The father of a Jeonbuk National University veterinary student who went missing 20 years ago has been indicted on charges including defamation after he repeatedly identified a classmate of his daughter as the suspect in her disappearance.
The Jeonju District Prosecutors' Office's Criminal Division 2, led by chief prosecutor Lee Gyeong-seok, announced Thursday that Lee Dong-se, 90, the father of the missing woman, Lee Yun-hee, and a YouTuber identified only by his surname Park, 54, had been indicted without detention on charges of defamation and violations of the Act on Punishment of Stalking Crimes.
Lee and Park are accused of spreading false information on SNS from 2024 through recently, identifying a classmate of Yun-hee's — referred to only as A — as the perpetrator of the disappearance.
They also face charges of sustained stalking, including placing a life-size cutout of Yun-hee along A's commute route and staging one-person protests outside A's workplace.
A court issued an order in April last year prohibiting the two from approaching A under the stalking law's provisional measure No. 2. Even after that order, however, they continued making claims that A was responsible for the disappearance.
A's legal representative said A had helped Yun-hee's father distribute missing-person flyers immediately after the disappearance and had wanted more than anyone to find her. "Does it make any sense to now suspect someone who helped with the search of being the perpetrator?" the representative said.
A has declined interview requests since the case drew renewed attention but conveyed that the situation had been deeply distressing. "I have been in great pain from all of this," A said.
Yun-hee disappeared on June 5, 2006, while enrolled in the veterinary program at Jeonbuk National University. She had attended an end-of-semester gathering that evening with about 40 professors and classmates, then returned to her studio apartment 1.5 kilometers from the venue in the early hours of the following morning. She has not been seen since.
In the immediate aftermath of the disappearance, police failed to properly preserve the scene and did not stop Yun-hee's friends from tidying up her apartment. It was also confirmed that someone accessed her computer a week after she vanished, but investigators were unable to determine how or by whom.
Lee lost his youngest daughter when he was in his late 60s and spent his 70s and 80s entirely focused on finding her. He believes she is alive somewhere. With no trace of Yun-hee found, time has continued to pass, and those close to her — including family members and A — have endured prolonged suffering.
Meanwhile, Korean National Police Agency statistics show that an average of 72,446 adult disappearances — involving people aged 18 and older — were reported annually between 2018 and 2023. Of those, nearly 1,500 cases each year involved long-term missing persons who had vanished without a trace and were not runaways, including some who were later found dead.
betterj@heraldcorp.com
