You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 338

You Have Been Defended

The fact that Go Sang-jun had previously told Kim Hwa-young that he would divorce Yoon Seong-hee bothered me.

Even if Go Sang-jun truly loved Kim Hwa-young, he wasn’t the type of person to give up everything he had for love alone.

“I think we need to check with Kim Hwa-young. See if she ever threatened Go Sang-jun or told him it was over.”

She was said to have bipolar disorder.

This was said to have intensified her obsession with Go Sang-jun.

She must have said those words to Go Sang-jun countless times.

When searching for the cause of depression, it’s common to spiral downwards endlessly until hitting rock bottom.

Among those she thought had ruined her life would unfortunately have been her son, Kim Chan-young, her agency’s CEO, and Go Sang-jun.

When she was depressed, she probably resented everyone around her, but when she felt better, she would apologize and act innocent, wanting to get along.

And now, today’s article has broken.

To tell her that Go Sang-jun said he would divorce her because she kept nagging him would only push her further down.

“Today isn’t the right time. Because the article just came out.”

No matter how much we anticipate it, we need to confirm if that’s really the case to be sure.

First, we should contact Kim Chan-young to check on Kim Hwa-young from time to time.

“Let’s say Go Sang-jun really did this. But there’s no better way than Go Sang-jun helping us. So, let’s say we know but just let Go Sang-jun handle the aftermath. Wouldn’t everything end up the way Go Sang-jun wants? Go Sang-jun would achieve his goal. Even if Kim Hwa-young knows it’s Go Sang-jun’s doing and lets it happen, she’ll be too scared of this happening again to end things with Go Sang-jun.”

Kang Min-jae stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

“Go Sang-jun wrote the script, directed it, and acted in it. We’re letting this movie be a hit. Is it okay to just let this happen?”

“We need to assess the situation before jumping in.”

“Since when have we done that?”

“Kang, what do you think justice is?”

Kang Min-jae paused for a moment, lost in thought.

“…I’ve been asked this question so many times—in college, at the training institute, even after becoming a prosecutor—but I still can’t find the words to answer. But well, isn’t it about preventing bad guys from running rampant and ensuring innocent people aren’t wrongly accused? In that sense, Go Sang-jun too…”

“Then, if someone who doesn’t have the will to sacrifice for the sake of realizing that justice has to be sacrificed, do you think we should realize it even by sacrificing them?”

“…”

“If it were you, Kang, you’d obviously want to reveal Go Sang-jun’s crime, even if it meant exposing some of your own flaws. I’m the same. But what about Kim Hwa-young? Is it okay because Kim Hwa-young isn’t a righteous person?”

“Well…”

“Is it justice to sacrifice someone as you please just because they’re not righteous?”

“…That’s not it.”

“That’s why I can’t touch it. I thought you’d understand?”

“I know too. I know, but I wish I didn’t know. I hate that I have to turn a blind eye now that I do!”

Kang Min-jae shouted.

I feel the same way.

“There is a way.”

“What way?”

“We don’t necessarily have to be Kim Hwa-young’s lawyers to break this case.”

“…That’s true. Come to think of it, we couldn’t handle it because we were worried it would reveal that Kim Hwa-young is currently on trial as a defendant. But that’s already been reported in the news. So, can’t we just act like we smelled something fishy and are digging into it? Of course, we’d need evidence…”

The fact that Kim Hwa-young is Go Sang-jun’s mistress is a flaw Go Sang-jun doesn’t want to reveal either.

Of course, it’s a fact I don’t want to reveal either.

It’s rare that Go Sang-jun and I want to protect the same thing, so the conditions for a fight aren’t bad.

“First, we need to be sure if it’s really Go Sang-jun’s doing, or Yoon Seong-hee’s, or a third party’s.”

“It looks like Go Sang-jun’s doing no matter how you look at it.”

