organization
of Finding Missing Children and Family.
Again, maybe it was named something different in the 90s or was something different in the
90s, isn't anymore.
But if you go looking it up, you're going to get a dead end.
But basically, I think it's like South Korea's version of NICMEC, what we have, National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children here in the US.
But anyways, this organization that they get help with is especially wonderful for them
as they're doing media interviews.
And it's good that they have this support
because as they start doing more and more interviews,
something weird happens.
About a year into the boy's disappearance,
as they're doing all these interviews,
they start spotting the same people at all of them,
which, I mean, on one hand, you could be like,
oh, it's like reporters following the story. And that's what the chairman slash head of this organization believes.
Until he actually has a conversation with one of these guys. So in the documentary,
the chairman explains how he asks one of them who he works for, like not in an accusatory
way, like, you know, they're having a conversation, he's curious. Yeah. And the man gives him
a business card. But the business card doesn't have like a newspaper
or even an organization name on it.
It just has the man's name, a contact number,
and the title of manager on it.
Manager of what?
Right?
I mean, it's strange, but-
You have to be like hired as a manager
and then manage things for something to have that title.
It makes no sense. But like in that moment, the chairman guy, he doesn't press the matter.
But it like is with him enough that it makes this guy stick out even more. So when he and
others show up again, and again, and again, and when I say, like they keep showing up,
I'm not just talking about every interview, Like, he sees this guy on the street.
He sees him where they're staying.
Like, this guy is everywhere.
Like, just around?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it turns out that everyone's right to be suspicious because that guy who gave his
card to the chairman works for an intelligence agency.
How did they find that out?
I don't know.
That's like the big missing piece.
There's like a gap of reporting or at least the stuff that I have access to.
It feels like, you remember that Seinfeld episode where it's like, you know, this guy's
following them, yada yada yada.
He's an intelligence agent.
Oh yeah, like we like glazed over some pretty important parts here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. Like we like glazed over some pretty important parts here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, intelligence agency, manager, dude, or whatever,
do we know why he's following them?
So eventually they just like straight up ask the guy.
And the response that they get
is that he's protecting the fathers.
Protecting them from what?
Well, that's the question.
But I don't know if they get an answer to that one.
And according to the documentary, none of the fathers feel all that protected.
I mean, this is an intelligence agency.
And I mean, this agency even sends people into their homes?
Like, who sent these guys?
The government?
Question mark?
Has there been any threats made against the dads?
Like were they feeling in danger?
I don't think so.
And honestly, it seems like to one of the dads,
specifically 11-year-old Chaun Ean's father, Kunso,
he feels that it's more like these people aren't protecting them,
but like looking into them.
Like they had something to do with this whole thing?
Yeah, but if that's what's happening,
it doesn't seem like they actually find anything.
But again, the reporting on this part,
which I think is one of the most interesting parts of this,
it's like really sparse.
So I can't say for sure.
And it seems like at some point,
the surveillance eventually just dies down.
So I don't really have solid answers around why it happened,
what they were looking for,
or what they were protecting them from.
It's just this like weird piece of the puzzle.
Now, while that's going on, or kind of wraps up,
like meanwhile, the public still hasn't forgotten
about the boys.
And the attention seems to really culminate
when a director approaches the parents and says
that he wants to make a movie
about the disappearance of their sons.
And it seems like the parents are all for it.
I mean, they're kind of at the point
where they'll just take any publicity.
Now, the English translation of the movie
is Come Back Frog Boys, and it releases in 1992,
but it doesn't end up being very successful.
At the time, really emotional movies
aren't that popular in South Korea,
so there's not
a surge of interest or influx of tips.
But the movie isn't the only form of media that features the boys.
After it premieres, a singer contacts the parents, says that they want to write a song
about them.
Parents agree.
Again, they're looking for any publicity they can get.
But just like the movie, the song doesn't really generate any real movement for the
case either. And same goes with the book that comes out shortly after the song.
So the fathers spend the next two years traveling the country,
searching for any sign of their children or someone who might know what happened to them.
And they're successful in keeping attention on the case for the most part.
But eventually even that public interest fades.
And by then the fathers just can't keep going.
