[News Culture] What first appeared to be a family tragedy driven by financial hardship is now surrounded by troubling questions.
A couple in their 40s and their two children were found dead at an apartment complex in Uijeongbu last month. A note referring to money problems initially seemed to explain what had happened. But blood found in several rooms, a woman’s scream heard hours before the deaths and unusual details surrounding the wife have cast doubt on that early account.
MBC’s ‘True Story Expedition’ returns to the family’s final hours while also investigating a separate case in which a neighborhood optician allegedly disappeared with 1.8 billion won entrusted to her by longtime acquaintances.
The Evidence Left Behind in Uijeongbu
The family was found dead on July 17. With a note describing financial distress discovered at the scene, the case was quickly viewed as a desperate act by parents overwhelmed by debt.
The apartment, however, held signs of a far more chaotic night. Blood remained in the kitchen, bedroom and balcony when the interior was examined six days later. The stains raised the possibility that violence had occurred inside the home well before the couple fell from the building.
Neighbors also remembered being jolted awake by a woman screaming roughly five hours earlier. Police were called after residents reported shouting and a loud disturbance, but officers left without locating the source.
The wife’s appearance when she was found added another layer of uncertainty. Witness accounts suggested that her clothing and physical condition did not resemble what might ordinarily be expected after a fall. The program speaks with people close to the family and outside specialists in an effort to reconstruct what unfolded behind the apartment door.
With no surviving suspect likely to face prosecution, the case may be formally closed. Yet the unanswered questions remain: What caused the bloodshed inside the home, whose scream did the neighbors hear, and did the family die in the way first assumed?
When a Neighborhood’s Trust Became Collateral
The second case begins with an optical shop that had long functioned as a neighborhood gathering place. Its owner, identified by the pseudonym Kang, was not seen as a stranger selling investments. She was a familiar face who had spent decades building personal relationships with her customers.
Her carefully cultivated image made her difficult to doubt. Her husband was a police officer, her children attended prestigious universities and her younger sibling was said to work as a tax accountant. Kang frequently spoke of her own success with money and offered neighbors what appeared to be a safe way to earn higher returns.
People invested because they trusted her, not because they had examined a business plan or verified where the money would go. Several reportedly took out loans secured against their homes after Kang urged them to raise additional funds.
Then the shop closed and Kang disappeared.
Only afterward did the investors begin comparing their stories. As more victims came forward, the missing sum grew to approximately 1.8 billion won. What many had believed was a private arrangement between friends appeared instead to be a network of overlapping investments sustained by reputation and personal loyalty.
Bank records deepened the mystery. Part of the money had allegedly passed through an account in Kang’s husband’s name, while an apartment registered to him appeared to have been used to obtain a loan. The transactions prompted victims to ask whether Kang had acted alone and whether members of her family had known how the money was being raised.
The production team eventually located Kang around 50 days after she vanished. Their confrontation places her face to face with the central question left by the collapse: how did someone treated as a trusted neighbor turn years of friendship into a means of collecting money?
‘True Story Expedition’ examines the evidence surrounding the Uijeongbu deaths and follows the trail of the missing 1.8 billion won.
The episode aired Aug. 6 at 9 p.m. on MBC.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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