“That’s just a hunch. But as I said, we can’t reveal Kim Hwa-young and Go Sang-jun’s relationship, nor Yoon Seong-hee’s. So, we have to handle objective information without any inside information.”

“Is there any starting point? We need a clue to start the investigation.”

“First, the informant. The person who first reported it to the police. They said it was one of the employees.”

“Yes, they did.”

“I have a feeling that person was at the scene of the incident that day.”

“You mean the employee Go Sang-jun mentioned, the one who was caught on CCTV and can’t be reached?”

“Yes.”

Go Sang-jun said he saw CCTV footage of one of the employees entering the house around the time the murder was presumed to have occurred.

But he concluded that the culprit was someone from the household, so that employee is probably a witness.

Go Sang-jun tried to find that person and make them the culprit, but it seems he failed.

But he won’t stop looking for that person.

Even if he puts forward a fake real culprit to free Kim Hwa-young, there’s no telling when that employee might appear and blurt out that it was someone from the household.

He’ll try to find them to silence them.

“Then there’s a high probability that that person reported it to the police when the housekeeper went missing, fearing that the death would be buried and treated as a disappearance.”

“That’s right.”

“But if that person witnessed it, they would have known that Kim Hwa-young didn’t do it. So why did they hand over the photos of Kim Hwa-young and the housekeeper fighting to the police?”

“I don’t know.”

I paused for a moment and smoked a cigarette.

When there aren’t many clues, considering all the possibilities we can think of is something we always do.

I also think it’s necessary.

But on the other hand, I don’t really like it.

Because when we get caught up in that thought, we tend to make the mistake of fitting clues into the case we think is most likely when other clues appear.

But even so, I couldn’t help but say what came to mind.

“It could be a surprisingly simple reason.”

“What reason?”

“That person didn’t think much of it. They just wanted to report that someone had been murdered, and if that house couldn’t be searched because it was Kim Hwa-young’s private property, then presenting the possibility that Kim Hwa-young murdered the housekeeper would force a search. They didn’t care whether Kim Hwa-young was framed or not.”

“Hmm… that could be it. But, Go Sang-jun searched the house first, right? The body wasn’t found then, but it reappeared when the search and seizure came. We’ve been thinking that Go Sang-jun or Yoon Seong-hee moved it and then put it back…”

“It could be that informant’s doing?”

“That’s right. Because the informant would naturally be an employee, and as an employee, they would have known that the body wasn’t found in that house. But they deliberately reported it to the police and made them search the house?”

“That informant could have moved the body and then put it back.”

“Yes. Ha, but this is getting a bit far from Go Sang-jun’s plan… The informant did too much.”

The reason I thought that the employee who couldn’t be reached was the informant is simple.

If we only know the content of the photos the informant handed over to the police, we can roughly pinpoint the date the photos were taken.

Then, we can also find out who was working that day.

Also, we can even identify who took the photos through CCTV.

They must have obtained confidentiality agreements from the people hired at the Jo Yeon-dong villa.

Whether that worked in Go Sang-jun’s favor or not, it’s a breach of contract.

Go Sang-jun would have found that person and held them accountable somehow.

If so, Kim Chan-young would have known too.

But Kim Chan-young didn’t know who the informant was or who the employee who took the photos was.

There’s no way Go Sang-jun would have hidden this basic information from them.

So, in conclusion, he either couldn’t find that employee, or that employee disappeared.

In this situation, Go Sang-jun said there was an employee who was caught on CCTV but couldn’t be reached.

Therefore, there is a high probability that the informant and the employee who can’t be reached are the same person.

“Don’t fit clues into the expected scenario. It might not be Go Sang-jun’s doing after all. Or, Go Sang-jun might be trying to use it since the incident happened.”

“We need to find that employee. Go Sang-jun probably knows.”

“He’s probably searching everywhere.”

“We need to find that person too.”

* * *

The article about Kim Hwa-young that broke yesterday at dawn spread into tens of thousands of articles, combining the power of young people interested in the entertainment industry and middle-aged people who used to carry her pictures in their school bags.

