The perfect crime

The perfect crime is often associated with the Hollywood movie “The Usual Suspects,” a film featuring a stellar performance by actor Kevin Spacey. The term "usual suspects" refers to those who get prime attention and are summoned first by police when a crime occurs. The best part of the movie is the scene where a usual suspect Verval played by Spacey limps out of the police station after being cleared of charges, but soon walks straight.

A professor in Busan who was arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife apparently aimed to commit the perfect crime. A graduate of a prestigious university in Korea, he is an expert on computer-related crimes and served as an adviser on cybercrimes to prosecutors and police. He also led an academy on computer crime studies. By utilizing his expert knowledge, he chose the location and roads where no closed-circuit cameras were installed to bury and transport his wife’s body. He created an alibi by choosing the date for the crime when a mountaineering club he joined had a get-together. To remove text messages he exchanged with his lover, the professor visited the headquarters of Kakao Talk, a social networking service provider. Then, he reported to police that his wife was missing. His crime shows how far an intellectual without a conscience can go.

With a bag containing his wife’s body floating to the surface of the water, police collected clues to the crime. The professor`s purchase of the bag was filmed by a surveillance camera and the Kakao Talk messages were restored by police. He thought that if he disposed of the body at the mouth of the Nakdong River, it would be washed out to sea. On the contrary, the corpse was backwashed and floated to the surface of the river. The bodies of innocent victims have often floated to the surface of the water to provide clues to the police.

The perfect crime is now impossible due to the development of advanced techniques in scientific crime investigation such as closed-circuit cameras, DNA analysis and restoration of digital data. A scientific investigation caught a man who lied that a rat was found in bread; a medical doctor who suffocated his pregnant wife; and a man who lied about the explosion of a Samsung Electronics mobile phone. A DNA analysis technique that extracts DNA from even a strand of hair, saliva or a drop of semen has revolutionized criminal investigations. Despite fears over invasion of privacy, surveillance cameras have been significantly helpful in rounding up criminals. Records of computer and mobile phone use can never be eliminated. The professor might have thought of murder as something he could easily master like a computer game.

Editorial Writer Chung Sung-hee (shchung@donga.com)