The air in the interrogation room was thick with unspoken tension, a stark contrast to the almost casual demeanor of Jung Yoon.
Despite the extensive search of Park Chang-gyu’s house, car, and office, the elusive murder weapon remained hidden.
Yet, a breakthrough had come from an unexpected source: the scissors Jeong Yong-gil had brought in.
These weren’t just any scissors; they held a trove of damning evidence, enough to explain why Jeong Yong-baek had kept them so carefully.
Among the myriad clues, Park Chang-gyu’s fingerprints stood out, a silent testament to a connection he desperately sought to conceal.
Meanwhile, Jun-hyeok and Han-gyeol, meticulous in their search of Park Chang-gyu’s residence, had unearthed more unsettling discoveries.
Tucked away in his safe, a name tag bearing Jeong Yong-baek’s name had been found.
And beneath the mattress, a school uniform, pants, and a shirt, worn at an unknown time, hinted at a past shrouded in secrecy.
These seemingly disparate pieces of evidence were beginning to coalesce, forming a grim mosaic of deception and violence.
“I’ll ask again. Mr. Park Chang-gyu.”
Jung Yoon’s voice, calm and even, cut through the silence.
“Yes.”
Park Chang-gyu, who had been waiting for Jung Yoon with an almost bored expression, let out a small sneer.
His composure, however, was about to be shattered.
“What was your relationship with Mr. Jeong Yong-baek?”
Jung Yoon’s question, though seemingly innocent, was laced with an underlying accusation.
“How many more times do I have to tell you we were friends?”
The reply was exactly what Jung Yoon had anticipated.
This time, it was Jung Yoon who let out a low laugh, a sound that seemed to hold a profound understanding.
Park Chang-gyu’s expression twisted slightly, a flicker of discomfort crossing his face as he observed Jung Yoon’s knowing smile.
“How did we end up like this?”
Jung Yoon broke the ensuing silence, his voice clear and resonant, almost as if he were reciting from a book.
Park Chang-gyu’s brow furrowed deeply, a visible sign of his growing unease.
Jung Yoon briefly acknowledged the furrowed brow with a glance and continued to murmur, each word a deliberate probe into Park Chang-gyu’s carefully constructed facade.
“At one time, I believed that you and I were closer than brothers.”
“What are you… “
Park Chang-gyu’s voice trailed off, a mix of confusion and suspicion in his tone.
To an outsider, the conversation might have sounded like a trivial exchange between friends lamenting a lost bond.
Jung Yoon, too, had experienced such a connection – a friend who was also a lover.
He wiped the smile from his lips, his expression turning serious as he continued to speak, each word a calculated strike.
“My friend, all the words you whispered to me were merely…”
“Hey, you bastard.” Park Chang-gyu interrupted, his voice rising in anger.
“…rotten seeds that couldn’t take root.” Jung Yoon finished, his voice unwavering.
“You son of a bitch!”
Before Jung Yoon could even complete his sentence, Park Chang-gyu erupted, leaping from his seat and lunging across the table towards Jung Yoon.
He sprawled over the table, flailing his arms in a desperate attempt to reach his tormentor.
When he couldn’t, he tried to clamber onto the table entirely, his rage consuming him.
Jung Yoon, with effortless grace, simply leaned his upper body back slightly, lightly dodging Park Chang-gyu’s frantic grasp.
Park Chang-gyu, a heinous murderer, was, at his core, a man incapable of independent action.
He was a pathetic figure, a piece of trash who had sacrificed his own sick family to achieve his desires.
If Jung Yoon, wearing the mask of Woo Jung Yoon, couldn’t even dodge a punch from such a man, he had no business being there.
His composure remained unshaken, a testament to his control over the situation.
“Why are you so angry?”
Jung Yoon asked, his face still adorned with a calm smile, having easily evaded Park Chang-gyu’s desperate struggles.
It was only when their eyes met that Park Chang-gyu seemed to register the impropriety of his outburst.
He looked around with a bewildered expression, the realization dawning on him that their movements were being meticulously recorded by the cameras in the interrogation room and observed by the cold case team detectives.
“Did you perhaps know?”
Jung Yoon continued, his voice a quiet provocation.
“Huh… Know what?”
