May 9, 2025 • 30 mins
In March 2001, as the nation of South Korea enjoyed a national holiday, five boys from Dalseo in the city of Daegu, headed off into the forest in search of adventure.
They were never seen alive again.
Written by Diane Hope and Richard MacLean Smith
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
It's March twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one, and South Korea
is gripped by election fever. Local elections for district, city
and county councilors are being held for the first time
in thirty years. A national holiday has been declared, and
many people, including military personnel and school children, have been
given the day off. Pupils from the Syongsou Elementary School
(00:35):
on the outskirts of Daegu are no exception. Among them.
It's Kim Hyon dos eleven year old son Yong Jieu.
For the purpose of clarity, South Korean names begin with
the family name followed by the given name. That morning,
he On Dou watches Young Jiu wave goodbye before disappearing
(00:56):
into the small maze of interconnecting concrete lined alleyways behind
their house to meet up with his friends Wu Chiolwan,
Joho Yon Park Chanin, Kim Yong hikh and Kim Tai Ryong.
The boys, aged nine to thirteen, are all neighbours in
an area known as Dlso, a modest working class neighborhood
(01:20):
on the western edge of Daegu city sprawl. They often
play together around their houses in the nearby rice paddies
or on the thickly wooded slopes of Woyong Mountain just
to the north. On that morning of elections. With no
classes to keep them in school, the boys have been
given free reign to enjoy the spring day. Just after
(01:43):
eight a m. A young man gets annoyed with them
playing outside his apartment and tells them to go and
play somewhere else. A short time later, one of the
boys returns home, as nine year old Kim te Ryong
explains to his parents, he wanted to keep playing, but
the others decided to head off to Woyong Mountain and
(02:03):
he struggled to keep up with them. Having also been
worried about going too far from home, he decided to
cut his losses and come back. Middle school student MoU
Yon is riding his bike past the entrance to the
mountain trailhead when he sees his younger brother walking with
the four other boys. He calls out to him and
(02:25):
asks where he's going. Oh Yon replies that they're heading
up to the mountain to the Salamander Pond, a water
hole where salamanders are known to congregate to look for eggs.
MoU Yon watches for a moment as the boys head
up the trail, then turns around and cycles off. It
(02:45):
has just gone nine when a woman named Kim's son Nam,
who lives at the foot of Woyong Mountain, heads out
of her home to cast a vote in the elections.
The sun is shining, the spring air fresh and cool,
with a thick carpet of last year's fallen leaves on
the ground. When she too sees the boys as they
head up the mountain. As they pass it by, they
(03:09):
wander aloud if they can get there and back in
two hours. That short, innocuous question will echo through her
mind for many years to come. You're listening to Unexplained,
and I'm Richard McLean Smith. It has just gone eleven
(03:33):
thirty when another pupil from Xiongsou Elementary School named Ham
climbs alone to a grave site located on the middle
slopes of Wyong Mountain. Just then he hears a series
of unusual sounds, sharp and urgent, coming from the top
of the mountain in roughly ten second intervals. Then he
hears another sound. This one is unquestionable, a marrow melting scream,
(03:59):
followed swiftly by another. The intensity of it seeps under
his skin. This is followed by an unnerving, eerie silence.
By the end of the afternoon, the young boys have
yet to return, and as dusk falls, the boys' families
begin to get seriously worried. Mister Kim, father of nine
(04:21):
year old young Chkh, knows there are some fierce dogs
kept part way up the mountain trail. He worries that
the dogs might have escaped and attacked the boys, and
so the parents quickly assemble and begin to search the
mountain path, calling out their children's names as they climb
higher up into the trees, but they find no sign
(04:42):
of them. It is seven point fifty when they're reported
missing to the police. With the help of some local officers,
the parents continue to search for the boys into the
early hours of the next morning, but still no sign
of them is found. The police see, I'm unconcerned. The
boys are just being boysed They say they'll come home eventually.
(05:06):
That night, at his home, a petrified Kim he Undo
drifts into a fitful sleep and starts to dream. Rain
pours down, sluicing off his home's roof, dripping noisily into
its tiled courtyard. Heyon Deu stands on his porch and
looks up to see his young son, yon Jiu, playing
(05:28):
in the alley outside. It's a replay of the morning before,
turned hideously inside out. The boy pokes his head around
the half open metal gates to the yard and smiles, Then,
without a word, he turns and scampers off. Gripped by terror,
heyon Deo runs after his son out through the gate
(05:49):
and into the narrow alleyway beyond its concrete walls, damp
and stained with rust. Up Ahead, he sees the back
of his son as he runs up the alleyway. He
tears after him, frantically calling out for him to stop
and come back, but the boy never stops and never
looks back. As he on Deo fights desperately to keep
(06:11):
up with him, his son recedes ever further into the distance.
