The Disappearance of the Daegu Frog Boys

What would you do if you were hiking through a forest and you just so happen to find the remains of children who when missing decades ago?

You can listen to this episode of The Mourning Shift on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, IHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Podchasers, BoomPlay and YouTube.

Crime Scene photos are at the bottom of the Blog Post; view at your own discretion. I will never post anything too gruesome but Trigger warning for Human remains.

Transcript below:

Moss: Hi everyone, I'm Moss.

Alfred: I am the illustrious, the wonderful, the magnificent, Alfred Lee.

 Hello, I'm Satch

Moss: and this is the morning shift.

Intro

Music (ending)

Yeah.

[00:01:00]Moss: So I'll just dive right into it. It's late September. September 26th to be exact. The temperature was 77 degrees. Two friends were out collecting acorns in the early morning on the beautiful mountainside of Woyoung. One finds some that he's gonna use for dorimuk. That's acorn jelly, which is common in Korea.

Moss: He finds some smaller ones, maybe to make the dotorigukso. As the sun beams down, he notices some old fabric on the ground. A little strange, but he's seen weirder in this forest. Until he looks closer, and notices that it's partially buried, and sees what he can only call human looking bones between the fold of this clothing.

Moss: He and his friend contact police right away, who immediately arrive on scene. Once speculation began, the loved ones of five boys were called to identify them. It had been eleven years. But the Frog Boys had finally been found after they disappeared in 1991. And the way they were found only left more questions than answers.

[00:02:00]Moss: All information for this episode will be in the show notes below, but let's go back to the beginning to figure out how we got here.

Moss: They were closer than brothers, or that's how their parents described the five boys who played together in the same cul de sac. None of them were older than 13 years old.

Moss: We had Jo Ho Young, who is 13, Kim Yong Joo, who is 12, Kim Yong Sik, who is 10, Woo Cho Wong, who is 14, and Park Jin In, who is 10. The Five Musketeers. The father of Kim Yong Goo described him as bright and cheerful, just a great personality. They were super close. Since he was his only son, he would say, "we tried to give him all the love he deserved, and he loved us back."

[00:03:00] Moss: Woo Jung Woo, his father, Woo Cho Won, described him as very social and he had a lot of friends. Park Gun Sol, that's the father of Park Chan In, described him as almost too sincere. He was the only son and he never gave his family any trouble. Kim Cheol Gyu, the father of Kim Jong Sik, passed away from cancer in 2005.

Moss: Do you remember what you were doing? March Twenty six, nineteen ninety one. I wasn't born yet. You guys probably weren't born yet, right?

Satch: Not at all. Not even thought about,

Moss: neither was I, but in Daygo, South Korea, it was actually a big holiday. This was the day that the democratic election was held for the first time in 30 years.

Moss: So it became a public holiday and most people had the day off, including kids Jong-Wu noticed that his son came back inside to get a thicker jacket . And when he asked him, "where are you going?" He said, "I'm just going to go outside and play for a little bit." But little did he know that would be the last time he would see his son alive.

Moss: The kids walked to school together every day. The kids ran up the mountain to play every day. They knew that neighborhood inside and out. The boys decided since they had the day off, it would be a perfect opportunity to look for frog eggs. Pretty common pastime [00:04:00] for South Korean children. After about 1 p. m.,

Moss: Woo-Jong Wu son's Taekwondo teacher called him, saying that he never showed up for class. Considering this was unlike him, he wandered around the other houses in the village to ask where their boys were. But

Moss: all five boys had gone missing.

Moss: How do five boys just vanish out of thin air? A family friend mentioned seeing the boys and asking where they were going, and when they mentioned they were going to look for reptile eggs, they just assumed they had gone up the mountain. Kids go to play up there all the time, so they'd probably be back soon.

Moss: But once it began to get dark, the parents started to worry as the mountain entrance had aggressive dogs on a farm. They were worried that the dogs might have escaped. Five children vanishing did not make sense. From the mountain you can see an army base on the left, and a pond on the right, and a shooting range right above that pond.

Moss: Someone would have had to have seen something, right? This [00:05:00] all happened during the day, and it only took one night to change the lives of these parents forever. At the time, South Korea was moving towards a more pro democracy movement, so unfortunately the missing case never made big news. Kim Hyung do had a dream that night about his son who disappeared, and said he was right outside my door.

