My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 237

“The damage could be greater than you think.”

“I don’t care. At worst, they’ll just cut me off.”

“No. It’ll be tougher than you think. You might get outright ostracized.”

“That’s already happening.”

“What?”

“Well, I’m on the same team as Senior Profiler Park Do-joon, after all.”

Of course, existing police officers and profilers had tried to win her over, but when that didn’t work, they subtly ostracized her.

“Seriously, these guys…!”

The team leader shook his head at that. Clearly, knowing Park Do-joon’s immense performance and skills and still acting like that was a serious problem.

“Let’s deal with this later. That’s not the urgent thing. Go and come back quickly.”

“Yes, Team Leader.”

“Okay.”

Park Do-joon and Lee Ji-soo nodded and went outside.

The remaining team leader opened a drawer and checked its contents.

There lay an envelope labeled “Resignation Letter.”

“If things get really bad, I’ll have to use this. What else can I do?”

***

Park Do-joon headed straight to the scene, but he didn’t go to the victim’s family.

“Senior, aren’t we going to see the family?”

“It’s not a good choice in the current situation.”

“Why?”

“Because everything is uncertain.”

Clearly, the chances of them being the culprit are high. But even if the chances are high, we can’t definitively say they aren’t the culprit.

“We have to investigate with complete neutrality. Even though Moonlight Law Firm passed the information to us, we can’t say Moonlight is 100% clean.”

“But that Jeong I-yeon person didn’t seem like that.”

“I-yeon has no reason to lie, but the lawyer who asked her has a reason to lie.”

That’s why we need to approach it as objectively as possible. In that case, approaching the bereaved family is the last priority. If we become emotionally sympathetic, all lines of observation will inevitably be tainted with personal feelings.

“So, we need to check what we can objectively determine first.”

“So, this is the first place to do that.”

“Yes.”

The place they arrived at was where the child’s body was found. Park Do-joon, having arrived there, looked around and said,

“It’s definitely strange, right?”

“Yes, this definitely doesn’t make sense.”

Clearly, the body was hidden here. Looking at the location where the body was hidden, we could learn a lot.

“Why hide it here?”

According to the records in the report, the location was about 100 meters into the forest from the main road. But the information shown in such documents clearly has limitations that visual information can’t convey.

“100 meters from the main road, but only about 10 meters from the side road.”

Only about 10 meters from the side road, that is, a path that looks like a walking trail. Moreover, it wasn’t buried in the ground but roughly covered with branches and fallen leaves lying around.

“It’s not a typical action.”

If they killed the child, they would have buried it deeper and more thoroughly.

“It’s more like they hid the body rather than buried it.”

“Besides, if they covered it like this, it was almost certain to be discovered, right?”

In fact, a resident who was taking a walk discovered the child’s body. Usually, the dog wouldn’t leave the walking trail, but it suddenly ran off and found it.

“Hmm.”

“Senior, don’t you know either?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. This is too unusual.”

Profiling is psychology and statistics. There are many ways to account for variables, but they are just that—accounts. For situations that are too unusual and too unique, there are no records, so analyzing them is not easy.

“Isn’t showing this kind of reaction usually what happens in urgent situations?”

“That’s right. It happens that way when the situation is urgent and they urgently abandon the body.”

If someone is approaching or if they are being chased, they can bury the body in a place that is roughly out of sight and then run away.

“But the situation here is strange.”

The culprit knows that their disposal of the body is inadequate. If so, they would seize the opportunity to dispose of the body properly.

“If someone was chasing them, they would have been caught right away. If they hid it because they heard someone approaching, they would have come back later to hide the body. Besides, the victim—no, the victim child—is only 8 months old. It might be difficult to hide the body of a large adult, but it’s not difficult to hide the body of such an infant.”

To be blunt, it fits in most bags, so even if they casually brought a bag, put the body in it, and went deeper into the forest, no one would think it strange.

Carrying a bag in Korea isn’t particularly strange, and hiking backpacks can be bought anywhere.

However, there was about a day between the disappearance and the discovery. But they didn’t hide the body.

“It doesn’t make sense. And, if the parents committed the murder, they usually don’t report it as a missing person.”

“But they might report it to exploit loopholes, right?”

In fact, there are quite a few cases where parents who killed their child report them as missing to hide their crime.

“That’s true. But in this child’s case, the birth wasn’t even registered.”

“Ah!”

Generally, when a child is born, the birth must be registered within a month. However, due to the characteristics of being an unwed mother and the intention to put the child up for adoption, the birth has not yet been registered.

Well, to register the birth, it has to be done in the name of the parents who gave birth to the child, and if that record is left for a high school sophomore unwed mother, it will obviously follow her for the rest of her life and ruin her future.

“Usually, they do it in the name of the grandparents, though.”

But according to the records, it wasn’t done in the name of the grandparents either.

“That’s the police’s argument.”

