My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 88

“So, you said you’ve blocked his departure?”

“Yes. But I don’t know how long that will last.”

Park Do-joon rubbed his chin at those words.

‘This kind of situation is a bit of a dilemma.’

The profiler’s dilemma. This is because the faster a profiler catches a criminal, the weaker the punishment becomes.

Clearly, criminals should be caught quickly. But the problem is that the court often gives lenient punishments to criminals caught this way.

For example, if they catch someone who committed assault, the court might not punish them severely, instead issuing a fine and citing remorse and first-time offender status.

From a profiler’s perspective, they might believe this person is 100% likely to re-offend, but that assessment isn’t recognized in court.

And then the guy who paid the fine kills someone next time.

This is the profiler’s dilemma. If they catch them when the crime is minor, they aren’t properly punished. But if they wait until they commit a major crime, that means more victims. So, they can’t just leave them alone.

“This is a very dangerous situation. If we don’t catch him this time, we might never catch him for the rest of our lives.”

The team leader said with a serious face.

“Looking at Heo Kang-soo, he learns incredibly fast. He’ll probably learn from this failure too. Maybe next time, he might commit a crime completely outside the police’s view.”

There are actually criminals like that. The police are desperately denying it, but burying their heads in the sand like ostriches doesn’t make the reality disappear.

“Let’s start by finding evidence that he was involved.”

Currently, there was nothing else the profilers could do.

***

“It’s clean.”

Seo Joo-won, a forensic science officer, said to Park Do-joon, clicking his tongue.

“I searched the whole house like combing through it for lice, but there’s nothing.”

“To that extent?”

“Yes. Not a single fingerprint or strand of hair came out.”

“Even though he was in prison, there’s nothing… That makes it even more suspicious.”

“More suspicious?”

“Either way, this is Heo Kang-soo’s house.”

Of course, at least some trace of his DNA should be here normally. No matter how long it’s been empty, he would have come at least once after his release. But nothing came out?

“It seems like he’s keeping a thorough distance.”

Park Do-joon said, rubbing his chin while organizing his thoughts.

‘It seems like he designed this plan from inside the prison.’

Otherwise, there’s no reason not to come here. After his release, he had no power. According to the records, many followers visited him in the early days after he went to prison, but after the cult was taken over, the followers completely stopped coming.

After the Cosmic God Church changed to the Galaxy Cult, they thoroughly erased Heo Kang-soo.

“Detective Park.”

“Yes?”

“But does the position of the cult leader change that easily?”

“Yes?”

“No, I mean, isn’t that strange? I don’t understand how the cult leader, who used to control their lives, would be completely abandoned by his followers after going to prison, with a self-proclaimed successor taking over.”

“Ah, it seems that people who believe in this kind of religion have weak beliefs.”

“Weak beliefs?”

“Should I say they have no backbone? So they easily succumb to pressure from outside.”

“To the point of ignoring the person they used to worship as a god?”

Park Do-joon scratched his head at Seo Joo-won’s question.

“Of course, there are still people who haven’t betrayed him.”

“Ah, there are?”

“Yes. But they can’t come to the forefront.”

“Why?”

“Someone died in the Cosmic God Church. And the Galaxy Cult inherited that situation.”

“So?”

“If everything is the same and only the leader has changed, is that cult really a new cult?”

“I don’t understand?”

“Simply put, it means that those who purge heretics are still in power. They were probably the first to betray him.”

“Huh? Ah!”

Only then did Seo Joo-won realize what Park Do-joon was saying.

“If you’re labeled as a heretic, you become a target for purging.”

“That’s right.”

Even the former cult leader is a heretic from the current cult leader’s point of view. And these pseudo-religions absolutely cannot tolerate external defection.

“They can’t. The moment they allow external defection, the organization collapses.”

If fear and dread are removed from brainwashing, it’s not brainwashing. If you think you can get out of here at any time, and therefore you can contact the outside world, the possibility of that person coming to their senses increases infinitely.

“Ah, I remember. Something similar happened at church when I was young. That church was weird…”

“What was weird?”

“I moved after attending that church. So I started attending another church, and suddenly the elders came and made a fuss, telling me to come back.”

But realistically, it was difficult to go to a church that took an hour by public transportation, especially for Seo Joo-won, who was an elementary school student at the time.

“But my parents said it didn’t matter because God is everywhere, so they suddenly branded my parents as heretics.”

“Really? Churches usually don’t do that?”

“It turned out that the pastor of that church was a fraud. He wasn’t even a real pastor. He was a pretty famous one, though.”

“A famous pastor is a fraud?”

“Park Geon-yeong, you’ll know him.”

“Ah, isn’t that the pastor who tortured people?”

“That’s right. My parents didn’t know, but they were horrified when they found out later.”

Park Geon-yeong.