Moss: He would peek in without a word, and then he was gone. I'd call his name, but he never looked back, he ran off. Each family instantly started placing the blame on each other, arguing that it was one child's fault or another child's fault that they all went missing. Three days after, March 29th, There was a call that was made to Kim Jong sik's house.

Moss: All parents of the missing boys had started recording telephone calls, hoping for more information about their kids. The caller said, quote, I have the children, they're suffering, [00:06:00] two were sick, bring a large sum of money near Day-gu station . They hoped this would allow them to finally find their children.

Moss: The parents brought the police with them, but of course no one showed up. Five minutes turned into 30 minutes, 30 turned into an hour, but of course it felt so much longer to them. They said they felt helpless. They couldn't believe that this was happening to them. No caller, no children. This is a case with absolutely no leads.

Moss: But of course, that doesn't stop the public from giving theories. And the police weren't active enough. They said, the runaways, come on. Kids do this all the time. They're gonna be back. They're just foolish enough to get lost on a mountain. I'm sure they'll be home soon. But, Najobong, the chairman of the National Organization of Missing Children in South Korea, stated, Those 48 hours are the most important in any missing case.

Moss: And he was right. [00:07:00] The media was quick to spread the news about missing children. After about five days of the boys being missing, the first headline said, Five boys still missing after trying to catch frogs. But... There was a mistranslation. In a lot of different articles, they're called the salamander boys instead of the frog boys.

Moss: The word frog wasn't really a common word back then. They used salamander in place of frog. Two days after that, it became city wide news. One week later, people speculated about the boys even still living. It became nationwide. Jang Joon Young believed every life is important. But this case was extraordinary because it was five boys.

Moss: Five boys all under the age of 13 going missing together? At this point, the police began to take it a little more seriously. About a month later, May 4th, 1991, the parents began to take initiative and they appeared on The Square of Public Opinions on [00:08:00] NBC. To bring more awareness to their children's case.

Moss: The transcript says, and I quote, Reporter, are you satisfied with how the investigation has turned out so far? Park Gonson, no. The police told us they can't keep up with the investigation going because there's no evidence . And you can tell from this pamphlet, it's always said that they were missing from the start.

Moss: But somehow the pamphlets printed by the police says runaways. This indicates that the police are trying to wrap the case up quickly. We want them to change this. It was very rare for news like this to become nationwide.

Moss: The parents took full advantage. That same day, a phone call was received by someone identifying themselves as Jong-Sik, one of the missing boys. The call showed everyone, had everyone holding their breath for a call back because it was quickly stopped. The boy was sobbing, asking where his mother was, and the boy's mother did run to the phone.

Moss: Everyone started applauding, the children are alive, let's look for them, where are they? [00:09:00] It felt like progress, but unfortunately, as there are more people who took interest in the case, there are more people who used it to benefit themselves as well. The phone was a prank. Somebody just wanted attention.

Moss: Their hopes were crushed almost as quickly as they were gained. About seven months after the boys disappearance, this is October 24th, 1991, many people from around Daegu helped search for the boys. They searched up the mountain for about a year, and the boys stated that they were doing all they could.

Moss: Two groups of police officers began searching for the boys. Volunteers would climb the mountain together with sticks that they would stab into the ground as they walked up the mountain. In the 90s, it would be easy to spot anything from the mountain, even from a helicopter. See, the grass wasn't very tall back then.

Moss: They would search every single day. And not a trace of evidence was found. Park Gun-Seo saw this as a way to keep the public and their superiors [00:10:00] off their back. Or at least he said that's what the police were doing. They weren't actually searching, but pretending to be doing something. The parents meant nothing to them.

Moss: That's what he believed. On the day the boys went missing , a friend of Wu Cheol-Won said he heard a gunshot and a scream, then silence. Now it was near a shooting range, which was attached to a military base. Some people believed that the police would not go and investigate this lead just because of that reason.

Moss: And it was never investigated. All the fathers decided to quit their jobs to look for their sons. They rented a small truck searching in the rain, snow, or hail, trying to appeal to the public's humility and search for their kids. The truck had a large photo of the missing boys on a poster with information.

Moss: It was heavily coated so it wouldn't get destroyed in the rain. Please find our missing children. That's what it said. Kim Hyung do gained an addiction to sleeping pills, and other families noticed his face starting to get [00:11:00] pale and then blue. He said, and I quote, I couldn't see a point in living anymore.