Then he wakes with a gasp in the dark, his
eyes streaming with tears, gripped by the horrifying certainty that
his beautiful son will never be coming home. When the
(06:35):
five young boys fail to return on the second day,
the frantic parents demand more help from the police, only
to be told they still can't be categorized as officially missing,
and there's little they can do until then. The police
also begin to wonder if the boys have run away.
Perhaps they've been getting up to mischief, because that's what's
(06:56):
expected of boys who come from lower income, working class family.
But there are no problems in any of their homes
and none of them have done anything like that before.
The parents protest to no avail. Then one of the
fathers receives an anonymous phone call. The man on the
other end of the line claims to be holding the
(07:17):
missing children. He says that the boys are all suffering,
that two are very ill, and that the parents must
bring a large sum of money to a street near
Daegu's main train station before it is too late. Scraping
together what they can at short notice, the parents go
to the location the following evening, racked with worry but
(07:39):
also fuming with anger. They are ready to beat the
perpetrator to a pulp, but also determined to sacrifice all
they own to get their boys back. Five, then ten,
then twenty minutes go by as the parents wait where
the caller had told them to go. They continue to
wait for another hour, feeling helpless, but in the end
(08:03):
no one comes. In the days following the boy's disappearance,
People in Daegu and across South Korea glue themselves to
their radios and TV sets, completely immersed in the emerging
news from the elections. There is widespread interest in the
country's politics at the time, especially because of a growing
pro democracy movement struggling to emerge South Koreans since there
(08:28):
is a chance for a transition from military dictatorship to
free and fair elections on the horizon. It isn't until
almost a week after the disappearance of the five boys
from Dalso that the media really begins to pick up
the story. When one broadcast the reports that the boys
had gone to try and catch frogs. The missing children
(08:50):
become known as the Frog Boys. As public interest in
the case intensifies, the boy's parents are invited onto the
popular news program The Square of Public Opinions, where they
angrily lambass the police who continue to classify the boys
as runaways rather than missing. The program hosts phone lines
(09:11):
for members of the public to call if they have
any information on the boys. Suddenly, during the middle of
the broadcast, one of the phone operators shouts out to
the parents that they have one of the boys, Kim
Yong Chikh on the line, the operator says the boy
is sobbing and asking to speak with his mother. Yong
(09:32):
Sheikh's mother rushes over, but by the time she reaches
the phone, the caller has hung up. It is a
prank call. Though wild rumours quickly spread about what might
(09:53):
have happened to the boys, many believe they are still alive.
Back in nineteen seventy nine, close to the city, also
about eighty kilometers southwest of Daegu, three children aged between
six and seven went missing after going foraging on a
nearby mountain. Rumours became widespread that a terrible fate had
(10:13):
befallen them, but after almost a month, the children turned
up malnourished but alive, having simply got lost despite their
young age that used their knowledge of foraging to survive,
having done relatively little to help. On May fifth, six
weeks after the boys disappeared, President Rode Tewu issues a
(10:37):
special order mobilizing the police and military in a massive
search operation. In July, an investigation headquarters is established by
the Daegu Provincial Police Agency, and thousands of police and
military officers are drafted in to help search teams form
lines and use sticks to probe the ground as they
(10:59):
go exhaust over the region surrounding the Salamander pond, and
then in widening circles around the entire mountain. The undergrowth
on the mountain is short at that time, leaving few
places for the boys or their bodies to remain hidden.
But still nothing is found in lieu of any concrete answers.
