My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 497

“Then it’s even less likely to be a grudge.”

“Probably.”

People would notice if someone with a grudge was loitering in the hallway with the intention of kidnapping a child.

“Then how do we track this?”

“Well….”

Park Do-joon pondered, then suddenly looked at someone entering the apartment.

“Could it really be someone who went looking for them?”

“Pardon?”

“No, I suddenly have this doubt. Is it really someone who went looking?”

“You said it was someone who went looking and committed the crime impulsively, right?”

“That’s what I thought.”

It’s certainly highly probable. But looking at the records from that time, the police definitely followed basic procedures. Just because the profiler’s direction was wrong doesn’t mean they completely abandoned the case.

The police definitely followed the most basic rules back then.

“There were no CCTV cameras around, right?”

“Yes.”

“How far?”

“Pardon?”

“How far were there none?”

The record states that there were no CCTV cameras around, so they couldn’t track the perpetrator’s movements.

“But even so, there should have been one at the entrance, right?”

“I suppose so?”

Even in older apartments that don’t install many cameras, it’s common to have at least one at the entrance.

“Even if not, it’s absurd to say there were none in between.”

Of course, there were often no CCTV cameras even in corridor-style apartments, so even if we concede that there were none, there’s still another problem.

“They couldn’t find any suspicious signs on any of the surrounding CCTV cameras.”

“Isn’t it highly likely they used a vehicle?”

“A vehicle….”

It’s certainly highly likely they used a vehicle. But is that really the end of it?

Park Do-joon thought for a moment and said,

“I told you, sometimes what’s missing is more important.”

“Pardon?”

“I need to meet with the police officer in charge.”

“Do Go-bong? That guy won’t help us, will he?”

The case they’re investigating now is a long-term unsolved case that occurred because of his incompetence. He had a chance to catch the serial rapist, but he didn’t use a profiler due to personal aversion, and in the end, he had his achievements stolen by someone else, exposing his incompetence to the world.

In that situation, would he even meet with them?

“Of course, Do Go-bong wouldn’t meet with us. Do Go-bong was the commanding officer in charge of the case at the time, but he wasn’t the only police officer, was he?”

“Ah!”

“So, we need to ask around.”

Park Do-joon said, his eyes gleaming.

“Ah, that case! I remember it too. Couldn’t solve it and just got frustrated. Sigh~!”

A police officer who had been around for a while shook his head.

“We did everything we could to find them back then.”

“Did Do Go-bong not interfere?”

“Don’t even mention it. If that bastard hadn’t done such stupid things when setting the direction of the investigation, we might have found them.”

“What did he say?”

“He insisted it was a kidnapping for money and told us to just shake down the surroundings [interrogate people in the vicinity].”

Generally, kidnappings for money are often committed by people nearby, so it wasn’t entirely wrong, but that didn’t mean it was 100% correct.

“So, there weren’t that many CCTV cameras back then?”

“There are a lot more now. Back then, that neighborhood wasn’t really a place where CCTV cameras would be installed. It was a pretty poor neighborhood.”

People think there are many CCTV cameras in poor neighborhoods because they think there are more thieves.

But in reality, there are more CCTV cameras in wealthy neighborhoods. It’s not just a twisted mentality to protect wealthy neighborhoods. In reality, criminals also aim for big profits in one go when they steal.

In poor neighborhoods, it’s hard to get even a few tens of thousands of won [Korean currency] from a house, but in wealthy homes, you can get hundreds of millions of won if you do it right. Naturally, the opportunity cost for a thief is much greater in wealthy homes.

Most of the incidents that occur in poor areas are petty livelihood crimes of stealing small food items, so there’s not much reason to install CCTV cameras on main roads.

“But there wouldn’t be none at all, right? There are some along the roads, aren’t there?”

“There were.”

“You checked the vehicles that were moving around at that time, right? Didn’t you investigate those vehicles? There probably weren’t many vehicles moving around at that time, right?”

It wasn’t rush hour, and it wasn’t a time when many people would be out and about.

There were no attractions or commercial districts nearby, so there wouldn’t have been many vehicles entering or leaving the old corridor-style apartment at that time.

‘And they don’t leave records of investigating those vehicles.’

They only record important records or records that have an impact on the case. They don’t record vehicle checks or searches.

‘Especially if there’s no suspicion.’

“Vehicle records from that time? Of course, we checked them all.”

“You didn’t just check by phone, did you?”

“We went and checked the vehicles that had suspicious points.”

And Park Do-joon couldn’t help but sigh at that. Because this was a serious problem.

‘This is driving me crazy.’

Vehicles with ‘suspicious points.’ But the problem here is the ‘suspicious points.’ That is, they only checked vehicles suspected of being likely to commit a crime.

But from the beginning, Do Go-bong drew a line and investigated the crime as a child abduction for money. In such cases, the types that come up on the list of suspects are obvious.

