My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 498

“Of course, that would be easier.”

But Song Won-nam’s family weighs on my mind. They must have been longing for their lost daughter and granddaughter their whole lives.

“It would be easier to forget if she had died… Wait a minute? What if she did die?”

“Pardon?”

“Maybe there’s a way.”

Park Do-joon’s eyes gleamed.

Showing such obsession as to kidnap and raise a child usually stems from a significant psychological shock. But why does that shock occur?

“It’s unlikely someone would suddenly decide to raise a child after breaking up with their spouse or lover one day.”

“So, there must have been a divorce lawsuit?”

“It’s highly likely. More precisely, they divorced due to the shock of losing their child.”

Jung Yi-yeon nodded as she listened to Park Do-joon’s words.

“That kind of thing probably happens quite often. As you said, many people are severely shocked.”

“Oppa? Out of the blue? Last time, you called me sunbae [senior/mentor]?”

“I just changed the title for the novelty of our relationship. How is it?”

“Out of the blue?”

“They say you start with ‘Oppa, Oppa’ and end up with ‘Dad, Dad’.”

Park Do-joon chuckled at that. It wasn’t wrong.

“Well, I thought it would be ridiculous to keep calling you sunbae even as we get older.”

“Oppa isn’t a title to call someone when they get old either, is it?”

“When we get old, I’ll call you Dad, and when we get even older, I’ll call you my nemesis.”

Park Do-joon nodded at Jung Yi-yeon’s words, who smiled as if she knew the future. The change in titles that define a relationship is, in a way, a natural thing.

“Well, let’s leave that to our future selves and focus on the case now. Can you find divorce cases from 16 years ago?”

“To be honest, it’s ambiguous. The court has almost all the records, but you know how many divorces there are in a year? It’s no joke.”

Divorces are overflowing even in normal families, so should we write down that it’s a family that divorced after losing their child and being shocked?

Every time they see their husband or wife, they don’t feel love but long for their lost child, which makes it difficult.

“At least there are records of divorce lawsuits, but even we can’t access agreed divorces [divorces by mutual consent].”

“I see.”

It is impossible to know whether a divorced person went through a divorce lawsuit or an agreed divorce.

“Judging from the aftermath of the shock, it seems like they had a divorce lawsuit rather than an agreed divorce.”

“But how do you know they divorced?”

“Logically, it’s impossible to raise a child without divorcing.”

For a man and a woman to kidnap and raise a child together without divorcing? Even if one of them accidentally kidnapped the child, the other would not accept it.

“Maybe they could say they found the child and raised them?”

“If that were the case, an adoption would have taken place.”

“Ah!”

Even if it’s an abandoned child, it’s legally not allowed to raise them arbitrarily. Once a child is found, it must be reported to the police and then entrusted to a childcare facility.

After that, only when the child’s parents cannot be found can adopters take the child and formally adopt them.

“But there’s no record of a police report. So, we should assume they didn’t go through the adoption process.”

Jung Yi-yeon nodded at Park Do-joon’s words.

“Then the culprit must be a woman.”

“Probably.”

If it were a man, he couldn’t be the culprit. This is because Korea does not accept birth registrations made by men. A mother’s birth registration is accepted even if it’s a solo registration. However, if the mother abandons the child without registering the birth, the father cannot register the birth.

The government’s law firmly refuses the registration, as if it’s okay for such a child not to go to school, hospital, or even have a social life, so a man can never be the culprit.

“We need something to start digging into the cases from that time. Even if I’m a lawyer, I can’t access all the data. Moreover, there’s more than just one or two such cases.”

“Would a name and resident registration number be enough?”

“No, where would you get that?”

“Pardon? Sunbae? Have you already figured out the culprit?”

Park Do-joon shook his head at those words.

“No, that’s not it. But there’s a place where it’s possible.”

“Where is that?”

“A funeral home or crematorium.”

“Funeral home? Crematorium?”

“No one buries their own child after they die.”

“Ah……”

It’s a cruel and miserable reality, but that’s the truth. Countless funerals take place every day, but isn’t the most miserable and painful place the one where a child is lost?

“But would records from 16 years ago still be there?”

“There wouldn’t be paper records. But the computer system is different.”

Park Do-joon said, hoping for a possibility.

“Computer systems have a longer lifespan than you think.”

There are numerous funeral homes across the country. And since the 2000s, almost all funeral homes have been computerized.

But that doesn’t mean the computers have been upgraded to the latest models.

“But they wouldn’t be using a 16-year-old computer, would they?”

Jung Yi-yeon asked Park Do-joon, curious, while waiting at the funeral home.

“Of course not. But computers evolve.”