Moss: I couldn't sleep because I would just think of him. The police searched crime ridden areas and cults. Families tried their best to rely on them. Allegedly, most theories pointed to the military base. But again, they were never investigated or mentioned in the press. About a year after the voice went missing, March 10, 1992, why wasn't the military being investigated, many people would speculate?

Moss: The CEO for National Missing Children Organization began noticing people taking notes on the family. He stopped and asked what company they were working for, thinking they were reporters. And when they handed him a card with only their name and a contact number, he later found out it was a government intelligence agent following the families, recording schedules and whereabouts, stating it was for the family's protection.

Moss: In [00:12:00] 1992, a company reached out to ask the family If it was okay for them to make a movie bringing more attention to the case. This is called Comeback Frog Boys in 1992, which you can currently watch on YouTube right now. Now, it's hard to find, the quality is not that great, but the movie was pretty emotional.

Moss: Most likely to earn the profit off of suffering families, unfortunately. But emotional movies were not popular back then. Afterwards, Seung mi contacted the family, letting her know she wanted to write a song about the missing boys. This is in 1993. She told the families that they would receive a portion of the money that she received for the song.

Moss: So the family saved up their money and donated it to her. Even a publishing company wanted to sell books about the boys. But they didn't sell that many copies. Now again, you can find this song by Park Seong mi on YouTube as well. There is [00:13:00] literally only two videos on it. You cannot find it anywhere on the internet.

Moss: You can't find lyrics for it. I had to scrub everywhere to find it, but it is possible. There was lots of media on this case. About three years after the boys disappearance in April 1994, the parents spent three years searching for their children. With no financial support, they ended up in debt. The public became judgmental.

Moss: As the parents were well known now, they couldn't appear in public with any other appearance but sadness. After a few years, people's interests tragically started to fade. Only the parents still cared, and the public thought the police had done all they could. "It was heartbreaking for the parents", recalls Kim.

Moss: "When the press coverage stopped, we went to every newspaper in Seoul. They kicked us out of their office because of our demands". But the father also went into debt after their nationwide search. And they had to take care of other families. Three years after the boy's disappearance, they announced that they would [00:14:00] return back to their jobs.

Moss: January 12th, 1996, this is 5 years after the boy's disappearance, they finally started to begin to rebuild their lives, but, allegations started to

Moss: spread, which the police did investigate. Kim Ga won. A criminal psychologist who had studied in the United States claimed that the children were actually buried in Kim Chol gu's house. Kim Jong sik's father. Because his father couldn't account for the first three hours that the boys went missing.

Moss: At that time, there were hardly any criminal psychologists in South Korea, so everyone trusted his judgment. He did study in the United States, of course, so he has to know what he's talking about, right? The professor said that he began to read the investigation and analyzed all evidence and all footage.

Moss: The other parents told him that he had his assumptions wrong. Some rumors were believable, but others we couldn't believe at all, says Park. It's impossible that someone would murder his own child and bury him under his house. [00:15:00] Despite the belief, the parents searched the toilet. They found children's shoes, which made them think it might be a possibility.

Moss: They ended up digging under their house with an excavator. Jongsik's father was in agony. People started to think, could he really have done this all in three hours? The media was there, filming the event, and many people had gathered to watch. The house was ruined, but nothing was found. Kim Ga won started running through the crowd, some people yelling, catch him!

Moss: And he was taken to the police station for his own safety, Woo narrates. Archive footage shows Jong sik's father, Kim Jong gu, being livid about this ridiculous theory. He unfortunately died of liver cancer five years later, still in his early 40s. "I think he became sick because of the exhaustion of searching for his missing son", Woo Jung Wu says.

Moss: Park Geon seo would [00:16:00] often feel like his life was over. After being unable to find his son, he wanted to die. He would often get into fights with the police for obstruction of justice.

Moss: On the 26th of September, 2002, 11 years after the boys disappearance. The boys were finally found, their bodies tangled together up the mountain. It was hard to distinguish whose clothes belonged to who, and whose bones belonged to who, as they were carefully lifted to the ground piece by piece.

Moss: One of the boys still had braces on his teeth. All this time. And the children were up the mountain the entire time. Woo Jong woo found it strange that the bodies were found with his trousers flipped over his shoulders, the sleeves twisted and tied together. Yong gu's mother asked, how can a child tie his own sleeves like this?

