Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
Imagine waking one morning to find out that five boys from your neighborhood have gone missing. Wouldn’t that be devastating? This is exactly what happened to residents from a South Korean village on the outskirts of Daegu city when five boys mysteriously vanished on a national holiday…
Imagine waking one morning to find out that five boys from your neighborhood have gone missing. Wouldn’t that be devastating? This is exactly what happened to residents from a South Korean village on the outskirts of Daegu city when five boys mysteriously vanished on a national holiday…
But by the time the sun sets, little did U Cheol-won, Jo Ho-yeon, Kim Yeong-gyu, Park Chan-in, and Kim Jong-sik know that this would be the last day they would ever be seen alive again… The families of these five boys lived close together in a village on the outskirts of Daegu. Because the houses encircled each other, the children would spend most of their time together playing near the paddy field that was in front of the village. The boys saw each other as brothers.
They had grown up together, and so, would always go out on adventures as a team! Because March 26th was a holiday, the boys woke up much later than usual. By around 8 or 9 am, these 6 kids from Seongseo Elementary School were playing around Ho-Yeon Jo’s house, one of the residents of the village.
The Frog Boys (Korean: 개구리소년, Gaegurisonyeon) were a group of five young boys who disappeared in Daegu,
North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea, on March 26, 1991
Woo Cheol-won, Jo Ho-yeon, Kim Young-gyu, Park Chan-in and Kim Jong-sik, aged between 9 and 13 years old, disappeared after searching for salamander eggs in the western outskirts of Daegu on a public holiday. Their disappearance received widespread attention and caused a national media frenzy, and South Korean President Roh Tae-woo ordered a massive manhunt by the police and military to find them.
On September 26, 2002, the remains of the boys were discovered near where they vanished, with some showing signs of blunt-force trauma. The investigation has been inconclusive and theories abound regarding the circumstances of their deaths. The case remains unsolved.
The Frog Boys were aged between 9 and 13 years old
Woo Cheol-won (aged 13)
Jo Ho-yeon (aged 12)
Kim Yeong-gyu (aged 11)
Park Chan-in (aged 10)
Kim Jong-sik (aged 9)
All five boys were from the Dalseo District of Daegu, North Gyeongsang Province, and attended the same elementary school. On the morning of the disappearance, a sixth child, nine-year-old Kim Tae-ryong, left the group to return home and eat breakfast. He came back to the group after he finished eating but decided not to carry on with the group because his mother had warned him earlier not to stray too far from home.
March 26, 1991
was a public holiday in South Korea, as it marked the first local elections held since the fall of the country’s military dictatorship in December 1987. The five boys decided to spend the day searching for salamander eggs in the streams of Mount Waryong , on the western outskirts of Daegu.
The boys never returned home, and after they were reported missing, their story made national headlines. South Korean President Roh Tae-woo sent 300,000 police and military troops to search for the boys,with the searches shown on live television.
All five of the boys’ fathers quit their jobs to look for their children around the country.Mount Waryong was searched over 500 times.
On September 26, 2002,
two men searching for acorns discovered the bodies of the boys on Mount Waryong, in an area that had been previously searched. They first reported the remains via an anonymous phone call. Police initially stated that the boys had died of hypothermia.
However, their parents rejected that conclusion and demanded a full investigation, pointing out that of one of the boy’s clothes had been found tied in knots and unused bullets were found in his clothes, as well as the fact that their bodies were discovered a short distance from a nearby village the boys knew well.
Forensic experts found that the skulls of three of the children showed blunt-force trauma, possibly from metal farming tools. Police then stated the children could have been killed by someone who “may have flown into a rage.”
In 2006
the statute of limitations expired on the case. However, in 2015, the National Assembly voted to remove the statute of limitations on first-degree murder, opening the possibility of criminal charges if a suspect is found.