Park Chang-gyu’s voice was strained, a hint of desperation creeping into his tone.
“What I just said. Where and how did those words come from… “
It was a carelessly thrown remark, yet it seemed to land with the force of a hammer blow.
Park Chang-gyu’s cheek began to twitch subtly, betraying his inner turmoil.
He took a deep, shaky breath, exhaling slowly as he tried to regain his composure.
But Jung Yoon gave him no respite, pulling evidence from his pocket with deliberate slowness.
“I was mistaken.”
Park Chang-gyu’s gaze slowly shifted to the name tag Jung Yoon placed on the table.
When his eyes finally registered the item, they shook with a surprising intensity.
He stared at the name tag, his chest heaving, as if he were struggling to breathe.
Jung Yoon, watching him, did not hold back his sneer.
“You killed Jeong Yong-baek more than ten years ago.”
“Shut up.”
Park Chang-gyu’s voice was a low growl.
“When you found out your innocent brother became the hands and feet of a murderer in your place.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It wasn’t me.”
“When he threw himself to the trash to save his brother!”
Park Chang-gyu’s face was gradually turning a deep crimson.
He remained fixated on the name tag, staring intently without blinking, as if Jeong Yong-baek himself were present before him.
The name tag seemed to embody all his suppressed guilt and rage, drawing him into a silent, agonizing confrontation.
“The moment he thought he had saved his brother by selling himself, but then realized that wasn’t the case.”
“Sell? What? Sell what? What!”
Park Chang-gyu roared, slamming the table with both fists.
His screams echoed through the room.
In the observation room, the detectives shook their heads and sighed, witnessing the pathetic spectacle of his true self for the first time.
The facade had finally crumbled, revealing the raw, unhinged man beneath.
“No, even before that, when he realized that the friend he trusted so much was not a friend at all.”
“Friend? Ha…”
Jung Yoon watched Park Chang-gyu laugh, a disbelieving, hollow sound.
With a deliberate movement, Jung Yoon reached out and covered the name tag on the table with his hand.
At this, Park Chang-gyu’s eyes widened fiercely.
He could no longer bear it, trembling uncontrollably, utterly lost.
“You killed Jeong Yong-baek every single one of those moments, you piece of trash.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! He was mine anyway! He was mine from beginning to end!”
Park Chang-gyu lunged, reaching out to snatch the name tag from Jung Yoon’s hand.
Jung Yoon was quick to dodge, narrowly avoiding a bloody injury to the back of his hand.
As Park Chang-gyu continued to yell, raving like a madman that it was “his,” Jung Yoon stood up from his seat, the interrogation effectively concluded.
“We found evidence with the victim’s blood in Mr. Park Chang-gyu’s home. Also, Mr. Park Chang-gyu’s DNA and fingerprints were found on the evidence Mr. Jeong Yong-baek submitted through his family. There’s no use denying it anymore.”
Jung Yoon’s voice was firm, the words a final, undeniable condemnation.
“Th-then… why, why Yong-baek’s story, the diary, why…”
Park Chang-gyu, utterly broken after losing the physical representation of Jeong Yong-baek, asked Jung Yoon with a hollow, defeated expression.
Jung Yoon looked down at him, a soft sigh escaping his lips, then shifted his gaze to the glass wall leading to the observation room.
“Well, maybe because I wanted to mess with you?”
Jung Yoon said, a hint of malice in his tone.
He then turned and left the interrogation room, leaving Park Chang-gyu behind in his despair.
Jeong Rok and Jun-hyeok, who had been waiting, exchanged places with Jung Yoon and entered the room.
From behind the closed door, ear-splitting screams and curses soon erupted, but Jung Yoon ignored them, heading towards the observation room.
Just then, the door opened, and a pair of well-polished shoes came into Jung Yoon’s view.
He lifted his head, and a middle-aged man with neatly styled hair, as if freshly done by a professional, appeared.
The man silently stared at Jung Yoon with a cold, piercing gaze, then turned and walked away without a single word.
Behind him, a younger man, appearing to be Jung Yoon’s age, hurried to follow, clearly his subordinate.
“I wonder if it’ll be alright.”
From the open doorway, Hyeon-cheol peered out, muttering with a sigh, a hint of concern in his voice.