I mean, they have funded pretty much this whole three-year trip on their own, and they
have gone into debt that they can't ignore anymore.
So as much as they want to keep searching for their kids, they have to make the tough
decision to go home, return to their jobs, and to try and piece their lives back together.
With an important piece of each family still missing.
It's a difficult thing that they do,
but slowly they start to scrape together
some sense of structure.
But that structure is shattered
when the parents are contacted
by none other than members of the military
who want to meet them.
The military personnel are from the base there on the mountain,
and they asked to meet in person at night,
specifically without letting the local police know.
But if this is about the boys, I mean, they'll go anywhere.
They'll do anything no matter how sketchy it feels, I mean, same, right?
So they agree and they head up the mountain into the military base on the night they're told to go.
And once they get there, they're led into this large tent where there are some soldiers waiting inside.
I'm not sure how many people are there, but the documentary reports that one of them tells the parents that he can help them find their kids
with the help of some supernatural powers that he can help them find their kids with the help of some supernatural powers
that he can give them.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, he says that he can give one of them the power to locate where their kids are.
And this is the military, right?
Yes.
This feels like it's turning into an episode of Supernatural.
I was gonna say, like, this isn't some, like, religious organization or... No, this is, yeah.
This is the mil- they're on the military.
Saying we have superpowers that we can dole out.
And listen, you know what?
Not to turn this into a Supernatural episode, but, like, I think the military, all militaries
are working with some, like, scary stuff.
We know that they've done, like, testing of mind control, whatever.
Anyways, I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole.
All I'm saying is I'm like-
But, like, they're basically saying that they have, like, this, Anyways, I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole. All I'm saying is I'm like- But like they're basically saying that they have like
this like thing that they can dole out to civilians,
question mark, to help them solve this.
Yeah, I don't know if this is new
because where was this three years ago, but-
And also why not like give it to one of your soldiers
to help find, like does it have to be a family member?
What are the rules of the supernatural powers?
I have so many questions.
Maybe it has to be someone connected.
All I know is that Josie was missing for three years and
someone needed to like lay hands on me so I could find her. I would let them.
You would take it. I get it.
It's exactly what happens. One by one, this guy like literally puts his hands on the sides of
their heads and like I guess giving them the powers. When this man gets to 12-year-old Young Yu's mom, she starts just speaking uncontrollably.
Okay, like she's possessed?
I guess. I don't know, whatever's happening, it seems to be what the soldier was looking for,
though, because he tells the parents to just like, let her talk, let her lead the way,
follow her wherever she goes. And like, she leaves the tent, they all exit the tent, she starts
running up the mountain.
Everyone's following close behind,
but it's difficult to keep up.
I mean, it's raining, it's muddy,
they're trying to make it through the underbrush
as safely as possible, but they manage to keep up.
And eventually, finally, she stops
and she just screams that their boys are here.
And I don't know what those parents
must have felt in that moment.
Relief, fear, devastation, but whatever they felt
must have quickly turned to confusion and then anger
because their boys are not there.
They're not anywhere nearby either.
I mean, they do a search of this area
that turns up nothing, not a body, not a scrap of clothing, nothing connected to the boys.
So what the hell was all of this?
I don't know.
I haven't really seen an explanation of what happened.
All I know is that once they all realize that their kids aren't there, the parents are
pissed.
I mean, understandably fuming.
Were the soldiers trying to be helpful? Were they just playing this massive joke on them?
I don't think it's a joke because it seems like something happened. I can't explain
any of it. I don't even know if the parents even went and reported this to police or if
the military personnel face any consequences for doing this. if they were or if they I don't know I don't know kind of like the whole intelligence agency
thing it's just this another wrench that is thrown in the mix but like I'm sure the family's feeling
confused and frustrated yeah but if you thought that was wild just wait because in January of 1996
a man named Kim Ka-Won comes forward and says that he knows what
happened to the boys.
Ka-won is a professor of psychology from the states and according to the documentary,
South Korea doesn't have many criminal psychologists in their country at the time, so his background
gives him a lot of credibility.
And he says he's been following and studying the case for a long time, and he says that
he believes that 10-year-old Jong-Shik's father is responsible for their disappearance.
