Sociopaths are good at investigating - CH 8 - Proof Isn't Only Obtained Through CCTV

I immediately grabbed the car radio.
– “Maechun Two, here Maechun One. Turn off the siren and do not approach the scene yet, just wait for now.”
– “Wait? Any special instructions?”
– “Seven-eight. Just wait for now.”
I couldn’t explain to the other officers over the radio what I had realized, something even Gyeong-su hadn’t noticed yet. I simply told them to wait, then put the radio down and turned off our car’s siren.

“We need to park far from the scene.”
“…Understood.”
Gyeong-su replied with a confused look, then stopped the car a moment later.
“We’ll have to walk about 50 meters from here.”
“Let’s go.”
After getting out of the car, I led the way, carefully scanning my surroundings.
The scene was a villa within our jurisdiction. I deliberately walked around the back of the building and approached the entrance. Then I called the informant and had them open the door.
I quickly ran up the stairs.

“Detective Tak, the scene is on the 3rd floor. How far are you going?”
“The suspect is on the roof.”
“Excuse me?”
Gyeong-su had been reluctantly following me ever since I kept talking about a thief at a simple noise complaint site. It seemed absurd to him.
“The noise complaints we’ve received the past few days—‘swish swish’, ‘grrr grrr’. Those sounds didn’t come from upstairs.”
“Then where did they come from?”
“They came from the outer wall of the building. The thief was cutting the pipes leading to the roof from the balcony of an apartment, causing friction that produced the noise.”
“…!”
When the situation at the junkyard and the noise complaints lined up, the puzzle pieces in my head completed the image of the thief cutting the pipes on the building’s roof.
As expected, when I opened the door to the rooftop,
“What are you doing there?”
A middle-aged man, his skin darkened from the sun, was coiling up the cut air conditioning pipes.
He jumped back in shock when he saw me.
I didn’t rush toward him, though.
“Sir, I need to use your phone.”
I picked up his phone, which was on the railing, and searched through the contacts before pressing the call button.

= “Hello.”
= “This is the officer you met earlier at the junkyard. You’re the grandmother in the green clothes, right?”
= “Yes, yes?”
It was indeed the same voice as the grandmother from earlier.
= “Did you get home?”
= “Yes, but… why did you go to my husband?”
= “I’ll explain when I get there. Please stay at home.”
I hung up the phone.
By the time I finished, Gyeong-su had already pulled out his work phone and was taking pictures of what appeared to be the tools used for the crime: industrial scissors and the cut pipes.
I approached the middle-aged man, who was still on the ground, and said,
“You cut these pipes, didn’t you?”
“Ah, no… I…”
“You had your wife deliver the cut pipes to the junkyard and sell them.”
“Ah, no…”
“If there’s clear evidence of a crime at the scene, even if the suspect denies it, they can be considered the perpetrator. In other words, if you continue to deny the crime and try to leave the scene, we’ll have to arrest you.”
“……”
“We still need to meet the grandmother, so let’s go to your home. If you cooperate, we won’t put handcuffs on you.”
After a brief hesitation, the man reluctantly stood up, and we headed to his house.