(11:21):
The case attracts many false reports and prank calls. Meanwhile,
theories about what has happened to the Frog Boys get
more and more extravagant. Back in the nineteen seventies, North
Korean agents kidnaps some South Korean high school students to
help them train North Korean spies to blend into life
in the South. Some people wonder if the Frog Boys
(11:44):
were taken under similar circumstances. Some wonder if the boys
have been abducted by aliens. Others that a group of
patients suffering from leprosy have taken the boys to help
treat their disease. At one point, even visit a leper
colony just in case the rumor is true. No end
(12:05):
of self described psychics and fortune tellers also join the
ranks of people claiming to have insights as to what
has happened to the boys and where they are, but
no one can provide any information that brings the children back,
so the boys fathers decide to take matters into their
own hands. In the summer of nineteen ninety one, the
(12:34):
fathers of the missing boys quit their jobs and rent
a small truck. Together. They deck it out with posters
containing pleas for information about their sons, as well as
a large portrait of each boy. Then the desperate fathers
drive across South Korea, beseeching fellow citizens to help them
find their sons. Often, the fathers find a busy spot
(12:57):
in a city or town where they park and hand
out leaflets appealing for information. The men watch on hopefully
as one middle aged woman in a hurry pauses briefly
to grab a flyer, only to then use it to
wipe chewing gum off the sole of her shoe. On
the first anniversary of the disappearance, in March nineteen ninety two,
(13:19):
the parents hold a press conference involving media representatives from
across South Korea. At some point, people begin to notice
a number of men in the audience who don't look
like journalists taking notes. Whenever the parents speak. It later
transpires that the men are from an unnamed intelligence agency.
(13:40):
For several months, they have shadowed the fathers, recording every
detail of what they do and where they go. Some
have even turned up at the boy's homes, claiming they
are there for the parent's protection. It is the final
indignity that the boy's own fathers are now in the
frame for the disappearance of their children. As month after
(14:02):
month rolls by, the fathers continue to drive across South Korea,
pleading for any information that will help find the missing boys.
They continue for three long years, but finally, disheartened and
in serious debt, the fathers hold another press conference in
the nation's capital, Soul to announce that they are giving
(14:24):
up their search. They will go back to what is
left with their families and attempt to restore some measure
of normality to their daily lives. For their part, the
police continue their efforts. Twenty thousand leaflets containing computer generated
images of how the children might look now are distributed.
(14:45):
One thousand welfare facilities and religious organizations, along with eleven
thousand households and forty eight mountain areas are searched. Eighteen
hundred elementary school pupils are questioned, along with around nineteen
thousand industrial complex workers. Around five hundred and seventy reports
(15:05):
as to the boys whereabouts are received from all across
the nation, even from fishing boats along South Korea's extensive coastline.
Several large Korean companies also join in the effort to
help the search, with details about the case and requests
for information being printed on all manner of products, from
(15:26):
cigarettes to milk cartons, sweet wrappers and telephone cards. Po
Hag Steel and Korean Airways also provide money for the
police to distribute tens of thousands of flyers with employees
and customers. But finally, after five years of fruitless searching,
in nineteen ninety six, the Frog Boys Investigation Department of
(15:49):
the Daegu Police Agency is disbanded. The search is transferred
to the local Dalso Police station, where the local police
chief takes over the investigations with the team of just
ten men. For the missing boy's parents, who are still
(16:16):
under intense public and media scrutiny, the years since their
boy's disappearance have been interminably hard. Not only are they
dealing with the heartbreak of losing their children, Any sign
of happiness in the fleeting moment that they might experience,
it must be fiercely suppressed. If not, the press might
(16:36):
use it as evidence that the parents never really cared
about their boys and that they are the ones truly
had fault for them going missing. Some members of the
media continue to harass the families on occasion, manipulating their
words and even publishing fake stories about them. But eventually
(16:56):
even the media grow tired of the story and it
can completely drops from their headlines. Then one day, the
parents receive an unexpected calls out of the blue. The
families are contacted by military personnel from the fiftieth Division
of the South Korean Army, who happen to have a
(17:17):
base close to where the five boys went missing. The
parents are told that military personnel want to see them
all without the police knowing. Rain lashes down and water
sluices along the drains in the narrow concrete alleyways as
the parents gather outside their homes before being escorted by
(17:38):
soldiers into minibuses. The parents are driven the short distance
to the military base and through the gates. Commissioned army
officers greet them and lead them through the rain into
a large tent where more officers and some regular soldiers
are waiting for them. Mystified and alarmed, the parents come
(18:00):
even more confused when one of the officers steps forward
to speak. He tells them that one of his soldiers
is a medium who has special talents. In fact, continues
the officer, this soldier will be able to give the
parents supernatural powers which will help them find their children.