They hated the child so much that they didn’t even register the child’s birth, so they killed her.

“But in these cases, they are more reluctant to register the birth than you think.”

Because families who want to adopt very young children usually want to hide that the child is someone else’s child.

“So, if they committed the murder themselves, they shouldn’t have reported it.”

Since the child doesn’t exist on paper, if they don’t report it as missing here, it becomes a non-existent case. They can just tell the family who was going to adopt her that she died of an illness.

“But the fact that they reported her missing means they were trying to find the child.”

“Hmm, then who killed the child?”

“Exactly. That’s the problem.”

The number of people who know of her existence is extremely limited: the homeroom teacher, the birth parents, and the family of the man who ran away.

“Could it be the man’s side?”

The child is a burden to the woman, but it would also be a burden to the man, so it’s possible. But Park Do-joon shook his head at that.

“Still, handling it this roughly doesn’t make sense. And in the first place, the man’s family isn’t even in Korea.”

“Yes?”

“I heard they ran away to the Philippines after finding out their son caused an accident.”

Even if they run away, the child doesn’t disappear, but the bastard ran away with his family to the Philippines right after dropping out of school as soon as the child was born.

“It doesn’t make sense that people who ran away because they didn’t want to take responsibility would come and try to kill the child. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that the child’s maternal grandparents wouldn’t notify that family about the adoption.”

Even if they didn’t, would they sneak back into the country now to kill the child? That’s impossible.

“Then how do we identify them?”

“Let’s start by checking the timeline.”

Park Do-joon said, thinking carefully.

“A mere 8-month-old child wouldn’t have walked away on her own two feet.”

In other words, someone took the child.

“Let’s find out why the child was alone in the first place.”

***

Park Do-joon met the family.

When Park Do-joon arrived, the family came out with their lawyer.

“Park Do-joon?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Kang Soo-won. I heard a lot about you from I-yeon.”

“Ah, you’re the one who asked…?”

“Yes, thank you for accepting the request. There’s no other way to do it right now.”

“I have to go and see first, whether it will be helpful or a blunder.”

If they really committed the murder, calling Park Do-joon will probably be a blunder.

“But there are two of you who came out together?”

“Ho-yeon is hospitalized right now because she’s too shocked.”

“I understand.”

Being abandoned by the child’s father and giving birth to the child is shocking, and having to put the child up for adoption is also difficult. But if the child even died on top of that, it would be strange if an ordinary person didn’t collapse.

“First of all, you must know that the questions I ask here are completely neutral. Of course, there will be unpleasant questions in there.”

Park Gi-soo and Kim Jeong-sook, Park Ho-yeon’s parents, nodded at Park Do-joon’s words.

“We’ve already suffered all kinds of humiliation, so it’s okay.”

‘Well, the police have already made up their minds, so they wouldn’t have treated them well.’

In fact, their faces were full of resignation.

“Let’s start with the basics. Why did you leave an 8-month-old child alone?”

At 8 months old, the child absolutely needs parental care. Of course, leaving the child alone during that time generally doesn’t make sense.

In fact, that’s the first reason the police suspect them.

“We really only left for a moment.”

Park Ho-yeon was said to have been very depressed after giving birth to the child. Park Gi-soo was at work. After the child fell asleep, Kim Jeong-sook sent the depressed Park Ho-yeon out to meet a friend.

But after that, it seemed like there was a commotion outside, so she only went down to the first floor for a very short time.

“What happened?”

“There was a dispute over parking.”

Outside vehicles kept secretly parking inside. No matter how much they told them not to park, they kept parking inside the villa [a type of luxury housing complex], and today, they happened to get caught by a resident.

“It was only 10 minutes.”

The child was asleep, so she locked the door and went out for a moment, but the child disappeared during those 10 minutes.

“You reported it to the police right away?”

“Yes.”

Even after reporting it to the police, they searched everywhere, but they couldn’t find the child.

“Then there was no one strange inside the villa?”

“No. There was a commotion from the entrance.”

The fight between the person who was illegally parking from outside and the residents escalated, and even a fistfight broke out, so eventually, even a police car was dispatched.

Of course, all the residents were gathered at the entrance. Due to the nature of the villa, there is only one entrance.

“But the child disappeared…”

It’s definitely an absurd situation.

“Then isn’t the owner of that car the culprit?”

“The police thought so at first, but it wasn’t.”

The owner of that vehicle was simply an employee of a small office that had moved in nearby. Furthermore, he was caught trying to park and was held there the whole time, and there were no passengers, so it was difficult to see him as the culprit.

“There was no one who escaped people’s attention?”

“No.”

That’s why the police suspect them.

‘But it’s not as simple as you think.’

Having a lot of people and escaping their attention are completely different matters. People think it’s difficult to escape their attention when there are a lot of people, but if their attention is focused on a specific event or situation, escaping from that place is naturally easier than you think.

Because everyone is looking in one direction.