26 August 2026
Missing Jeju woman's death exposes police failures as Korea weighs unprecedented investigative power shift What happened to Jang Mi-ran? What happened to the officer who closed Jang's case? Could there be more victims? Why does the timing matter?
Korea JoongAng Daily - Daily News from Korea
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A body believed to be that of Jang Mi-ran, a 37-year-old woman missing from Jeju Island since May, was found on Monday on a palm tree farm in Hallim-eup — a roughly 10-minute walk from the guesthouse where she was last seen. It had been 104 days since she disappeared.
That she was found so close to where she vanished has intensified criticism that police squandered the golden time to find her alive. The officer assigned to her case falsely closed it the same day it was reported, fabricating a phone call to claim she was safe.
The case has gripped the nation not because of the circumstances of her disappearance, but because of the institutional negligence that followed.
The discovery has set off a fierce national reckoning over how police handle missing adults — arriving at a sensitive political moment, just weeks before prosecutors are stripped of their remaining investigative oversight powers, leaving police as the sole investigative authority for most crimes in Korea.
Jang, a long-term guest at a pension in Hallim-eup, Jeju City, was last seen on security camera leaving the property alone around 10:15 p.m. on May 12, wearing slippers and carrying only her phone.
Her boyfriend filed a missing-person report on May 15. Police searched near Hallim Port — about 1.5 kilometers (nearly 1 mile) from the pension — based on a reading of her phone's last known location, but called off the search after two and a half hours.
That same day, Bu, 32, a deputy inspector on the Jeju Seobu Police Station's missing persons team, filed a report stating that he had spoken with Jang by phone, confirmed she was safe and then closed the case.
Investigators later found no record of any call.
To remove her file from the police's missing persons tracking system, Bu appears to have logged it under a code reserved for traffic accident deaths.
Her phone stayed on with no further location changes or calls until it powered off, evidence police cited Wednesday in concluding that Jang most likely died in the early hours of May 13, hours after leaving the guesthouse.
Jang's cousin, in Seoul, filed a new report at Nowon Police Station on July 19 after the family lost contact for two months. An officer initially questioned why she was reporting an adult's absence at all, remarking that not finding her could be "good news," and only took the report after she pleaded, in tears, she has told reporters.
By the time the case reopened in July, most nearby security-camera footage that could have shown her route had already been automatically deleted under the standard 30-day retention rule.
Police resumed the search but did not locate her for another month.
A missing-person alert was not issued until Aug. 19, after the family had already begun publicizing her case themselves.
Jang's body was found Monday on an unlit palm farm with no security cameras, an area residents say they avoid at night.
It was significantly decomposed. Clothing matching what she wore when she left the pension, a phone and a gold bracelet were found with the remains.
Police said Wednesday that a medical examiner's preliminary finding attributes her death to hanging. The state and position of the remains, along with that finding, point to a low likelihood of foul play. No note was found at the scene. Forensic work, including on her phone, is continuing.
Her family says they are considering a state-liability lawsuit over how the case was handled.
On Tuesday, the Jeju District Court granted an arrest warrant for Bu on charges of dereliction of duty, fabricating and using false official electronic records, and obstructing official duties through deception.
Police say they first spotted irregularities in Bu's handling of the Jang case while searching for her in early August and formally opened a criminal case against him on Aug. 14.
He was put under emergency arrest on Aug. 22 and briefly secured release after a court agreed his arrest hadn't met the legal threshold for an emergency detention — his...
That she was found so close to where she vanished has intensified criticism that police squandered the golden time to find her alive. The officer assigned to her case falsely closed it the same day it was reported, fabricating a phone call to claim she was safe.
The case has gripped the nation not because of the circumstances of her disappearance, but because of the institutional negligence that followed.
The discovery has set off a fierce national reckoning over how police handle missing adults — arriving at a sensitive political moment, just weeks before prosecutors are stripped of their remaining investigative oversight powers, leaving police as the sole investigative authority for most crimes in Korea.
Jang, a long-term guest at a pension in Hallim-eup, Jeju City, was last seen on security camera leaving the property alone around 10:15 p.m. on May 12, wearing slippers and carrying only her phone.
Her boyfriend filed a missing-person report on May 15. Police searched near Hallim Port — about 1.5 kilometers (nearly 1 mile) from the pension — based on a reading of her phone's last known location, but called off the search after two and a half hours.
That same day, Bu, 32, a deputy inspector on the Jeju Seobu Police Station's missing persons team, filed a report stating that he had spoken with Jang by phone, confirmed she was safe and then closed the case.
Investigators later found no record of any call.
To remove her file from the police's missing persons tracking system, Bu appears to have logged it under a code reserved for traffic accident deaths.
Her phone stayed on with no further location changes or calls until it powered off, evidence police cited Wednesday in concluding that Jang most likely died in the early hours of May 13, hours after leaving the guesthouse.
Jang's cousin, in Seoul, filed a new report at Nowon Police Station on July 19 after the family lost contact for two months. An officer initially questioned why she was reporting an adult's absence at all, remarking that not finding her could be "good news," and only took the report after she pleaded, in tears, she has told reporters.
By the time the case reopened in July, most nearby security-camera footage that could have shown her route had already been automatically deleted under the standard 30-day retention rule.
Police resumed the search but did not locate her for another month.
A missing-person alert was not issued until Aug. 19, after the family had already begun publicizing her case themselves.
Jang's body was found Monday on an unlit palm farm with no security cameras, an area residents say they avoid at night.
It was significantly decomposed. Clothing matching what she wore when she left the pension, a phone and a gold bracelet were found with the remains.
Police said Wednesday that a medical examiner's preliminary finding attributes her death to hanging. The state and position of the remains, along with that finding, point to a low likelihood of foul play. No note was found at the scene. Forensic work, including on her phone, is continuing.
Her family says they are considering a state-liability lawsuit over how the case was handled.
On Tuesday, the Jeju District Court granted an arrest warrant for Bu on charges of dereliction of duty, fabricating and using false official electronic records, and obstructing official duties through deception.
Police say they first spotted irregularities in Bu's handling of the Jang case while searching for her in early August and formally opened a criminal case against him on Aug. 14.
He was put under emergency arrest on Aug. 22 and briefly secured release after a court agreed his arrest hadn't met the legal threshold for an emergency detention — his...