On the thirtieth anniversary of their disappearance, the city of Daegu installed a memorial monument near the location called the “Frog Boy Memorial and Children’s Safety Prayer Monument” (Korean: 개구리소년 추모 및 어린이 안전 기원비). The Daegu police also announced a new task force to review the case from the beginning and follow-up on any new information they receive.
September 26th, 2002.
Mt. Waryhong, Daegu, South Korea. A man was taking a solitary hike, scavenging for acorns along the scenic mountainside. I can imagine the man with a rucksack, dirty from a day of foraging and filled to the brim with acorns of varying size when suddenly, the bag is dropped. He notices something in the distance and stumbles upon something horrific in a shallow pit. An assortment of small, human-like bones and scattered throughout the bones were various pieces of children’s clothing.
This man had just discovered one of South Korea’s most infamous crime scenes. The bones found belonged to the long lost children who came to be known as “The Frog Boys”. The man, who managed to remain anonymous to this day, called and reported the crime to authorities as soon as possible. Later in the day the mountain would be swarming with investigators in an effort to collect any evidence that may still be lingering behind.
The scene had gone undiscovered for over a decade, despite locals and authorities searching for the boys hundreds of times
The story begins on March 26th, 1991. Much of the area had the day off due to local elections. With that in mind, some of the local boys got up early and began playing before the day could start. The gang stood 6 strong and ranged in age from 9 to 13 years of age. The boys were U Cheol-Won, Jo Ho-Yeon, Kim Yeong-Gyu, Park Chan-In, Kim Jong-Sik, and Tae-Ryong Kim.
All of the boys attended Seongseo Elementary School. One of the boys, Tae-Ryong Kim, broke loose from the pack to eat breakfast. Neighbors began complaining of the boys playing too loudly and they decided to move someplace else. The children decided to get ready and head up the mountain to search for salamander eggs.
just before the excursion could get under way Tae-ryong Kim came back to the group at the base of the mountain. Once he heard what the plans were, he immediately heard the voice of his mother, warning him not to go too far.
He decided to play it safe and stay behind. He would watch his friends equipped with cans and walking sticks ascend up the hill without him. Many other locals would go on to see them as they peered through their windows or heard them while in their backyards around the time of their departure.
Hours would go by and not a word from the boys. Their parents were understandably worried and began searching for their kids once the sun began to set. After searching on their own for a few hours, the parents decided to call the police who performed a more thorough search. The search would go on until early the next morning. The boys disappeared without a trace. Police initially suspected the boys to be runaways but was soon dismissed. There second stab at a theory was that the boys had gotten lost but locals again debunked this theory as the town illuminates at night, making it easy for lost travelers to find their way home.
The case quickly picked up momentum and reached the President, Roh Tae-woo, who enlisted hundreds of thousands of police and military to aid in the search but this to lead nowhere. How could these boys have disappeared? How could no trace have been found with so many feet on the ground?
Millions of flyers were generated and a reward was offered to anyone who could lead law enforcement to the lost children. In addition; milk cartons, billboards, phone cards, candy wrappers, cartoons and newspapers all had the boys pictures printed with the name the “Frog Boys” as they would become to be known by. The name evolved as their story began to pick up traction. The boys were searching for salamander eggs, which lead to frog eggs. The eggs were dropped and the five victims were simply known as the “Frog Boys”.
Weeks would turn into months, months into years and authorities were in the exact same spot as the day the boys disappeared. No new leads despite the families doing a tremendous job of keeping the case alive. Movies and TV documentaries were filmed and would be watched by millions.
Again the case stood at a standstill. Police would receive hundreds of tips but all lead to nowhere. The only truly intriguing tip was by a man who claimed responsibility for the crime. He had claimed to have abducted the children and that they were alive but not well. He was hoping to con the families out of money but he was soon discovered to be a fraud. Not much else is known about the fraudulent tipster but he too was ruled out of the investigation.