*

When we arrived, just as expected, the grandmother was fiercely resistant.
“Are you suspecting my husband? You didn’t even see him cutting the pipes!”
“……”
“Why are you so eager to catch poor old people? And you still call yourselves protectors of the people!?”
“Are you also denying the crime, grandmother?”
“Of course I am! Why would I admit something that wasn’t done? You rotten people!”
The grandfather chimed in, saying, “I saw that the pipe was already cut when I went to the roof.”
Gyeong-su, standing by, looked troubled by their strong reaction.
There were no CCTV cameras on the roof, and, as the grandmother said, we couldn’t find footage of the grandfather cutting the air conditioning pipe anywhere.
“Stop accusing innocent people and show us some evidence!”
“Alright, I’ll show you the evidence.”
But proving a crime doesn’t only rely on CCTV.
I pointed at the grandmother’s phone and began explaining.
“When you showed me your phone at the junkyard earlier, I saw both the photo on the keychain and the wallpaper. The photo on the keychain was of a young boy around 7 or 8 years old. Based on the quality, it looked like it was taken recently.”
“……”
“If it was recent, and the boy is still young, and you carry it around as if you cherish him, then the boy must be your grandson, right?”
“…!”
“And the wallpaper was a photo of you, dressed in a neat black outfit, holding a picture of a man in his 30s. The other family members in the picture were also wearing black suits, which indicates…”
I paused for a moment before continuing.
“The man in the picture was your son, and it was likely a funeral photo.”
Both the grandmother and grandfather’s eyes wavered.
Without reacting further, I pointed to a small room on the right and continued.
“Earlier at the junkyard, I only had a hunch, but now that we’re here, it’s clear. After your son passed away, you’ve been making a living by collecting scrap paper and living with your grandson, without your daughter-in-law.”
In the small room, there were elementary school textbooks and various school supplies.
But there were no items belonging to a middle-aged woman anywhere in the house.
It was clear the daughter-in-law didn’t live with them.
The grandson was probably out, as he wasn’t home.
“And there’s one more thing I noticed—the jewelry you’re wearing.”
At my words, the grandmother cautiously tried to hide her arm behind her back.
However, she couldn’t hide the glittering gold necklace on her neck.
“The design of those pieces of jewelry shows they aren’t very old. They’re not antiques, they’re definitely things you bought after your son passed away.”
“……”
“Despite struggling to get by collecting scrap paper, why would you invest your hard-earned money in luxury jewelry?”
“……”

“It’s because she didn’t want to make her grandson feel small.”
The grandmother slowly lowered her head.

“She has a lot of pride. Even though she had been in trouble before for picking up a fan from another grandmother’s area, when we were at the scene earlier, she was shouting loudly and wouldn’t apologize first. People with strong pride tend to protect their loved ones a lot. They hate seeing their own pride wounded, but they hate even more seeing the pride of those they love being hurt.”

When studying case law, I often encounter situations where emotions like ‘pride’ lead to serious crimes more often than expected.
I had studied these cases and learned about the behavior patterns of people with certain emotions.
So understanding the grandmother’s characteristics wasn’t just emotional understanding; it was the result of descriptive information I had stored from studying case law.

“Elementary school students often have their parents attend school events. So, the grandmother must have attended as well. She was likely worried that her grandson would be teased as an orphan, so she adorned herself with jewelry. To boost her grandson’s spirits, she felt she had to be a much more impressive grandmother than other parents.”
“……”
“The love for her grandson is evident even in the clothes and receipts here.”
I pointed at the drying rack and the receipts on the desk.
The grandson’s clothes, scattered around, were all from big-name brands, and the receipts were for tuition at various after-school academies for him.

“The grandmother, who seemed to be particularly in need of money among the scrap collectors in the neighborhood, managed to find hard-to-come-by air conditioning copper pipes for several days in a row. And at the crime scene where the pipes were stolen, we found her husband gathering the pipes.”
“……”
“Could all of this just be a coincidence?”

The grandmother and grandfather were now completely silent, their heads bowed low.
I took another step closer to them and spoke.
“At this rate, your husband will be charged with trespassing and theft, and you’ll be charged with possession of stolen goods and trafficking. If you’re first-time offenders and admit your crimes, you might just receive a fine and have the case closed. But…”
I paused for a moment, then continued.
“If you keep denying the crime, the police will check all the nearby CCTV footage and collect fingerprints from the industrial scissors. They will work to prove your guilt. With more investigative resources being used, the court will likely impose a harsher sentence. Your fine could be higher, and you may even receive probation.”
“……”
“What do you want to do?”
I looked between them, waiting for a response.
“Shall I call the forensic team to take fingerprints and footprints from the roof of the villa?”

When it comes to proving a crime, the most conclusive evidence is often the criminal’s own confession.
Even if there’s insufficient physical evidence, if a confession can be extracted through questioning, it’s enough to forward the case for prosecution.
They didn’t answer. They just kept their heads down, but then…
Plop.
Plop.
Tears, like chicken droppings, fell to the floor.
The grandfather looked up slightly, gazing at me with a pitiful expression.
“We… we didn’t do it with bad intentions…”
“Crimes can’t be justified. If you needed money, you should have sold the jewelry, not stolen.”
“……”
“What you should do now is not make excuses, but acknowledge your actions and reflect on them.”
After a brief silence, suddenly, the grandmother grabbed my hand.
“Officer…”
With tear-filled eyes, she cried out.
“I was wrong… I’m truly sorry. Really…”

I’ll have a drink.