(18:22):
Before the bemused parents can ask any questions, a man
steps forward and proceeds to solemnly place his hands on
each side of Kim Kiondu's head, father of missing boy
Young Jieu. The man feels nothing, but then his wife,
with a boldness none of her neighbors have ever seen
her display, suddenly demands that everyone follow her outside and
(18:45):
into the deluge. The woman begins striding up the mountain
as if totally convinced where she is going, and everyone
hurriedly follows. It's hard to walk, as the heavy rain
has turned the mountain slopes into a quagmire, and most
of the parents have only their regular shoes on. They
(19:07):
stagger uphill, slipping and sliding on the muddy terrain. Then
missus Kim suddenly stops and screams while pointing at a
spot in front of her. The children are there, she yells,
I can see them. Unnerved, everyone looks around, their flashlights
(19:33):
cutting through the drenching rain, but to their immense distress,
there is no sign of the children. Eventually, the search
is suspended and the disconsolate parents are returned home without
a further word of explanation. It is January nineteen ninety
six when a well groomed, respectable man dressed in a
(19:56):
black suit comes to speak with some of the parents.
The man is not from the government, but a psychology
professor named Kim Garwan, who tells them that he's spent
some time studying criminal psychology in the USA. As the
professor goes on to explain to the desperate parents, having
reviewed the available evidence, he believes he knows exactly what
(20:19):
happened to the five missing boys. He tells them first
that it is his firm belief that they never actually
went up into the mountain. For a long time, he's
been developing doubts about the alibi of Kim chio Du,
father of Yong Sheikh, one of the missing boys, who's
been somewhat vague about his whereabouts for three hours on
(20:42):
the afternoon the boys went missing. The reason, according to
the professor, is clear. Mister Kim is the killer, and
if his suspicions are correct, they will find the remains
of all five boys underneath mister Kim's own house. Very
few criminal psychologists in South Korea in the mid nineteen nineties,
(21:04):
Professor Kim's rarity, combined with the utter confidence with which
he announces his reasoning, are enough to convince the police
that his claims were at least worth investigating. Several of
the boy's parents openly tell the professor that he is
completely wrong, but some also begin to wander, and so
(21:25):
one weekday, afternoon, police officers accompanied by workmen armed with
sledge hammers, pickaxes and shovels, all watched on by the
parents of the missing boys and other curious neighbors, turn
up at the Kim family home. Before long, the media
have arrived too, to film the unfolding events. Inside the home,
(21:49):
police find an area at the back where a new
toilet and cement floor have quite clearly only recently been installed.
The accused Fatherill Gioux, watches on with anguish as the
workmen get to work, swinging their sledgehammers and pickaxes at
the back wall of the house. Then others quickly join
(22:10):
in excavating the area around the toilet. As police investigators
warm all over the family's belongings, They move furniture and
scatter the belongings into the yard as they search for clues.
(22:30):
After hours of searching, with only a five foot trench
dug into the back of the Kim property to chow
frit only then do people begin to question the psychology
professor's logic. Even if the were three hours unaccounted for
in the father's schedule, how would he have had the
time to kill all five children, including his own son,
(22:52):
then bury them and completely hide the evidence of his crime. Finally,
after a day of searching, with some embarrassment, the police
announce they have drawn a blank. Nothing at all incriminating
is found. As the professor tries to make an inconspicuous exit,
(23:13):
enraged onlookers begin chanting to catch him and attempt to
rush at him. The police are forced to make a
cordon shielding the disgraced psychologist and hurry him into a
police car before driving off at speed. The following day,
under the full glare of the media, Professor Kim is
forced to make a full apology to the parents, but
(23:35):
especially to the wrongly accused father, Chure Giu. Before the
boys went missing, Kim chi or Giu was a robust
and healthy man, but after this incident, his health goes
downhill fast. He turns to drink to numb the pain
of it all. Within a year, he is diagnosed with
(23:58):
liver cancer and dies shortly after, still in his forties,
having never found out the truth about his son's disappearance.
Though the official cause was his cancer, those closest to
him know that the stress of everything that had happened
was a major contributing factor. Other parents also lose themselves
(24:21):
in drink or become severely depressed. They find it hard
to hold down jobs. Part Gun Sou, father of chan In,
who was ten when he went missing, is consumed with
unresolved anger. He repeatedly gets into fights with the police
and is eventually placed in a detention center for a while.
(24:44):
Only one thing keeps him and the remaining parents going,
the hope that they might finally one day find their sons.
You've been listen link to Unexplained Season eight, episode twenty nine.
Go tell fire to the Mountain Part one. The second
(25:07):
and final part will be released next Friday, May sixteenth.
This episode was written by Diane Hope and Richard McClain smith.
Diane is an audio producer and sound recordist in her
own right. You can find out more about her work
at Dianehope dot com and on Instagram at in the
(25:29):
sound Field. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast created
by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,
including the music, are also produced by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained.