Weeks would turn into months, months into years and authorities were in the exact same spot as the day the boys disappeared. No new leads despite the families doing a tremendous job of keeping the case alive.
Movies and TV documentaries were filmed and would be watched by millions. Again the case stood at a standstill. Police would receive hundreds of tips but all lead to nowhere.
The only truly intriguing tip was by a man who claimed responsibility for the crime. He had claimed to have abducted the children and that they were alive but not well. He was hoping to con the families out of money but he was soon discovered to be a fraud. Not much else is known about the fraudulent tipster but he too was ruled out of the investigation.
How did the scene go undiscovered for so long? Evidence in the form of Moss growing within some of the children’s skulls, proved that the boys had not been moved for years and theorize that they had died around the time they were last seen in 1991. The boys clothes had been tied together using strange knots that lead authorities to believe the killer was somehow involved in an industrial setting.
Despite some evidence being discovered at the scene, heavy criticism fell upon the police for not maintaining the area properly, opting to plow through the ground with pick axes the day the bodies were found, without proper forensic tools present. It was also alleged that the bodies were not transported properly from the scene using body bags but instead were placed in sacks.
The skulls of one of the Frog Boys.
Despite some evidence being discovered at the scene, heavy criticism fell upon the police for not maintaining the area properly, opting to plow through the ground with pick axes the day the bodies were found, without proper forensic tools present. It was also alleged that the bodies were not transported properly from the scene using body bags but instead were placed in sacks.
Lingering questions remain. Was the shallow grave the murder scene as well or just a dumping ground? Was it a tragic accident or something more sinister? Many of these unanswered questions still linger and cannot easily be answered. Was it a single killer or multiple? Many theorize that there had to be multiple people present to keep the other children quiet and subdued but Korean and U.S. criminologists feel that it was indeed one person who committed the crimes due to the level of brutality met upon the children.
Multiple theories have cropped up over the years, some more plausible than others. Some locals think that a group of lepers may have killed the boys due to a legend that the liver of a child could cure the illness. Others believe that a tragic accident could be the cause of all this, followed quickly by an elaborate cover up. There was a military firing range in close proximity to the shallow grave. Many believe one or multiple children were injured by a stray, and to ensure the word didn’t get out, the perpetrator decided to kill the rest of the kids. This personally seems like the most plausible theory in my opinion however records show that there was no shooting practice scheduled that day due to the elections.
Could someone have snuck onto the range and used it without the proper permission? More evidence pointing towards the firing range accident is the fact that the mountain was littered with bullet casings and often times, locals would search the area for strays. In 1994, the range moved to a different town.
Another theory was brought forward by a Korean criminal psychologist, Kim Kim-Won. His claim was the father of one of the murdered boys was the culprit but this was widely dismissed by authorities and the public. He would be subsequently shunned by the psychological community and fired from his job for such claims. No evidence has ever been found to link any of the parents to the murder of these children.
In 2006, the statute of limitations were met on the case. In South Korea, the statute for all crimes was 15 years. Much hope was dashed by the victim’s families of ever receiving justice, however this was changed in 2015, meaning that if new evidence were to come to light, those responsible for the crime could be charged.
A BOLD ALLEGATION
The parents themselves had wondered if the case was connected to the military because of the shooting range nearby — and because of something else.
“On the day the children went missing, Cheol-won’s friend heard a gunshot and then a scream. Then there was silence,” recounts Woo.
“We went to the boy and asked him if it was true that he’d heard a loud noise. And he said yes.”
Kim Ga-won, a criminal psychologist who had st
udied in the United States, claimed that the children were buried in Jong-sik’s house because his father “couldn’t account for the first three hours on the day the children went missing”.
At the time, there were hardly any criminal psychologists in South Korea, “which made everyone trust him”, explains Na. This professor also said he had read about the investigation and had “analysed all the evidence and footage”.