Hmm, okay.
Explain.
So he claims that Jong-Shik's dad, whose name is Kim Cholgyu, apparently he can't
account for a few hours on the day that the boys went missing.
Which is true.
When the police look into the records they have from a few years ago the day that the boys went missing, which is true. When the police look into the records
they have from a few years ago, there is a period of three hours
before the boys were found to be missing,
where he didn't tell them what he was doing.
So this actually raises some suspicion.
Now, not with the parents, though.
I mean, they don't think he could have done anything
to hurt their kids, especially the fathers, who, remember,
I mean, they spent three years with this guy traveling the country together.
So they're all like, there's no way he did anything.
But Kawan is adamant that Chogyu killed the boys and hid them somewhere.
He says likely somewhere in his house.
Now the media gets word about the accusation and I mean, they
just swarm the village. Cho-Gi's house is searched. Specifically, they seem to be looking
in the bathroom and in this back room. I mean, at first, it seems like they might have found
something in the bathroom. Like, they say they find children's shoes.
Like five specific pairs of shoes that belong to the boys or just like a pair?
Because there's a big difference between those things.
Yeah, yes, you're right.
I can't find the details as to why this was like so suspicious.
Like literally all they say is they find children's shoes.
But apparently it causes investigators to go to the extent of bringing in an excavator
and they start digging up the floor of the bathroom.
Is the theory that he killed the kids
and buried them in the bathroom all in three hours
without anyone else seeing?
Yeah, pretty much.
I feel like this is a huge leap,
but I will say I kept feeling that maybe Zhang Xik
was the key to this because both the hoax calls
mentioned him specifically, like he was the subject.
I agree, like I had that thought too when I was first learning about all of this.
Like he's the one name that keeps getting brought up with the hoaxes specifically, but
even if it were about him, even if that were the case, what I don't have a piece to is
like what would the motive even be to go after him, you know what I mean?
I mean, maybe that's why they're looking at his parents now? To figure that out? I don't know.
Let's not spiral too much because as it turns out, they don't need to be worried about that.
Because once the bathroom is dug up, investigators don't find anything. According to the documentary,
they basically turn the whole house upside down. There is no sign of any of the boys.
house upside down, there is no sign of any of the boys. Now once Cho-Gyu is cleared, Kawon, who has been there the whole time overseeing the excavation,
dude literally takes off running through the crowd that's gathered, because people start
yelling at him, telling people to catch him.
It's a little bit of a witch hunt.
I mean, he's eventually taken to the police station, not even because he's arrested,
I don't think.
It's purely for his own safety.
Because people are pissed.
I mean, obviously all the parents and Chulgu specifically, but the larger community is
really upset too.
Yeah, this feels like another hoax.
Yeah, and I mean, again, like, hoax or this guy was off.
I don't know.
You know, he's claiming to be a psychologist. Like even behavioral science people, they'll tell you they don't, I off, I don't know. You know, he's claiming to be a psychologist.
Like even behavioral science people,
they'll tell you they don't, I mean, they don't know for,
I don't know, anyway, I don't know that it was a hoax
or just this guy.
There's a lot of gray area in those studies and like.
Yeah.
Long story short, that ends up being the last push
to find the boys for years.
Life goes on as the parents try to cope with the loss,
rebuild their lives, but
it's not easy. 11-year-old Cha-In's dad loses his job and in his grief and anger over
what happened to his son, he gets into fights with police. He's eventually charged with
obstruction of justice. 10-year-old Zhang Xixi's dad, Chou-Gui, dies of cancer five years after
his house was searched, never knowing what happened
to his son.
And in the end, it turns out that the answer was just one year away.
On September 26, 2002, the families get the news that they have been hoping for, the news
that they've been dreading.
The remains of five bodies have been found on the mountain.
The bodies were found by two locals.
According to the documentary, as they were hiking and collecting acorns,
they came across some old clothes and what looked like human bones among some rocks.
And this area that they're in, it's pretty secluded,
and when they report what they found, everyone's thoughts immediately go to the boys,
even after all these years.
And when the parents get the news,
they just go up to the mountain,
along with a whole crowd of people and reporters
to see if they can identify the remains.