When something goes wrong with the computer and data needs to be transferred, it’s rare to check and transfer each file individually. They just copy everything at once.

“And it’s not like the programs used in funeral homes are high-capacity programs.”

They don’t use main servers or central servers.

A hard disk is enough.

“And even if they move data due to insufficient capacity, computer capacity is enormous.”

1 gigabyte was an enormous capacity 16 years ago, but nowadays, 1 terabyte, which is 1,000 times that, is commonly used in households.

“In that situation, they don’t check and delete each file while transferring.”

Of course, there is a legally required retention period. But that usually applies to paper documents. Because paper documents take up space. So, as time passes, it becomes obvious that they are taking up space. But digital information is not like that at all.

So, unless there’s a situation where they have to delete it, they often leave it on the computer system without thinking much about it.

“Large corporations have programs that automatically delete data after a certain period for legal protection, but funeral homes wouldn’t have that.”

“Where do you even come up with those ideas, sunbae?”

Lee Ji-soo asked, amazed.

She had never even thought about funeral homes.

“It just comes with experience.”

“There’s only a year difference between you and me……”

Park Do-joon scratched his head at Lee Ji-soo’s gloomy words.

‘That’s not true.’

But he couldn’t say that he had knowledge of the future in his head.

“Thank you for waiting.”

The man who came inside at that moment. The employee managing this funeral home scratched his head, looking troubled.

“Is it really okay to give you this?”

“It’s for cooperation. If you’re uneasy, can you just give us the address?”

“Ugh!”

The man hesitated at those words. In fact, even ordinary people know about the Personal Information Protection Act [a law protecting personal data]. But he couldn’t refuse, as they said it was to find a child who disappeared 16 years ago, so he couldn’t help but hesitate.

“If you get sued in connection with this case, we’ll provide free legal representation.”

Jung Yi-yeon also said, as if giving a definite answer, and the man finally made up his mind and said.

“Well, we checked on our end, and it turns out there are records from 16 years ago.”

“As expected.”

He thought that if it wasn’t photos or anything like that, but just an Excel file organized by date, it would definitely be there.

“And at that time, there were over 100 people who held funerals for their children, based on the criteria of minors.”

“What? That many?”

Jung Yi-yeon was surprised at those words. Then the man sighed deeply.

“The world…… is so cruel.”

Numerous children die every year due to illness, traffic accidents, or other accidents. Most people just turn away from it because it’s too painful.

“It’s truly the most painful funeral.”

The man said that and continued to speak.

“There were even more 16 years ago. There were more kids back then than now. Among them, there were about 70 cases of girls dying.”

“The child will be young. A newborn or under two years old.”

“Then it decreases significantly……”

The reason Park Do-joon said that is simple. Obsession is manifested towards someone similar to the lost object.

Serial killers who commit substitute revenge usually choose victims similar to the revenge target.

That obsession wouldn’t be manifested towards a newborn if the child was over three years old.

“It will be a daughter.”

“Then…… um, there are three people.”

The man said that and circled three places on the printout he had brought.

“These are the only three funerals for girls under two years old 16 years ago.”

And there were the parents’ contact numbers written there.

“Is this really a child abduction case?”

“We don’t know. This is practically a mental illness.”

“Mental illness……”

Knowing that it’s not their daughter but being forced to do so due to the manifestation of obsession.

That’s why this is strictly speaking a mental illness.

“Hoo, I understand. I can’t give you this whole thing, but I’ll write down the contents.”

Because it was printed all at once and contained other people’s personal information, he took the paper and wrote down the personal information to hand it over.

Park Do-joon stared intently at the paper.

# Everyone’s Tragedy

With the resident registration number and name confirmed, checking the divorce history was not difficult.

“I checked the contents. Two couples are divorced. One couple is not divorced.”

“It seems they had other children.”

“Maybe.”

Jung Yi-yeon checked the divorce status based on the resident registration number and name and brought the relevant files.

“So, we can exclude the people who are not divorced, right?”

“That’s right.”

There’s no reason to raise someone else’s child while living with her husband without getting a divorce.

“Sunbae, but there’s still something I don’t understand.”

“What is it?”

“In the end, there’s a fundamental problem.”

“You mean how they brought the child?”

“Yes, that’s right. In fact, even if there’s a real child, you can’t do a DNA test without any suspicion.”

“That’s certainly true.”

This is a very sensitive issue. Requiring a DNA test from an individual is a serious matter, and the court usually doesn’t issue such an order unless it’s absolutely necessary. Even if they do, there must be a valid reason.

“Besides, the child is still a minor, right?”

“That’s also true.”

The child is sixteen years old now. Still a high school student.

Job is Profiler