“You investigated mainly men, right?”

“Isn’t that obvious? You don’t think a woman would kidnap and kill a child, do you?”

‘He’s still like this.’

There was a similar case in the past. They tracked down the perpetrator who kidnapped a child and were right in front of them, but the perpetrator happened to be a pregnant woman.

The police were suspicious but let her go, thinking, ‘Surely a pregnant woman wouldn’t be the perpetrator?’ In the end, the child was found murdered.

Of course, the child didn’t die because of the police’s incompetence since she was already dead. But the wrong direction of the investigation causes such serious problems.

“So, you didn’t investigate female drivers.”

“There was no reason to. What would a woman use a kidnapped child for? Even if they were going to traffic them, it would mostly be men doing it.”

‘So… that’s the stereotype.’

Park Do-joon smiled bitterly. As expected, he could see from which point things had gone wrong.

“So, there are no materials left from that time?”

“No.”

There’s no evidence, no vehicle numbers, and no CCTV footage left.

Park Do-joon couldn’t help but sigh at the fact that there was nothing left.

“This is driving me crazy.”

No matter how much he rummaged through the case, there were no clues to track.

“Isn’t this a case they deliberately assigned to screw with you, Senior [referring to a senior colleague]?”

Lee Ji-soo, who had been through this many times, asked that question, wondering if there was anything at all.

“That’s probably not it. They don’t interfere now, even if they don’t help.”

They don’t attack first unless Park Do-joon provokes them. The higher-ups are starting to realize that now.

That’s why the police’s upper echelons are trying not to provoke Park Do-joon if possible.

“There’s no reason to provoke me in that situation. Besides, if I say I give up on this case, that’s the end of it.”

In reality, it was a case that had been left unsolved for a whopping 16 years. As such, even if Park Do-joon said he couldn’t do it, the police superiors couldn’t say anything.

“They probably assigned it to me with the feeling of grasping at straws.”

“It’s too difficult for that, though.”

“Tell me about it.”

If the incident hadn’t happened so long ago, there would have been CCTV footage left, and if they had only had that, they would have tried to track it down somehow, but the problem was that the police had erased all the footage related to the people who had investigated it at the time because there were no suspicious points.

“You still think the perpetrator is a woman, Senior?”

“Yes, it’s highly likely.”

If the perpetrator was a man or if it was a kidnapping for money as Do Go-bong said, the police should have found something. But the fact that there’s nothing means that the direction was wrong.

“Then how about looking through the hospital records from that time? You said it’s likely the perpetrator has depression, right?”

“They won’t give it to us. And there probably aren’t any.”

It’s been a whopping 16 years. The statute of limitations for storing hospital medical records has passed, and even if there are any, medical records are considered a very serious area within personal information, so you need a court warrant to receive them unconditionally.

“And you can only get a warrant issued if it’s completely specific.”

“I guess that’s true too.”

A request for records of patients with depression at that time would never be accepted by the court unless they were crazy.

To get a warrant, an individual must be identified, and evidence that the individual is suspicious must be submitted at the same time.

“Then how about judging based on the current situation?”

“The current situation?”

“Yes, child abuse or….”

Park Do-joon shook his head at that.

“That’s ambiguous too.”

“Why?”

“You said that because you don’t think the kidnapper loves the child, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But how can you be sure of that?”

“Pardon?”

“Obsession is also a form of affection. It’s just that the form is twisted beyond recognition.”

Whether it’s a momentary and accidental act or a planned one, if they kidnap and raise a child, they’re likely to have an obsession beyond imagination. Would such a person neglect, abuse, and torment the child?

“It’s a very one-dimensional judgment to think that kidnappers will torment children.”

It’s a perpetrator who craved an object to give affection to. Would they abuse the object of their affection?

“There are actually cases where child kidnappers are caught very late.”

And according to the testimonies of the victims who were raised as their children, they all felt that they had received enough love.

So, there were a lot of people who were shocked by the fact that they had been kidnapped.

“Of course, not all kidnappers raise children with love.”

But that usually happens when they kidnap for other purposes and it goes wrong, so they can’t kill or abandon them and raise them.

“The victim probably doesn’t even know that they were kidnapped.”

“Then what about women raising daughters alone? You could find out about that at the community center.”

“That’s too broad.”

First of all, the community center won’t give it to us, and even if they did, there would be more than one or two such people. If you ask them to specify the exact time when they started living and raising the child alone, they’ll be even less likely to give it to you.

“Besides, since they’ve committed a crime, they wouldn’t try to receive government support or anything like that.”

Park Do-joon thought so and considered various variables.

‘Obsession. Craving for the provision of affection. Loss….’

“There’s really no answer. That’s why they couldn’t find them for 16 years. Let’s just drop it, Senior.”

Lee Ji-soo shook her head, thinking there was no answer either.