A notorious figure known for torture during the Fifth Republic [a period of authoritarian rule in South Korea], he was a man who tortured, killed, and raped the people he captured at that time.

When the regime changed and he couldn’t do that anymore, he suddenly became a pastor, but he didn’t graduate from a proper theological university and received pastor qualifications from a strange pseudo-religious group to act as a pastor.

He became known as the torture pastor only after he appeared on the news later.

In fact, he ran the church like a pseudo-religious group while working as a pastor, and caused many assault incidents inside.

“But I don’t know why these pseudo-religions all use the name of the church. Frankly, it makes Christians feel bad.”

“It’s because of the doctrine and system.”

“Doctrine and system?”

“Yes. Other religions are centralized.”

Catholicism and Buddhism also collect all the profits in the center and then redistribute them to provide salaries and operating expenses to balance the organization.

On the other hand, Christianity is not.

“If other religions are franchises, Christianity is a personal store. It’s okay to create factions as you please.”

In the case of Catholicism, in order to become a priest, you have to graduate from a related university, study, and undergo a long period of training before being recognized as a priest. Buddhism also requires a long period of training before you can put your name on the Buddhist register, but Christianity does not have such a centrally controlled organization.

“As a result, anyone can become a pastor in Christianity. That Park Geon-yeong guy seems to have used the church for that reason.”

Of course, there are denominations like the Presbyterian Church that act as a center, but due to the nature of Christianity, which does not have a centralized organization, there is no way to stop you from building your own church and naming it a new denomination.

“Was it the Cheonil faction? Anyway, it was something like that.”

“It’s probably like that.”

Park Do-joon also remembers that incident. The Cheonil faction was a denomination that advertised that it would give pastor qualifications after completing a thousand days of hard training. A thousand days is close to three years, so if you study that much, you can be recognized as a pastor.

But the funny thing is that there is an express course in that Cheonil faction, and if you complete it, you are treated as if you have completed a thousand days. And the duration of that express course is only 30 days.

Park Geon-yeong was also a guy who took lectures in that express course.

“Is that so? I don’t like it.”

Seo Joo-won said, looking at the scene once again.

“There’s nothing to get here for now.”

“Were there no call records either?”

“There are suspicious call records. But it was a burner phone.”

If it’s a burner phone, it’s likely that Heo Kang-soo used it.

Then it will be impossible to track it.

By now, Heo Kang-soo would have thrown it away.

“Can’t we catch this guy?”

“For now…….”

Park Do-joon frowned and said.

“We have to change direction and investigate.”

“Another direction?”

“Yes. The Galaxy Church.”

“Isn’t that over?”

The guy who testified to the crime had died of cancer.

“To be exact, only one person died. And the rest are still in prison.”

There were a total of three people involved in the murder.

One of them died, and two are still alive.

“But they’ve already taken the blame, so will they testify now? It’s been a while, but…….”

Due to the nature of religious crimes, that ideology cannot collapse.

“I know. But there will be a way.”

One possibility was lingering in Park Do-joon’s mind.

***

Park Do-joon and Kim Seong-gyun came to see the man who was suspected of taking the blame for the murder at that time.

“That’s what I did.”

Park Do-joon blinked and stared at the man who was still speaking with a confident look.

“Haven’t you been in prison for several years already? If you tell the truth now, you can be released.”

“I committed that crime. I told you where the body was, didn’t I?”

“Simple involvement is different from directly committing murder.”

“I punished that guy. He’s the one who disgraced our cult. Punishing him is our mission.”

“Ugh, I’m going crazy.”

Kim Seong-gyun spoke and looked at Park Do-joon. For some reason, this time he was telling him to do the interrogation, and Park Do-joon wasn’t saying a word.

“I’ll ask again. Who was the main culprit at that time?”

“Let’s stop.”

Park Do-joon stopped Kim Seong-gyun from asking again.

“It’s no use.”

‘His faith hasn’t collapsed? Well, there are things that you can’t touch even in prison.’

For example, even if it’s a religious case, you can’t forcibly convert a prisoner in prison.

‘When hardship comes, they usually break their beliefs, but conversely, there are guys who hone them.’

And the man in front of him is a typical example of the latter. Rather, there is a slight excitement on his face.

‘He’s seeing this situation as evidence to prove his faith.’

No matter how much you tell this guy to tell the truth, it’s useless.

“Then I’ll ask just one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Where are the other victims?”

The man’s eyes seemed to shake slightly at those words.

Park Do-joon caught that like lightning. Then he pushed even harder.

“Are you going to let the victims of the past case rot like that, and the other victims too? Do you have no conscience? Is that what your god tells you to do?”

“Nonsense!”

“Listen to the voice of your conscience. You have to let the other victims have a funeral too.”

“There are no other victims.”

The man drew a firm line.