My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 340

“As you know, the case closure rate is a crucial indicator for promotions in the police force.”

Especially for someone at the superintendent level in a particular region to move up, the case closure rate plays a significant role.

“So, inevitably, if you’re stuck on cold cases, other cases pile up.”

Moreover, because unsolved cases tend to take longer to resolve, if you can solve three cases in the same amount of time, no one around you will be happy if you only solve one.

“No, you really think that way?”

“It’s a flaw in Korean organizational culture. It’s the same in the military.”

“The military?”

“It’s similar to this case.”

What happens if you say you’re sick in the military? Do they send you to the clinic right away? No. They yell at you for lacking discipline and tell you to endure with your mental strength.

Even officers do that. Then, if your limbs rot and have to be amputated, they say, ‘It’s his fault for not saying anything.’

“I understand what you mean.”

People dislike being inconvenienced more than they care about others’ pain. In reality, it’s not difficult to get a normal check-up. It’s not difficult for military doctors to write consent forms for soldiers to receive treatment at external medical institutions. They don’t get negative performance reviews for writing those, and even if they did, most military doctors plan to become civilian doctors, not to stay in the military as officers.

They just don’t want to lose one of their subordinates, and their pride is hurt if they can’t provide treatment within the military, so they choose to cripple the soldier instead.

“You know it well.”

“Well, anyone who’s been discharged knows that, right?”

“I suppose so.”

So, police officers who want to solve unsolved cases often delve into them on their days off or after work. If they delve into them during work hours, they often get scolded by their superiors for not producing results.

Of course, if it becomes a high-profile issue, they’ll actively support it, but if it doesn’t, it’s just one of the many overflowing cases.

“But Detective Song Pil-man managed to stick with it?”

“It just… bothered me.”

“It bothered you?”

“Police officers have that. Out of hundreds of unsolved cases, one keeps nagging at you.”

“That’s right. This case is that kind of case for me. It’s because it was a case I received when I was a complete rookie.”

To be precise, it was a case that caused a stir in the police force when it initially became an issue as a dismemberment murder, and it was the first time Song Pil-man had seen so many reporters swarm. However, the police were heavily criticized for the unsolved case, and eventually, as time passed and it became a cold case, interest waned, and no one cared about the abandoned case.

“And these kinds of cases are also difficult for superiors to touch.”

“Why? I thought solving high-profile cases was good for performance reviews?”

“It would have been if they had solved it back then.”

If it had been solved at that time, it would have been. But now, touching it would likely only stir up interest in the past, and the possibility of it being solved now is not high.

The case itself is four years old, but in the meantime, scientific technology hasn’t advanced rapidly enough to discover hidden evidence.

As a result, the police find it more comfortable to hide cases that are likely to be criticized again and remain unsolved, rather than touching them.

“Especially since, as I said earlier, solving these cases is often due to individual effort.”

“Ah!”

It’s not the police organization that solved the case, but a police officer who investigated it personally. He will be praised, but the perceived incompetence of the surrounding police officers will inevitably stand out.

“So, there’s no small amount of resentment from other police officers when an unsolved case is solved.”

It’s miserable, but that’s the reality. Someone else’s performance review going up because a case is solved means it’s harder for you to get promoted.

“Indeed, the police’s obsession with the media is beyond imagination.”

Is solving 100 violent crime cases like robbery, rape, and murder better for performance reviews, or is taking off your jacket in front of the media and giving it to a poor person better? From people’s perspective, arresting criminals should be better for performance reviews, but unfortunately, the latter has a higher performance review.

So, some police officers run around trying to arrest criminals, while others take turns pretending to push an old man’s handcart and taking pictures, which is the current reality of the police.

“It’s the gap between reality and armchair theory.”

Song Pil-man sighed deeply.

“By the way, looking at the case records, Han Seong-gi was in charge of it.”

“Yes? Ah, yes. Do you happen to know him?”

Song Pil-man asked with an awkward expression, worried that he [Park Do-joon] might take sides if they were close.

“Well, I know him. We don’t get along.”

“Ah, really? That’s a relief.”

To be exact, it was one of the cases Han Seong-gi was assigned when he was a rookie.

“But what do you think? For now, the documents I sent you are all there is.”

“Well, from what I see, it’s not a simple dismemberment murder.”

“I see. Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“If it’s not too much to ask, could you tell me why?”

“He threw it away in a recycling bag.”

“Well, that’s…”

Park Do-joon shook his head.

‘Han Seong-gi doesn’t even know that simple thing.’

“That itself is a mistake.”

“A mistake?”

