Police tape is set up on Aug. 25 near the site in Jeju Island where the body of Jang Mi-ran was found 104 days after she went missing.NEWS1
Police failed to preserve a key piece of evidence in the Jang Mi-ran case — the original recording of the call to report her missing.
The call by Jang's boyfriend on May 15 expired in the police's emergency call logs, as recordings are retained for only three months, said the office of People Power Party (PPP) Rep. Joo Jin-woo on Wednesday.
The deletion has drawn scrutiny because police had already begun investigating an officer at Jeju Seobu Police Station over the handling of Jang's missing persons report.
Police booked the officer on Aug. 11 on allegations of falsely closing the case and launched a formal investigation. The investigative team, however, reportedly neither extended the retention period for the recording nor separately secured a copy before it was deleted.
The failure has given rise to criticism that police allowed a recording central to the case to be deleted despite opening an investigation into the officer.
Jang's boyfriend initially reported her missing to police at 6:43 p.m. on May 15, saying that his girlfriend — whom he lived with — had left on May 13 and had not returned.
About two and a half hours after the report came in, at around 9:11 p.m., the officer who fielded the call requested to close the case. The officer reportedly said that they had contacted Jang and had been told she was safe.
A police officer surnamed Bu, who was accused of falsely closing the missing persons case involving Jang Mi-ran, leaves the Jeju District Court on Aug. 25.NEWS1
The officer reported to the police emergency call center that Jang had declined to meet and had asked that information including her location not be disclosed to the person who reported her missing, records show.
A second attempt by Jang's boyfriend to report her missing last month was dismissed due to the previous case closure. A new search began only after another family member subsequently filed a report.
Jang was found dead Monday at a palm tree farm in Hallim-eup, Jeju.
Police said the deletion of the original audio recording would not impede the investigation.
"We can confirm both that the report was made and what was reported through the emergency call case report," a police official said. "We have already secured the materials needed to establish the allegations, so there will be no difficulty in investigating."
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