Now, all these bones and clothes are mostly buried.
And as they're dug up, it's difficult at first
for the parents to tell if it's their kids. I mean, we're talking skeletal remains. But eventually, they begin
to recognize the things with them, the shoes, the pants, the jackets, and the braces that
are still attached to the teeth of one of the skulls. I mean, it is their sons.
Are all five of them there? Five sets of remains are found buried among some rocks and trees.
But as the excavation continues, the parents start to notice something odd, specifically
about the boy's clothing.
A few of them have their sleeves tied together.
One of them has his clothes inside out.
Another has his pants and shoes, and shoes flipped up over his shoulders.
Were the clothes on them or just with them?
It's a little hard to tell from what I'm working with here.
I know Hwang Sun-yoon's reporting for Korea,
Joong-ang Daily questions why the boys would have taken their clothes off,
which to me implies at least some of them were undressed. But I mean, even though it's been over 10 years, you think you'd be able
to tell for the most part, right? Like, I mean, even though the remains are skeletal,
the bones would be in the clothes, right? Even if the stuff was like degrade, I don't
know, like legs and pants, arms and sleeves of jackets, stuff like that, right?
Right, right.
But either way, the state of the clothing isn't the only thing that disturbs the parents
because as the remains and clothing are being processed, the sleeves on one of the jackets
is untied and a few empty cartridges fall out.
And then investigators find several unused bullets in the children's clothes too.
Is there any evidence of a gunshot wound on any of them?
So one of them, on one of the skulls,
has holes on both sides, but at this point,
I don't think they can tell even what
could have made the hole.
So there are pieces of this puzzle
that look like they're fitting together,
but they can't tell right there.
Now once the bodies are found,
the police call in a forensics team to assist,
but it takes a while for them to arrive.
So by the time
they actually get to the mountain, about three of the five bodies have already been taken
out of the ground. They've been excavated.
Wait, who is doing this excavating? Because the whole town is up there and the police
and not the forensics team?
It's not the parents or anything. It's the police who've been doing it. But the problem
is they're not trained to be doing this sort of work.
Right.
And that inexperience is on full display when the forensics team
finally makes it all the way up there.
What they find out is that the police haven't been like carefully laying
the bones out in like the order that they found them or trying to even put
together skeletons or anything like that.
Instead, they were like grouping bones together.
What do you mean?
They're like, okay, all the skulls put the skulls in the skulls pile.
All the long bones, let's make a long bones pile.
What?
Yeah, and they're not even like on a sterile tarp or anything.
They're just like laying it out on newspaper.
You're kidding me.
I wish I was kidding you.
Thankfully, when the forensics team arrives, they put a stop to all this nonsense.
They take over.
But by that point, it's, I mean, too late for some of them.
There have been so many mistakes made, and the forensics team can only analyze the bones that they recover.
However, before the forensics team can even dive into that analysis, the police announce their theory.
They say that the boys died from hypothermia.
They say that temperatures on the mountain the night that they vanished went down to
like 37 degrees Fahrenheit.
And according to an article in the Waterloo Region Record by the Associated Press, since
the boys were all found very close together, they believe that they had huddled together
for warmth, presumably after getting lost and eventually just succumbed to the cold.
I'm sorry.
This doesn't make any sense to me.
They knew this mountain.
I know.
They've been up there.
When their parents found out that they went to this mountain, their parents felt good,
okay about it because they were familiar with it.
And it's like you'd like to me, so you're familiar, even if you got to a weird place, Their parents felt good, okay about it because they were familiar with it. Well, I know.
And it's like, to me, so you're familiar, even if you got to a weird place, the village
is down below.
Just start going down.
You know what I mean?
You don't huddle together and tie your clothes.
Well, and also, if you die from hypothermia, you can't bury yourself.
They were buried.
I mean, maybe, I guess it's been so long, they're on a mountain, they
might have gotten buried naturally, but like it doesn't seem right. And all those people
were searching, Ashley.
To that point, like, okay, if them being buried wasn't somebody like digging a grave, it happened
over time, then what I don't understand is how they weren't found before because then
that means that they were just laying out in the open and we know that that mountain
was searched.
By a lot of people for a long time.