“Yes, the perpetrator probably made a mistake. I think they might have been drunk.”

“But throwing it away in a recycling bag is a mistake?”

“What is the purpose of dismemberment murder in the first place?”

Naturally, it’s a means to prevent being tracked. So, they dismember the body and dispose of the parts that can identify the person separately.

“So, in the case of dismemberment murder, they separate the body and throw it away separately.”

By doing so, they prevent discovery and make it difficult to identify the victim or themselves.

“But standard garbage bags are basically used differently by region.”

“Ah!”

Only then did Song Pil-man realize. It deviates from the most essential purpose of dismemberment murder: ‘hiding oneself.’

Of course, thousands of standard garbage bags are sold every day, and it’s impossible to check who bought them. But at least, the possibility of identifying which region the perpetrator is from increases.

“Senior, but maybe they did that to confuse the investigation?”

Certainly, if a Seoul resident uses an Incheon garbage bag, you might think the perpetrator is in Incheon.

“If there’s a purpose, they would. But I think it’s a mistake because there isn’t. And judging by the mistake, the perpetrator is definitely from Seoul.”

“No purpose?”

“Confusing the investigation is something you do when you’re sure the police are aware of the case and tracking you. Right?”

“That’s right.”

“But this was the first and last case without that awareness. So why would they use a standard bag?”

“Oh, that’s true.”

They couldn’t find any other cases besides that one. And no similar bodies were found afterward.

“And if they were smart enough to cause confusion, they would have used a food waste bag instead of a standard bag.”

“A food waste bag?”

“It’s a standard garbage bag [for food waste].”

And you can’t put food or meat in standard garbage bags [for general waste]. If there’s something like that in it, they’ll never collect it.

“If they had used a food waste bag, maybe the person collecting it would have just thrown it away.”

They might have thought a refrigerator broke down somewhere and a large amount of meat spoiled. That actually happens quite often.

In the first place, no one tries to check the contents while tearing open a food waste bag.

“Are you saying they were drunk and threw it all away by mistake?”

“Probably.”

Park Do-joon frowned and said. Realistically, it doesn’t make sense to throw away a body like this unless that’s the case.

“That’s the part that many profilers make a mistake on.”

Criminals don’t make mistakes. Criminals all have thoughts and plans. Because they think that way, they often complicate things more than they should. Because they judge that way, they end up overthinking, and that’s why the case doesn’t get solved.

“But surprisingly, quite a few murderers are caught because of mistakes.”

They make mistakes by dropping a small strand of hair or leaving a small fingerprint, and that eventually becomes a clue that leads to catching the perpetrator.

“You should also keep in mind that criminals can make mistakes. They’re human after all.”

“Criminals can make mistakes…”

Lee Ji-soo had a look on her face as if she had heard something unexpected. It’s understandable because when she was learning at school, she learned about the perpetrator’s purpose, not about the perpetrator’s mistakes.

So, she had implicitly thought that criminals don’t make mistakes. Of course, as Park Do-joon said, leaving DNA or fingerprints is a mistake.

“In this case, throwing the body in a standard bag would be a mistake.”

“Still, that’s too broad, isn’t it?”

The population of Seoul is 10 million. Naturally, it’s never easy to identify the perpetrator among that population.

“The area is important.”

“The area?”

“The fact that the perpetrator made a mistake means, conversely, that they were not in a condition to drive.”

You wouldn’t make this kind of mistake in your right mind. An extremely abnormal situation. Something went wrong with their judgment in a situation where they were doing drugs or drinking, so they must have taken it and thrown it away.

“If they couldn’t drive, then it means someone lives around there.”

“But.”

Song Pil-man frowned. He couldn’t help it.

“That’s Cheongdam-dong, though?”

One of Korea’s representative wealthy neighborhoods and one of the most famous neighborhoods. A neighborhood where the price per square meter far exceeds hundreds of millions of won is Seoul’s Cheongdam-dong. The perpetrator lives around such a place?

“You don’t think the perpetrator is Chinese, do you?”

“Yes? Honestly, there’s a possibility…”

“As I said last time, this is a realization of a kind of fantasy.”

The rumor that Chinese people eat human flesh is somewhat false. Of course, they may have eaten it at one time, but at least now there’s no reason to do so.

“That’s why the police determined that the Oh Won-chun case was not a case of cannibalism regarding the Oh Won-chun case in the past.”

Of course, the actions he committed were so suspicious and behaviorally incomprehensible. But even if Oh Won-chun divided the body like that, he had no countermeasures regarding storage methods, so the police could not conclude that it was a case of cannibalism.