Moss: They were knotted. Kim Hyung do unknotted the jacket to [00:17:00] find his son's school badge on the jacket for confirmation, and bullet casings fell out. There were a lot of unused bullets on the clothes as well. Obviously, this put the parents in a frenzy, thinking that the children had to be shot. Forensic scientist, Chai Jong Min, was called to the scene, and was shocked to find those excavating the crime scene were not forensic specialists, or even experts in excavating bodies.

Moss: They were just haphazardly removing bones from the ground, grouping similar bones together, skulls together, femurs together. He found this ridiculous. He said, and I quote, an expert would have arranged the bodies together as one complete body. The police didn't corner off this area or even place them on something clean.

Moss: The bodies were rolled onto newspaper. In 2002, there was no law stating that it had to be a specialist besides a police officer removing bones from the ground. Allegedly, since a military shooting range was nearby, a [00:18:00] military officer could have accidentally shot one of the boys and finished off the rest so there were no witnesses involved and the police were covering up.

Moss: This was one of the theories.

Moss: One of the fathers discovered that there were deep puncture wounds in one of the kids skulls. So not being an expert himself, he sent these photos off to an anthropologist in the U. S. She stated that these were man made before the deaths. When a body is buried, chemicals will usually seep out of the soil and plants It's called phosphorus, so it was obvious to her that they were killed there, and they were buried there.

Moss: The bodies were not moved. 2004, March 26, the exact same day and month that the boys left and went missing, a funeral was held for them, and the ashes were spread against Nokdong River. [00:19:00] They loved each other, and they wanted them to play with each other in the afterlife, one mother said. Ahn Kuk Jong, the president of Life Scientists Research in Yeoksam dong, South Korea, had become a popular figure on talk shows for accurately projecting the burial conditions of the frog boys, he claimed that the information was from the spirit of one of the boys.

Moss: He even wrote in his 1991 book, Guide to Water Sources and Prosperous Sites, "the five boys are all in the same spot, covered for with about 30 centimeters of leaves and soil, and that's why no one can find them. They lost their way, wandered for about two days. The boys died on the third day, which only solidified the police belief that the boys died from hypothermia."

Moss: None of the parents thought that this was true. The boys were found buried beneath 20 to 30 centimeters of soil, stone, and leaves. How could he have known this? [00:20:00] But, unfortunately, we still don't know to this day who did it. We only know there was one boy who had clothes covering his face. We know that all the boys had blunt force trauma to the skull.

Moss: We do not know the murder weapon. And we do not know who murdered these boys. But we know that they're at peace and they're resting. And hopefully one day, the person will be brought to justice.

Moss: And that's the end.

Alfred: That is depressing.

Moss: Yes it is. It's a lot. You guys were stunned, you didn't say anything.

Alfred: I'm gonna be honest, your reading of the story was so well paced that there wasn't any point where I could just go,

Alfred: I don't know the first thing that call me off guard. Shot [00:21:00] and killed by soldiers. That's wild. That's wild. Cause that makes me think of a conspiracy, right? Cause you said that the police are covering it up, so that means that they knew?

Moss: Some people believe that the police were covering it up because it was never once investigated or even told to the parents, Hey, we double checked this. It's not a possibility that it happened ever.

Moss: The bones were so deteriorated, it was hard with the way that they were removed from the ground, it's hard to autopsy. They took out bones and put them together. So it could be anyone's bones.

Moss: I'll be posting a couple of pictures on our Instagram so everyone can be involved and more pictures will be posted on our actual website.

Moss: Now, keep in mind, these boys walked up and down this mountain every day. They played on this mountain every day. It didn't really make sense for the theory. , they got lost, they got hypothermia, they [00:22:00] died,

Moss: it didn't really make sense, because these boys know this area.

Alfred: Also, you don't die stacked on top of each other. It's South Korea, right? Guns are rare, okay? It's hard enough to kill one person.

Alfred: Let alone five, because as soon as you take out one, everybody runs, it's hard, you gotta chase them down, the circumstances leading up to this is weird. They have to get captured. I'm assuming because somebody didn't shoot them from a distance unless we're going with the soldier story.

Alfred: Somebody they knew had to have caught them. And taken them.

Moss: That's exactly another theory,

Moss: all the boys were wearing clothes. There was one boy who had his trousers, his pants, lifted over his head as if it was covering his eyes.