I know.
And that's where I really get hung up is like how they had been out there this whole time
without anyone finding them.
It does not add up.
Like you cannot make that add up to me.
Well, and on top of all that, the bullets tied up in their clothing again, make it make
sense with hypothermia.
What?
I know.
And I mean, this honestly, I think it all comes back to that very first theory, where
they're found is only about 300 meters, like 985 feet from that military shooting range.
And the police try to like explain away the bullets saying like, oh, yes, they were close
to that area.
They probably found some bullets.
They were playing with the bullets,
which is why they were found with their remains.
I could maybe say that for like the spent cartridges,
but the unused bullets, how did they get them?
Well, and to me, if that's true,
then where they were was by the shooting range.
And they, again, I go back to, they weren't lost.
They knew where the shooting range was.
And on top of that, what about the hole
in one of their heads?
So this is skipping ahead a little bit.
It turns out that the holes are determined
not to be from a gunshot wound.
Like there's no fracture of the bone.
But like, reminder, they're saying this before
the forensic team is like done.
So like, again, at the time for them to be like,
shouldn't you wait like a smidge, right? I don't know.
I mean, at least for optics, please.
Well, listen, even if one of them was accidentally shot,
Hwang Sun-yoon reports for the Korea Joong-ang Daily that there isn't any blood or anything on
any of their clothes to indicate that.
But again, like they're doing this all so early,
do they even like fully realize that?
I don't know.
What kind of tests are they doing?
I have so many questions.
The tests aren't done yet, the tests aren't even started yet.
Listen, all that to say,
even though they're presenting this serious fact,
the parents are unconvinced.
They say there is no way their kids just got lost
and died of hypothermia.
There is no doubt in their minds that their kids were murdered.
And considering the bullets and the proximity to the shooting range, they are more sure
than ever that the military had something to do with their deaths after all.
Their theory is made even more convincing when the military does come out and say,
yes, those bullets were theirs, but they fully deny any involvement in the boy's deaths.
Then how did a bunch of kids get access to your bullets, military?
To your point, like not just the casings, like unused bullets.
I don't know if they're saying that you just found them on the mountain, but to
me, like that's a little negligent.
Those would be like on base, secured, checked out when you're like practicing at the range.
I don't know.
I don't even know if they like even try and offer an explanation.
But there are even more questions because the forensic teams, once they get to, you
know, actually do their jobs that they're paid to do, they find some
evidence that the boy's deaths may not have been from natural causes.
See, on some of the bones, specifically, on the skull of 14-year-old Chul Won, they find
these marks that look to be from a blunt instrument.
They're like these little indents, and some of the other bones have cuts in them too.
Now of course, police come out and say that those marks likely occurred post-mortem.
But, you know, just to be sure, the forensic team sends photos of the marks over to an
anthropologist in the States for a second opinion.
And the American anthropologist says that not only are those marks, quote, manmade,
they happened before Chulwon died.
So what made them?
That's the question that they can't answer.
There is one theory that the boys died of blunt force trauma, but they can't prove
it.
So they're at this kind of standoff with one another, and that's when the rescue
team director for the Korea Alpine Federation gets word of the police's hypothermia theory.
And he feels that something isn't right either.
He states in the documentary
that he actually goes to the mountain to take a look around
and based on his expertise,
he doesn't think hypothermia tracks.
For one, the boys weren't found super high on the mountain.
Not only that, but they're less than 100 meters.
We're talking a little over 300 feet from a road,
which is what I was saying earlier.
So if they were lost and-
Right, from a road on a mountain
that they're familiar with.
Yeah, I mean, you're cold enough to get hypothermia.
They could have easily made it back to a civilization.
Even if it wasn't their village,
they could have found someone to help them.
And this Korea Alpine Federation guy also can't help but notice how close the boys
were to the shooting range.
And while they were technically outside of it, he knows that one of the guns that the
military used was an M16, which can shoot really far.
The distance from the military base to where the remains were found is within effective
range for an M16.
But there would have been blood on their clothes if that had happened, right?
That's true, but the parents think that's because, or like the lack of it is because only one of the boys got shot.
So their theory goes that the boys were out on the mountain near the shooting range.