The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and
(25:53):
other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of
your own you'd like to share. You can find out
more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online
through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.
(26:18):
Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Two tund bud ounper b b b b ounper time
(29:07):
Time Dan Assass
It's March twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one, and South Korea
is gripped by election fever. Local elections for district, city
and county councilors are being held for the first time
in thirty years. A national holiday has been declared, and
many people, including military personnel and school children, have been
given the day off. Pupils from the Syongsou Elementary School
(00:35):
on the outskirts of Daegu are no exception. Among them.
It's Kim Hyon dos eleven year old son Yong Jieu.
For the purpose of clarity, South Korean names begin with
the family name followed by the given name. That morning,
he On Dou watches Young Jiu wave goodbye before disappearing
(00:56):
into the small maze of interconnecting concrete lined alleyways behind
their house to meet up with his friends Wu Chiolwan,
Joho Yon Park Chanin, Kim Yong hikh and Kim Tai Ryong.
The boys, aged nine to thirteen, are all neighbours in
an area known as Dlso, a modest working class neighborhood
(01:20):
on the western edge of Daegu city sprawl. They often
play together around their houses in the nearby rice paddies
or on the thickly wooded slopes of Woyong Mountain just
to the north. On that morning of elections. With no
classes to keep them in school, the boys have been
given free reign to enjoy the spring day. Just after
(01:43):
eight a m. A young man gets annoyed with them
playing outside his apartment and tells them to go and
play somewhere else. A short time later, one of the
boys returns home, as nine year old Kim te Ryong
explains to his parents, he wanted to keep playing, but
the others decided to head off to Woyong Mountain and
(02:03):
he struggled to keep up with them. Having also been
worried about going too far from home, he decided to
cut his losses and come back. Middle school student MoU
Yon is riding his bike past the entrance to the
mountain trailhead when he sees his younger brother walking with
the four other boys. He calls out to him and
(02:25):
asks where he's going. Oh Yon replies that they're heading
up to the mountain to the Salamander Pond, a water
hole where salamanders are known to congregate to look for eggs.
MoU Yon watches for a moment as the boys head
up the trail, then turns around and cycles off. It
(02:45):
has just gone nine when a woman named Kim's son Nam,
who lives at the foot of Woyong Mountain, heads out
of her home to cast a vote in the elections.
The sun is shining, the spring air fresh and cool,
with a thick carpet of last year's fallen leaves on
the ground. When she too sees the boys as they
head up the mountain. As they pass it by, they
(03:09):
wander aloud if they can get there and back in
two hours. That short, innocuous question will echo through her
mind for many years to come. You're listening to Unexplained,
and I'm Richard McLean Smith. It has just gone eleven
(03:33):
thirty when another pupil from Xiongsou Elementary School named Ham
climbs alone to a grave site located on the middle
slopes of Wyong Mountain. Just then he hears a series
of unusual sounds, sharp and urgent, coming from the top
of the mountain in roughly ten second intervals. Then he
hears another sound. This one is unquestionable, a marrow melting scream,
(03:59):
followed swiftly by another. The intensity of it seeps under
his skin. This is followed by an unnerving, eerie silence.
By the end of the afternoon, the young boys have
yet to return, and as dusk falls, the boys' families
begin to get seriously worried. Mister Kim, father of nine
(04:21):
year old young Chkh, knows there are some fierce dogs
kept part way up the mountain trail. He worries that
the dogs might have escaped and attacked the boys, and
so the parents quickly assemble and begin to search the
mountain path, calling out their children's names as they climb
higher up into the trees, but they find no sign
(04:42):
of them. It is seven point fifty when they're reported
missing to the police. With the help of some local officers,
the parents continue to search for the boys into the
early hours of the next morning, but still no sign
of them is found. The police see, I'm unconcerned. The
boys are just being boysed They say they'll come home eventually.
(05:06):
That night, at his home, a petrified Kim he Undo
drifts into a fitful sleep and starts to dream. Rain
pours down, sluicing off his home's roof, dripping noisily into
its tiled courtyard. Heyon Deu stands on his porch and
looks up to see his young son, yon Jiu, playing
(05:28):
in the alley outside. It's a replay of the morning before,
turned hideously inside out. The boy pokes his head around
the half open metal gates to the yard and smiles, Then,
without a word, he turns and scampers off. Gripped by terror,
heyon Deo runs after his son out through the gate
(05:49):
and into the narrow alleyway beyond its concrete walls, damp
and stained with rust. Up Ahead, he sees the back
of his son as he runs up the alleyway. He
tears after him, frantically calling out for him to stop
and come back, but the boy never stops and never
looks back. As he on Deo fights desperately to keep
(06:11):
up with him, his son recedes ever further into the distance.