“If that jerk can use his family, what can’t we do? What do you say?”
Jung Yoon asked, his expression unreadable.
“We’ll have a good talk to humbly accept the investigation results.”
Hyeon-cheol lowered his voice, comically mimicking a formal, self-important tone. Jung Yoon’s expression brightened.
“That’s good,” he responded simply, and Hyeon-cheol shook his head, remarking that it was always hard to tell with Jung Yoon.
Jung Yoon gazed aimlessly down the now-empty hallway where Park Chang-gyu’s father had just left, a faint sense of satisfaction on his face.
“Detective Woo!”
Just then, Han-gyeol rushed out into the hallway, his voice urgent.
“The blood analysis results are out! Hurry!”
At Han-gyeol’s shout, Jung Yoon strode purposefully towards that hallway.
Behind him, he heard the sounds of Park Chang-gyu being dragged out of the interrogation room, still yelling and struggling.
But Jung Yoon never looked back, his focus fixed on the finality that would at last bring this painful story to a close.
The Cold Case Team now began preparations to formally arrest Park Chang-gyu.
The weight of the evidence, the confessions, and the sheer audacity of his crimes had culminated in this inevitable outcome.
Before the warrant review, Park Chang-gyu had made a last-ditch request for a meeting with his father, perhaps seeking some solace or a final act of desperation.
However, his father, having witnessed the extent of his son’s depravity and perhaps too ashamed to face him, refused the meeting.
The cancellation of this final plea sent Park Chang-gyu into a fit of rage, causing a commotion within the police station, but he was quickly subdued by Jeong Rok, his outburst ultimately proving futile.
The very next day, as Park Chang-gyu was being transported for his actual review, a throng of media outlets had converged outside the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.
Microphones were thrust forward, cameras flashed incessantly, a testament to the high-profile nature of the case and the public’s insatiable hunger for details.
Park Chang-gyu, surprisingly, seemed to anticipate their presence.
He stood before the reporters, a strange calm about him, as if he had been waiting for this very moment.
He maintained, even at this critical juncture, that the murder was not his doing.
Yet, his words were laced with a chilling arrogance, a defiant twist of the narrative.
He calmly spoke to the surrounding reporters, his voice steady despite the chaos around him:
“I do not deny my sins, but I hope you do not deny that your sins were also tools for my murder.”
A flurry of questions erupted from the reporters, their interest piqued by his cryptic statement.
“Whose sins are you referring to when you say ‘your sins’? Are there accomplices?” one reporter, reacting naturally, asked with evident enthusiasm.
Park Chang-gyu offered a relaxed smile, a flicker of something akin to satisfaction in his eyes.
He paused, savoring the moment, before answering in a more definitive tone at the entrance, just before stepping into the waiting van.
“It’s the incompetence of the police.”
Park Chang-gyu, impeccably dressed in a neat suit, mirroring his appearance when he was first apprehended, calmly looked at the cameras.
His usual nonchalant and relaxed expression was back, as if his recent outburst of rage had never happened. He was a master of manipulation, even in defeat.
“However, despite that, I applaud the efforts of the Duckdong Police Station, and the countless other police officers who have worked hard to catch me.”
His words were a perverse mixture of condemnation and patronizing praise, a final attempt to assert control and perhaps even mock those who had finally brought him to justice.
The police, however, were not swayed by Park Chang-gyu’s theatrical display.
They were diligently investigating additional charges against him, acknowledging his role not only as an instigator of serial murders but also as a direct participant in the horrific crimes.
The authorities had also announced plans for further investigation into past murders of women, which now included the involvement of his accomplice, Mr. Jeong.
The magnitude of Park Chang-gyu’s crimes was still being unraveled.
While five victims had been formally confirmed from his known offenses, there was a strong belief that this was merely the tip of the iceberg.
The police suspected that there might be additional undiscovered crimes linked to him, particularly unsolved past murders of women.
Consequently, a high-intensity investigation was immediately launched to uncover the full extent of his depravity and bring closure to all the victims and their families. \
The long and arduous journey for justice was far from over; it was merely entering a new, equally critical phase.
The Cold Case Team, having successfully brought down a notorious murderer, now faced the daunting task of piecing together a darker, more extensive criminal history, ensuring that every victim received the justice they deserved.