One of them was accidentally shot and killed.
And in order to cover it up, the military
killed the other four via blunt force trauma.
Why blunt force trauma if you shot one of them? Why dump them on the side of the mountain?
I don't know. I don't know. I know there's a lot of times blunt force trauma doesn't
result in any kind of bleeding. I'm still kind of surprised that if one of them was
shot we don't see any blood on anything. You know what I mean? Even just from that, the
one.
Right.
I don't know. I don't know.
Well, and like, had the clothes degraded? Were they exposed to elements at all? Like,
there's just a lot of questions.
Yeah. And what I imagine too is I imagine being five kids out there. You're literally
playing, all of a sudden your friend is shot. What do you do? I mean, do you all stay there and huddle? Do you run? Like, how
did they even corral all the kids? I don't know. Like, there's something about it that
like isn't working either. I can't, there's a piece that I'm missing.
If that's what happened and they killed the other boys because one was accidentally shot,
did it all happen there on the side of the mountain? Like, how did they find out about
if it was that far away?
So there's a tie to this military thing, and there's a bit of a caveat to this.
Something that might, like, again, help tie it even more.
So remember how I said that the boys went missing on a national holiday?
Yeah, it was like an election day.
So the military wasn't holding drills that day.
So your everyday soldier wasn't shooting, but commissioned officers were permitted
to use the shooting range at any time. And there is a rumor that circulates that this
one particular officer went out that day with the intent to like use up some unspent bullets,
although the name of that officer is unknown. And I mean, at the end of the day, it's just
a rumor. But I go back to like, then you're talking, it's not like the whole military
was running drills. And then this happened., it's not like the whole military was running drills and then this happened and you have like the whole military go cover
this up.
It would have been like one person.
You have one officer doing all of it.
Yeah.
So I don't know.
Ultimately, the forensic team releases a report that states that the boys were killed and
buried all in that same spot.
So even you were saying earlier that idea they were killed somewhere else.
They say it all happened there. And they think this for a few reasons. One, because the bones
that they excavated were all in anatomical order. So had they decomposed first and then
been buried where they were found, their bones wouldn't have stayed all put together. Which,
like I get what they're saying, but again, at the same time, if they if they would have
been moved and buried while they were like immediately after death, like, I think you would have seen the
same thing, right?
I mean, immediately is also subjective.
I mean, within a couple of days even.
But the other thing they point to is they say when a body decomposes, certain chemicals
will seep into the soil around it.
And even all these years later, the soil around them still contains these chemicals indicating
that this is where they decomposed.
So I'm like, I think it's less of like, where like where they killed and and put there more
that what they're saying is that they have decomposed there in that spot.
So they have been essentially been there the whole time.
Yeah, for a significant amount of that time.
Yeah, and but like the National Organization of Missing Children,
that guy, he gets hung up on the fact
that no one found them during all those searches
of the mountain when the boys first went missing.
So like if you were saying everything points
to the fact that they've been there the whole time,
what the heck?
I mean, honestly, I'm hung up on the exact same thing.
I know, but like no one can prove anything.
And what's worse, if the boys really were
murdered, time is actually running out to find who killed them and charge them with
the crime because the statute of limitations for murder there is just 15 years at the time.
So with that deadline creeping up, the race is on to find out what happened to these boys.
Is anybody even in that race though?
Police think it's hypothermia.
Well, I mean, they might have a theory,
but they do go back and review all of their old records
from the time that the boys disappeared,
looking for anything that they missed
that could point to their killer or killers.
But even in doing that, they don't find anything.
So then they just stop with their investigation,
which to the parents just feels like they're giving up.
And they don't want to rest until they know definitely what happened to their kids.
But with the forensic report out and the police not willing to do more, I mean, there's only
so much that they can do.
By 2004, the parents make the decision to finally lay their children to rest.
They're each cremated.
And on March 26, 2004, exactly 13 years after they went missing,
their ashes are scattered in a nearby river.
The parents felt that it was only right to release their ashes together because they
were inseparable in life, and hopefully they can find peace together in death.
Over the years, the parents have tried to keep the fight going for their kids.