Then he wakes with a gasp in the dark, his
eyes streaming with tears, gripped by the horrifying certainty that
his beautiful son will never be coming home. When the
(06:35):
five young boys fail to return on the second day,
the frantic parents demand more help from the police, only
to be told they still can't be categorized as officially missing,
and there's little they can do until then. The police
also begin to wonder if the boys have run away.
Perhaps they've been getting up to mischief, because that's what's
(06:56):
expected of boys who come from lower income, working class family.
But there are no problems in any of their homes
and none of them have done anything like that before.
The parents protest to no avail. Then one of the
fathers receives an anonymous phone call. The man on the
other end of the line claims to be holding the
(07:17):
missing children. He says that the boys are all suffering,
that two are very ill, and that the parents must
bring a large sum of money to a street near
Daegu's main train station before it is too late. Scraping
together what they can at short notice, the parents go
to the location the following evening, racked with worry but
(07:39):
also fuming with anger. They are ready to beat the
perpetrator to a pulp, but also determined to sacrifice all
they own to get their boys back. Five, then ten,
then twenty minutes go by as the parents wait where
the caller had told them to go. They continue to
wait for another hour, feeling helpless, but in the end
(08:03):
no one comes. In the days following the boy's disappearance,
People in Daegu and across South Korea glue themselves to
their radios and TV sets, completely immersed in the emerging
news from the elections. There is widespread interest in the
country's politics at the time, especially because of a growing
pro democracy movement struggling to emerge South Koreans since there
(08:28):
is a chance for a transition from military dictatorship to
free and fair elections on the horizon. It isn't until
almost a week after the disappearance of the five boys
from Dalso that the media really begins to pick up
the story. When one broadcast the reports that the boys
had gone to try and catch frogs. The missing children
(08:50):
become known as the Frog Boys. As public interest in
the case intensifies, the boy's parents are invited onto the
popular news program The Square of Public Opinions, where they
angrily lambass the police who continue to classify the boys
as runaways rather than missing. The program hosts phone lines
(09:11):
for members of the public to call if they have
any information on the boys. Suddenly, during the middle of
the broadcast, one of the phone operators shouts out to
the parents that they have one of the boys, Kim
Yong Chikh on the line, the operator says the boy
is sobbing and asking to speak with his mother. Yong
(09:32):
Sheikh's mother rushes over, but by the time she reaches
the phone, the caller has hung up. It is a
prank call. Though wild rumours quickly spread about what might
(09:53):
have happened to the boys, many believe they are still alive.
Back in nineteen seventy nine, close to the city, also
about eighty kilometers southwest of Daegu, three children aged between
six and seven went missing after going foraging on a
nearby mountain. Rumours became widespread that a terrible fate had
(10:13):
befallen them, but after almost a month, the children turned
up malnourished but alive, having simply got lost despite their
young age that used their knowledge of foraging to survive,
having done relatively little to help. On May fifth, six
weeks after the boys disappeared, President Rode Tewu issues a
(10:37):
special order mobilizing the police and military in a massive
search operation. In July, an investigation headquarters is established by
the Daegu Provincial Police Agency, and thousands of police and
military officers are drafted in to help search teams form
lines and use sticks to probe the ground as they
(10:59):
go exhaust over the region surrounding the Salamander pond, and
then in widening circles around the entire mountain. The undergrowth
on the mountain is short at that time, leaving few
places for the boys or their bodies to remain hidden.
But still nothing is found in lieu of any concrete answers.
(11:21):
The case attracts many false reports and prank calls. Meanwhile,
theories about what has happened to the Frog Boys get
more and more extravagant. Back in the nineteen seventies, North
Korean agents kidnaps some South Korean high school students to
help them train North Korean spies to blend into life
in the South. Some people wonder if the Frog Boys
(11:44):
were taken under similar circumstances. Some wonder if the boys
have been abducted by aliens. Others that a group of
patients suffering from leprosy have taken the boys to help
treat their disease. At one point, even visit a leper
colony just in case the rumor is true. No end
(12:05):
of self described psychics and fortune tellers also join the
ranks of people claiming to have insights as to what
has happened to the boys and where they are, but
no one can provide any information that brings the children back,
so the boys fathers decide to take matters into their
own hands. In the summer of nineteen ninety one, the
(12:34):
fathers of the missing boys quit their jobs and rent
a small truck. Together. They deck it out with posters
containing pleas for information about their sons, as well as
a large portrait of each boy. Then the desperate fathers
drive across South Korea, beseeching fellow citizens to help them
find their sons. Often, the fathers find a busy spot
(12:57):
in a city or town where they park and hand
out leaflets appealing for information. The men watch on hopefully
as one middle aged woman in a hurry pauses briefly
to grab a flyer, only to then use it to
wipe chewing gum off the sole of her shoe. On
the first anniversary of the disappearance, in March nineteen ninety two,
(13:19):
the parents hold a press conference involving media representatives from
across South Korea. At some point, people begin to notice
a number of men in the audience who don't look
like journalists taking notes. Whenever the parents speak. It later
transpires that the men are from an unnamed intelligence agency.