Because people who knew even a little about the incident began to speak up one by one, stories about Kim Hwa-young and the housekeeper having a bad relationship even came out.

Of course, it goes without saying that the power was further intensified thanks to the media companies that visited the housekeeper’s bereaved family and requested interviews in a timely manner.

Even places commonly called small-time internet media were publishing articles, which I found very questionable.

If articles started coming out, they should have been preparing to block them immediately, but what was Go Sang-jun doing while tens of thousands of articles were being produced?

I wonder if he really tried to block the *Iljung Daily* article.

“Taekwang released an article. They’re asking to refrain from speculation.”

The content was obvious.

[Kim’s legal team said, ‘Kim Hwa-young did not murder the housekeeper and is shocked that the body was found in her home. Regarding the claim that they had a bad relationship, there were occasional disputes with the manager, but there were no major problems. That’s why the manager continued to work in that house for several years.’ They said that the truth will be revealed in court.]

The statement that the manager continued to work for several years because of this might rather make people feel resentful, but the important thing was not this part.

[‘Although it is cautious to speak about the deceased, the manager gave all the employees a vacation when Kim Hwa-young did not use the villa and acted like the owner of the house. He brought his boyfriend to spend time, sunbathed on the garden sunbed, swam in the swimming pool, took Kim Hwa-young’s car and went out for several days, and roamed around the house using Kim Hwa-young’s belongings, etc., acting outside the bounds of the manager’s duties. There was a dispute with Kim Hwa-young because of this, but there was no reason for Kim Hwa-young to murder the manager. All of this can be proven because CCTV evidence remains’]

“This doesn’t seem like a lie.”

I think the same way.

If it was just a simple claim, they wouldn’t have bothered to say that CCTV evidence remained.

If this claim is correct, it is understandable that the employees were not at home when the housekeeper died.

The housekeeper gave them a vacation the day before and told them to return by 6 o’clock.

“The time when the housekeeper died hasn’t been accurately determined. They just estimated the time of death based on the condition of the body.”

I said, looking at the article.

Then Kang Min-jae nodded.

“That’s right?”

“But the problem was that the housekeeper entered the house on CCTV and never came out again, and the missing person report was filed several days later.”

“Yes.”

“So, we really can’t know exactly when the housekeeper died, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But the only person who entered that house after the housekeeper entered was Kim Hwa-young.”

“Yes.”

“But according to Chan-young, Kim Hwa-young was supposed to meet Go Sang-jun at that house at 6 o’clock on the day the housekeeper was presumed to have died, and she went at 5 o’clock in advance. And the housekeeper gave the employees a vacation the day before and told them to return by 6 o’clock. So, the housekeeper and Kim Hwa-young were alone together for an hour.”

“So? What about it?”

“So, even if we assume that Kim Hwa-young was alone with the housekeeper during that one hour, if a murder occurred then, Kim Hwa-young would have heard something since she was at home. So, that’s not when the housekeeper died.”

“That’s right.”

“And then Kim Hwa-young would have met Go Sang-jun and left together. She said she sometimes stayed longer and left, but even if we assume that, the murder would have occurred after they both left the villa. So, when Kim Hwa-young and Go Sang-jun stayed at that house, and immediately after that. The employees should have been at that house too, right? She told them to return by then. So, there should be scenes of those people entering and leaving. But why isn’t there that, and there are scenes of Kim Hwa-young entering and leaving?”

Because the CCTV itself was manipulated, I didn’t even think about matching the time at first.

Above all, I didn’t ask them about the overall situation in detail, thinking that I would check it in detail if I took on the case.

But come to think of it, the part where Kim Chan-young said they were alone from 5 to 6 o’clock kept bothering me.

He’s right.

After that, the housekeeper was alive, and the employees also returned home at 6 o’clock and saw her alive and moving.

But why did the employees keep saying they weren’t at that house?