Moss: As if somebody was trying to hide something from him. Allegedly the fact that his other friends were being killed.

Moss: Today, it would only take 10 minutes on a bus ride, but back then it took about 20, 30 minutes to walk where they were found. And they did this every day.

Moss: Which, [00:23:00] wouldn't really make sense if the police were searching every single day for a year, but they were, right near where they lived?

Moss: So from this area you'd actually used to be able to see a pond, And the shooting range. You can't see it anymore because it doesn't exist anymore,

Alfred: The pond or the shooting range?

Moss: The shooting range does not exist anymore

Alfred: Why does the shooting range not exist anymore?

Moss: There's a book that was written on this case called The Missing Frog Boys Collection of True Crime by Sarah Thomerson . It is nearly impossible to find this book.

Moss: I had to subscribe to scribd ? To find and read this book, and there are only two pages on it. It is not detailed and then there are other true crimes after it

Alfred: I thought the book was two pages. I was like, that's not a book. That's a pamphlet

Moss: No, the book is like 200 pages 200, but there are two pages on these boys Other media there is a documentary called in search of missing frog boys it is on youtube now It is a really good watch and honestly if you're interested in this [00:24:00] case You should watch it.

Moss: It does get emotional because the parents are telling their accounts and what happened and how they felt.

Moss: There were a couple movies made about this. Of course, as I mentioned before, 1992 Comeback Frog Boys. Which, pretty good.

Moss: It's actually a pretty dang good movie. But, not a lot of media coverage on it. And, in 2011 there was another movie called Children. that was like a recreation of that movie with, really popular actors. Fantastic watch. Such a good movie. It will make you cry.

Moss: Song Frog Boy, by Song Mi, was not that popular, you can't really find it too many places there's only two videos on it on YouTube.

Moss: Lastly, I want to give you guys the official theories that we have

Moss: the original theory that the police gave was that it was a simple runaway. They ran away, they got lost. [00:25:00] Because of the boys state, they were huddled together and tied together, hypothermia.

Moss: Second theory is that they got lost, they huddled together for warmth, and then froze to death.

Moss: And lastly, This is speculation from the parents and the internet. Murder. Allegedly, since the military shooting range was nearby, a military officer would have been off and could have just been, shooting on his own and accidentally shot one of the boys and didn't know what to do.

Moss: So he finished the others off and covered it up. So there'd be no witnesses involved. Since they were very close to the shooting range, However, the forensic scientist on the case disagrees that the holes in the kid's skull were made from gunshots and thinks that it might be more of a pickaxe or something to do with rice, maybe a rice paddy scraper.

Alfred: Theory one and two are out the window for me. Yeah, we ran away to death. That doesn't add up. And then the [00:26:00] hyperthermia

Moss: they were sideways, but they were huddled together and supposedly their clothes were tied together. So their hands basically were tied to each other's piece by piece, which doesn't really make sense.

Alfred: So it's a possibility, but if what they found were not bullet holes in the skull.

Moss: There was speculation that the boys were actually looking for bullet casings near the shooting range because you can find bullet casings all the time considering they're constantly doing target practice, right? One of the boys' friends actually asked to come up with them to go look for frog eggs, but he decided to stay home because he had to finish his rice.

Moss: And little did he know that would literally save his life. This is the same boy that mentioned that he heard gunshots and then a scream and then silence.

Alfred: That does seem to lean heavily into soldier shooting. Also, why demolish a perfectly good firing range if it wasn't [00:27:00] problematic?

Alfred: For the longest time they actually decided to put this case under wraps because, it's a cold case and there is a statue of limitations.

Alfred: Yeah, and it's about 10 years. Luckily in July 2015, the National Assembly abolished that completely, so there's no limitation.

Alfred: There's no statute of limitation. It had been previously extended from 15 to 25 years,

Alfred: We still haven't found out who did this to these boys and it's all alleged

Alfred: please don't come for me. South Korean government.

Alfred: That was my story of the Missing Frog Boys, or Salamander Boys, depending on where you read the article.

Alfred: And this is the morning shift.

This is a modern map of how far the boys went from school to the forest.

First forensic photo of the children’s remains.

Second Forensic photo depicting smashed human remains and clothing.

This is how far the firing range was from where the remains were found. This was one of the theories.