There was a lawsuit that was filed against the police,
which ended up going to trial,
three trials actually, all of which ended with the judge siding with the police.
There is a win in 2007 when the statute of limitations for
murder was raised from 15 to 25 years,
and then in 2015, it's removed entirely, which is great.
If they ever find out who murdered them,
now they can actually do something about it. But by 2015, and even removed entirely, which is great. If they ever find out who murdered them, now they can actually do something about it.
But by 2015, and even to this day, 2024, there haven't been any updates.
The idea that the military was involved is still the general consensus among the parents
and the public as a whole.
But unless someone comes forward with new information, the deaths of Chowon, Ho-yeon,
Yang Yu, Chan-in, and Jong-shik will remain shrouded in mystery. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.
And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast.
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode, but make sure to stick around because
we have the good segment for you coming up. All right. Welcome back, Crime Junkies.
Let's talk about some good.
Yes, I love ending our months on a high note by sharing these just incredible stories.
And don't forget, we could share yours too.
Head on over to the Good Segment page on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com, to submit
a story of your own.
The whole team, truly, we love reading
every single one of them.
So please send them our way.
Yeah, you guys, even if it doesn't make it
to the end of an episode at the end of the month,
this whole thing started.
It makes it to the whole team.
Yeah, this whole thing started
because we have a Slack channel at work called The Good,
and every time we get an amazing story
or hear something amazing
that came out of the work that we're doing, we put it in there the whole team.
I mean, it's what keeps all of us going every week.
So please share your story.
Yeah, and we'll have a direct link to that in our show notes.
All right.
So without further ado, Britt, brighten our days with something good.
Hello, fellow crime junkie and teacher here.
Last month, I listened to your episode about Maya Peña and Emma Walker.
This episode was so powerful and it got me thinking.
I teach high school English and since this episode was centered around high school students,
I really wanted to incorporate it within our class somehow.
I went back and forth with myself, especially with the climate of the House Bill 1134 here
in Indiana, and debated getting in trouble
for sharing the information.
Then in true crime junkie fashion, I said, screw that.
If I can help even one kiddo, it's worth it.
I will deal with the repercussions.
I love that by the way.
I mean, honestly, that alone is powerful.
If you guys don't know, haven't been paying attention to what's going on with teachers
in some states and how their job can literally be at risk for sharing a book, a podcast.
That is huge.
So, I listened to the episode with my 11th grade classes.
It fit in perfectly since we just started our narrative unit.
I obviously discussed the great narrative techniques you all use, such as foreshadowing,
hooking the listener, reader,
tone, etc.
But most importantly, I got the word out to students.
It was very powerful.
I have since had several students come up to me and tell me thank you for letting them
listen to the podcast.
They tell me their stories, and I even had some ask me how to help their friends in similar
situations.
As my day went on, I introduced the story for the fourth time that day.
And somehow in this class, I began telling them my own story of domestic violence.
They had so many questions, and I did my best to answer what I could.
We definitely bonded and had a moment that day in class.
All in all, I'm sharing this to let you all know the word has been shared with even more listeners
and you are all helping in so many ways.
I wanted to say thank you from me
and my 11th grade students.
I'm so glad I was able to share my favorite podcast
with my students and get a powerful message out there.
There were many lessons taught that day in class.
Thank you for your time.
That's amazing. How, I mean again, like how, how brave, how amazing. And I love like being
able to start those kind of conversations. And we, this has like kind of been a consistent
theme in a lot of the feedback we get. It's like, I never, I never thought to bring it
up. You assume people know, but especially when you're talking about young people, like
they only know what they get taught.
And what they're exposed to, yeah.
Yeah, and if all they see or experience are potentially toxic relationships,
like they don't know that there's something better for them
or how they can protect themselves or see the warning signs.
And man, it's like, it's just cool to think about how the stuff we do can live on,
even if no one ever hears our episode
Necessarily not like that's freaking amazing freaking amazing
I mean, that's what being a crime junkie is all about right like yes
We want to solve all the cases help every family obtain the justice they deserve
But there's so much more that can be taken away from I mean every episode so thank you to this rock star teacher
For helping us make the world a better and safer place.
Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production.
So what do you think, Chuck?
Do you approve?
No!