The other parents told him that his assumptions were wrong. “Some rumours were believable, but others we couldn’t believe at all,” says Park. “It’s impossible that someone would murder his own child and bury (the child) under his own house.”
Despite the disbelief, the police searched the toilet. They found children’s shoes, “which made them think this might be a possibility”, recounts Na.
“They ended up digging with an excavator,” he adds. “Jong-sik’s father was in agony. People started to think, ‘Could he really have done all of this in three hours?’”
The media were there, filming the event, and many people had gathered to watch. The house was ruined, but nothing was found.
“Kim Ga-won started running away, through the crowds. Some people yelled, ‘Catch him! Catch him!’ He was taken to the police station for his own safety,” Woo narrates.
Archive footage shows that Jong-sik’s father, Kim Cheol-gyu, was livid about the “ridiculous theory”. He died of liver cancer five years later, still in his forties.
“I think he became sick because of the exhaustion of searching for his missing son,
” says Woo.
BONES AND BULLETS
A year after his death, and 11 years after the boys’ disappearance, their remains were found on the mountain, on Sept 26, 2002. They were tangled together, in an area a couple of kilometres from their village.
When the parents arrived, there was “already a group of people who’d gathered to see the bodies”, remembers Woo. Only bones, and clothes, were left.
“My vision became blurry, and I started to cry. It was hard to believe that my son was buried here. But I had to,” he says.
“About 30 minutes later, we all became quiet. I realised that my relationship with my son was over.”
It “didn’t seem real” to Park, who could not recognise his child from the remains or the clothes. But the clothes were a match. The police also found the dental braces of one of the boys.
“We were filled with guilt. It was so depressing to realise what worthless parents we were,” says Kim. “We were unable to relieve the spirits of our children.”
It was two locals, hiking up a trail and collecting acorns, who discovered the bones when they came across some old clothes among the rocks. But something was strange.
One child’s remains, for example, were found with the trousers “flipped over his shoulders” and the sleeves “tied together”, describes Woo. When the knot was untied, empty cartridges and unused bullets were found.
Kim, the child’s father, had only one thought:
“I was convinced that the children were shot.”
The police called forensic scientist Chae Jong-min, a professor at Kyungbook University, to the crime scene. But he arrived to find an “absurd situation”.
“The police weren’t specialists in excavating dead bodies. They just dug out whatever they could find. They didn’t know any better,” he says.
“The police were organising the long bones and the skulls together, which was ridiculous. An expert would’ve arranged the bones together as one complete body. So for around two to three hours, the police were making many mistakes.”
It was another heart-rending experience for Kim, who
“had already cried so much by then”.
“How dare they treat the bones like this by arranging them in piles, then call us to look at them and ask (us) whether this is (our) child or not.
We couldn’t do anything, so we became angry,” he says.
“The police have the law on their side. As parents, we had no power.”
At the time, there was also no system in South Korea to ensure that specialists, and not the police, excavated such remains, points out Chae.
WHAT CAUSED THEIR DEATHS?
The excavation was not the only thing the police were called out on, even by the media. A day after the remains were found, the police chief said hypothermia was “the most probable cause of death”.
Speaking at the scene, he told journalists that the lowest temperature recorded at that time was 3°C. “But when it rains in the morning, the wind chill factor would’ve lowered the temperature, and the bodies were huddled together,” he said.
This insistence that the children died of natural causes prompted a team from the Korea Alpine Federation, who are often called in for emergencies because of their experience in mountainous areas, to check the site.
They were certain it was not a hypothermia case. “That area isn’t high up at all. It isn’t even 100 metres from the streets. Just use some common sense,” says rescue team director Choi Won-seok.
“If it was cold and raining, it would’ve taken only five minutes to run home.”
The “strongest evidence” of foul play, according to Chae, was that “if a child died naturally, the bones would’ve been found on top of the dirt”.
“When a corpse is on top of the dirt, it rots or animals come and rip up the body, which means the bones would’ve been separated,” he says.