(13:40):
For several months, they have shadowed the fathers, recording every
detail of what they do and where they go. Some
have even turned up at the boy's homes, claiming they
are there for the parent's protection. It is the final
indignity that the boy's own fathers are now in the
frame for the disappearance of their children. As month after
(14:02):
month rolls by, the fathers continue to drive across South Korea,
pleading for any information that will help find the missing boys.
They continue for three long years, but finally, disheartened and
in serious debt, the fathers hold another press conference in
the nation's capital, Soul to announce that they are giving
(14:24):
up their search. They will go back to what is
left with their families and attempt to restore some measure
of normality to their daily lives. For their part, the
police continue their efforts. Twenty thousand leaflets containing computer generated
images of how the children might look now are distributed.
(14:45):
One thousand welfare facilities and religious organizations, along with eleven
thousand households and forty eight mountain areas are searched. Eighteen
hundred elementary school pupils are questioned, along with around nineteen
thousand industrial complex workers. Around five hundred and seventy reports
(15:05):
as to the boys whereabouts are received from all across
the nation, even from fishing boats along South Korea's extensive coastline.
Several large Korean companies also join in the effort to
help the search, with details about the case and requests
for information being printed on all manner of products, from
(15:26):
cigarettes to milk cartons, sweet wrappers and telephone cards. Po
Hag Steel and Korean Airways also provide money for the
police to distribute tens of thousands of flyers with employees
and customers. But finally, after five years of fruitless searching,
in nineteen ninety six, the Frog Boys Investigation Department of
(15:49):
the Daegu Police Agency is disbanded. The search is transferred
to the local Dalso Police station, where the local police
chief takes over the investigations with the team of just
ten men. For the missing boy's parents, who are still
(16:16):
under intense public and media scrutiny, the years since their
boy's disappearance have been interminably hard. Not only are they
dealing with the heartbreak of losing their children, Any sign
of happiness in the fleeting moment that they might experience,
it must be fiercely suppressed. If not, the press might
(16:36):
use it as evidence that the parents never really cared
about their boys and that they are the ones truly
had fault for them going missing. Some members of the
media continue to harass the families on occasion, manipulating their
words and even publishing fake stories about them. But eventually
(16:56):
even the media grow tired of the story and it
can completely drops from their headlines. Then one day, the
parents receive an unexpected calls out of the blue. The
families are contacted by military personnel from the fiftieth Division
of the South Korean Army, who happen to have a
(17:17):
base close to where the five boys went missing. The
parents are told that military personnel want to see them
all without the police knowing. Rain lashes down and water
sluices along the drains in the narrow concrete alleyways as
the parents gather outside their homes before being escorted by
(17:38):
soldiers into minibuses. The parents are driven the short distance
to the military base and through the gates. Commissioned army
officers greet them and lead them through the rain into
a large tent where more officers and some regular soldiers
are waiting for them. Mystified and alarmed, the parents come
(18:00):
even more confused when one of the officers steps forward
to speak. He tells them that one of his soldiers
is a medium who has special talents. In fact, continues
the officer, this soldier will be able to give the
parents supernatural powers which will help them find their children.
(18:22):
Before the bemused parents can ask any questions, a man
steps forward and proceeds to solemnly place his hands on
each side of Kim Kiondu's head, father of missing boy
Young Jieu. The man feels nothing, but then his wife,
with a boldness none of her neighbors have ever seen
her display, suddenly demands that everyone follow her outside and
(18:45):
into the deluge. The woman begins striding up the mountain
as if totally convinced where she is going, and everyone
hurriedly follows. It's hard to walk, as the heavy rain
has turned the mountain slopes into a quagmire, and most
of the parents have only their regular shoes on. They
(19:07):
stagger uphill, slipping and sliding on the muddy terrain. Then
missus Kim suddenly stops and screams while pointing at a
spot in front of her. The children are there, she yells,
I can see them. Unnerved, everyone looks around, their flashlights
(19:33):
cutting through the drenching rain, but to their immense distress,
there is no sign of the children. Eventually, the search
is suspended and the disconsolate parents are returned home without
a further word of explanation. It is January nineteen ninety
six when a well groomed, respectable man dressed in a
(19:56):
black suit comes to speak with some of the parents.