“However, the bones were all buried, which means that someone killed them and meticulously hid them. So we needed to figure out why, and we couldn’t.”
What was confirmed — by the 50th Infantry Division — was that the bullets found with the bodies were from its shooting range.
But the military insisted at a press conference that it had nothing to do with the deaths and that there was no drill that day, a public holiday.
“But there was one unusual detail,” says Park. “Commissioned officers could shoot on their own. So a typical soldier would’ve had a day off, but a commissioned officer could’ve come anytime and practised shooting.”
The shooting range was relocated to a nearby town in 1994, but a map at the time of the children’s disappearance showed that their remains were found “only 100 to 200 metres (away) … 300 metres at most”, says Choi.
That is within the effective range of the M-16 rifle, he points out, harbouring the same suspicions all these years.
Cho Won -seak
“It was reported that an officer fired his rifle on that day in order to use up the leftover bullets,” he says. “The identity of the officer is still unknown.”
Chae’s forensic team could only examine the bones they excavated, and had to discount those dug out by the police as evidence. But they managed to find “sharp cuts” on the skulls — man-made injuries that occurred before the children’s deaths.
“One child had his clothes turned inside out, which could mean that the culprit covered his eyes with the clothes, then … murdered the children by hitting their heads with some type of weapon,” surmises Chae.
“Many experts assumed that this was done by a psychopath. And if it were a psychopath … there should’ve been other cases like this. But there’s never been a similar case, either before or after.”
“The hearse was covered with chrysanthemums. Somebody donated the flowers. I felt very grateful. At least we sent them away properly.”
The parents took the ashes to the Nakdong River so their children could “float away into the Pacific Ocean”, Woo says, his Iips quivering at the memory.
Park adds: “They died together, so we wanted them to play together in the afterlife.”
The Park family, in happier times.
The parents’ lawyer, Kang Ji-won, filed a lawsuit against the police for having “not done their jobs properly” by, for example, botching evidence at the crime scene.
“We had three trials, and we lost them all … (The judges) didn’t arrive at any verdict that directly pinned the blame on the police. How can that be their final judgment?” he questions.
“The police or the government should’ve set up a comprehensive police investigation team. They should’ve tried to find out the cause — whether it involved the military base or not. They should’ve investigated further.”
He has a “conspiracy” theory to explain why they did not: It was still a “dangerous time” during President Roh’s military-backed rule, and power resided within a “rigid hierarchy”.
Kang Ji-won
So the parents were left with only their own assumptions. Says Kim: “I think one child was killed due to an accidental shooting, and the rest of the boys were killed as well, to cover up the accident.”
No one has ever been arrested in connection with their deaths. In 2015, however, South Korea removed the statute of limitations for first-degree murder, which means any new evidence could lead the police to reopen the case.
“The statute of limitations (originally) was 15 years. But various people and activist groups raised objections,” says Kang.
“Because of the frog boys’ case and others, (South) Korea’s legal system has gradually advanced. We can still hope to uncover the truth.”
Woo vows to “keep searching for the criminal until the end”. “The police have changed a great deal. They have more advanced methods, and their thought process is different,” he adds.
“Back then, the police ignored us and treated us with disrespect. But now they’re more sympathetic, and they try to listen to us.”
It has been a long wait, however, for these men in their 60s and 70s. Park says: “My life is almost over anyway. I’ve been patient until now. I can wait a little longer to see (Chan-in).”
Nothing so far has healed their hurt. “(Yeong-gyu) was a good child,” says Kim. “Now that our children are all gone, I feel as if the sky’s falling. And my heart’s breaking.”
There is something Woo wrote to his boy, Cheol-won, and the other “lovely sons”. “It’s said that when your parents die, you bury them in the ground. But when your children die, you bury them in your heart,” he reads.
“I thought that I could forget you after seeing you return to dust, but I miss you even more as time goes by.”