The man is not from the government, but a psychology
professor named Kim Garwan, who tells them that he's spent
some time studying criminal psychology in the USA. As the
professor goes on to explain to the desperate parents, having
reviewed the available evidence, he believes he knows exactly what
(20:19):
happened to the five missing boys. He tells them first
that it is his firm belief that they never actually
went up into the mountain. For a long time, he's
been developing doubts about the alibi of Kim chio Du,
father of Yong Sheikh, one of the missing boys, who's
been somewhat vague about his whereabouts for three hours on
(20:42):
the afternoon the boys went missing. The reason, according to
the professor, is clear. Mister Kim is the killer, and
if his suspicions are correct, they will find the remains
of all five boys underneath mister Kim's own house. Very
few criminal psychologists in South Korea in the mid nineteen nineties,
(21:04):
Professor Kim's rarity, combined with the utter confidence with which
he announces his reasoning, are enough to convince the police
that his claims were at least worth investigating. Several of
the boy's parents openly tell the professor that he is
completely wrong, but some also begin to wander, and so
(21:25):
one weekday, afternoon, police officers accompanied by workmen armed with
sledge hammers, pickaxes and shovels, all watched on by the
parents of the missing boys and other curious neighbors, turn
up at the Kim family home. Before long, the media
have arrived too, to film the unfolding events. Inside the home,
(21:49):
police find an area at the back where a new
toilet and cement floor have quite clearly only recently been installed.
The accused Fatherill Gioux, watches on with anguish as the
workmen get to work, swinging their sledgehammers and pickaxes at
the back wall of the house. Then others quickly join
(22:10):
in excavating the area around the toilet. As police investigators
warm all over the family's belongings, They move furniture and
scatter the belongings into the yard as they search for clues.
(22:30):
After hours of searching, with only a five foot trench
dug into the back of the Kim property to chow
frit only then do people begin to question the psychology
professor's logic. Even if the were three hours unaccounted for
in the father's schedule, how would he have had the
time to kill all five children, including his own son,
(22:52):
then bury them and completely hide the evidence of his crime. Finally,
after a day of searching, with some embarrassment, the police
announce they have drawn a blank. Nothing at all incriminating
is found. As the professor tries to make an inconspicuous exit,
(23:13):
enraged onlookers begin chanting to catch him and attempt to
rush at him. The police are forced to make a
cordon shielding the disgraced psychologist and hurry him into a
police car before driving off at speed. The following day,
under the full glare of the media, Professor Kim is
forced to make a full apology to the parents, but
(23:35):
especially to the wrongly accused father, Chure Giu. Before the
boys went missing, Kim chi or Giu was a robust
and healthy man, but after this incident, his health goes
downhill fast. He turns to drink to numb the pain
of it all. Within a year, he is diagnosed with
(23:58):
liver cancer and dies shortly after, still in his forties,
having never found out the truth about his son's disappearance.
Though the official cause was his cancer, those closest to
him know that the stress of everything that had happened
was a major contributing factor. Other parents also lose themselves
(24:21):
in drink or become severely depressed. They find it hard
to hold down jobs. Part Gun Sou, father of chan In,
who was ten when he went missing, is consumed with
unresolved anger. He repeatedly gets into fights with the police
and is eventually placed in a detention center for a while.
(24:44):
Only one thing keeps him and the remaining parents going,
the hope that they might finally one day find their sons.
You've been listen link to Unexplained Season eight, episode twenty nine.
Go tell fire to the Mountain Part one. The second
(25:07):
and final part will be released next Friday, May sixteenth.
This episode was written by Diane Hope and Richard McClain smith.
Diane is an audio producer and sound recordist in her
own right. You can find out more about her work
at Dianehope dot com and on Instagram at in the
(25:29):
sound Field. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast created
by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,
including the music, are also produced by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained.
The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and
(25:53):
other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of
your own you'd like to share. You can find out
more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online
through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.
(26:18):
Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
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(29:07):
Time Dan Assass
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