PROFILE
OF
A RANDOM KILLER
PROFILE
OF A RANDOM KILLER
TRIGGERS
The NCI bus was bringing the profilers, Team Leader Kang, Yoo Min Young and Lee Han to the police station in Yangchon-dong. They hoped to crack the road rage murder cases with the help of the local police.
‘On the surface, it seems that the unsub does not have a motive,’ Team Leader Kang stated, ‘but he does.’
  
‘Could it be due to personal rage or grudge?’ Yoo Min Young enquired.
‘A Swiss psychiatrist, Hans Beyer, found the explanation for inner conflicts in violent behaviour. He called the murders that are caused by such behaviour, ‘Emotional Murders,’ Lee Han explained.
   
The perpetrator seemed to have emotional distress.
‘It’s important to find out why he is so angry,’ Yoo Min Young urged.
Team Leader Kang was also curious. ‘What triggered his anger?’
  
SUPPRESSED
ANGER
The viewers are clued in on the cause of the unsub’s anger. Jang Gi Tae seemed to be emotionally disturbed and disoriented. Tense and worried, he had parked his car by the road side. He hid his gun hurriedly in the car boot.
Someone called him on the mobile phone. The other person on the line, probably his bully boss was thundering at him - slinging humiliating insults at him. His blistering reproaches must have made his subordinate feel inadequate.
       
‘Where are you, Scumbag! Do you have any idea how much money I'd spent on the hospital director? How dare you ruin it! Quit if you can’t do it!’
Did he mean that the bully boss had been giving bribes to the hospital director?
   
Jang Gi Tae stammered out a response. ‘Sir, I’m so sorry but something urgent came out. I’ll take care of it as soon as possible. I’m so sorry,’ Jang Gi Tae apologized.
‘Sorry? You’re sorry? If you can’t solve the problem, Chief Kang….’ His words held a veiled threat. Then, the line went dead.
Jang Gi Tae had to bear the brunt of abuse from his boss and he knew exactly what it meant.     
Suddenly, there was the shrieking of the sirens of police cars and it aroused fear in him. The pressures he had to face made Jang Gi Tae lose control of himself. Anger enveloped him. A savage light must have flashed through his eyes.
He took his anger out on his car. He jumped up and kicked his car several times. He let out a savage scream at the injustice of it all.
   
Kim Hyun Joon was in the lady profiler, Ha Sun Woo’s black Hyundai car. He seemed to be relaxed as they discussed the road rage case.
‘His anger would be the cause, right?’ she asked for confirmation.
   
'We could say Korea is a nation full of anger,' Kim Hyun Joon joked.
‘We can’t just look at this as a violent driving case. The unsub used a gun, and the second incident tells us that he murdered the victim with a clear motive,’ she opined.
     
Team Leader Kang, Yoo Min Young and Lee Han had finally arrived at the police station.
The NCI Team Leader suggested that they should find out about the recent happenings in the unsub’s life.
Lee Han shared his theories on the unsub. Perpetrators who use violent weapons like guns to suppress victims are usually self-defensive and timid.
    Yoo Min Young suggested that his job would probably require emotional interaction, like sales work, where he had to deal with people.   He would be a man over 40. Based on the time that he chose to shoot, like in the second case when there weren’t many people, he would have gotten used to hiding his anger, and not expressing his feelings for a long time.     The audience are given a view of his office life. 
He would be someone who was an expert at hiding his anger. In an elevator full of people, he timidly says ‘I’m sorry.’ When someone walks into an overcrowded lift, the door stays open. But, the newcomer does not feel that he should get off the overloaded lift. Instead, the bully arrogantly nudges Jang Gi Tae to get out.
Forced out, he quickly rushes for the staircase so that he would not be late.
        Social rejection. During lunch hour, nobody invites him to join them, so he is left alone in the office to eat his Samgak-gimbab (rice wrapped in dried seaweed sheets in a triangle-shaped packet).    Team Leader Kang elaborated on the unsub. ‘He is perhaps always busy with work and probably used to studying other’s feelings. Perhaps, he is also a perfectionist who does his work by himself. He would have low self-esteem and he always tries to avoid criticisms by others. Moreover, he would have a weak personality and would never express anger.’        
The viewers are given an idea of his life as a salesman. He would try to promote the company’s products.
When there is an increase in price, pharmacists take advantage and insist on paying the previous price. They would disparage him if he explained that his superiors would be furious with him.
           Lee Han added that, ‘At one point, it would have been difficult for him to suppress his anger.’
PSYCHOTHERAPY
Yoo Min Young asked whether they could look at it psychopathologically.
Something crossed Team Leader Kang’s mind. He phoned Nana Wang to get him a list of male patients in their 40s and 50s who had received psychotherapy in Yangchon dong.
    |
THE PROFILE
TO
PUBLICISE OR NOT TO PUBLICISE
THAT’S
THE QUESTION
The NCI profilers had arrived at the Yangchon-dong police station and were met by Head Detective Lee who had requested for their help to solve the shooting cases.
Detective Lee disclosed that they were on emergency duty for three weeks. Having considered the cases to be urgent and important, his superiors had applied pressure on them to solve the cases. Life in a pressure cooker.
To Detective Lee's surprise, Team Leader Kang suddenly declared that the NCI team were setting up an investigation centre for the case. It would be a joint or cooperative effort.
        
Kim Hyun Joon and Ha Sun Woo had arrived in time to attend the briefing for the local detectives.
Team Leader Kang conducted the briefing. ‘The unsub learned rather quickly. He cut the muzzle of his gun and he had also changed his car. He committed his second murder at night so as to minimise the danger.’
    
Ha Sun Woo was convinced that his first murder was unintentional.
‘If he did not intend to commit a murder, then the car from the first incident would be his real car,’ Team Leader Kang emphasized.
    
Sudden inspiration dawned on Kim Hyun Joon after he had digested all the information and turned it over in his mind. His mind must have taken one swift leap.
He suggested to Team Leader Kang that they should publicise the profile of the criminal that they had put together and run a public investigation, one which was open to the public and the press.
Probably from his point of view, publicity would facilitate the complicated investigation. Perhaps, they should examine the crime and the solution from all angles.
       
The suggestion did not sit well with Team Leader Kang, as he believed that they would not be able to gauge the unsub’s reaction.
Probably, if the profile turned out to be a glaring misinterpretation of the unsub’s violent acts, the publicity might provoke the unsub to execute more erratic acts and perhaps, botch their investigation.
  
It must have been frustrating to Kim Hyun Joon that Ha Sun Woo sided with the Team Leader. ‘We don’t know how he’ll react.’
‘You know that he’ll commit murder again,’ Kim Hyun Joon argued.
    Although it was reasonable for Team Leader Kang to argue that they should not make any rash decisions, he did not seem to understand the complexities of the case. Unlike the passionate younger profiler who was all fired up, Team Leader Kang was mentally affected by his PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) illness. Perhaps he also felt that his leadership was being challenged, so he was not open to listening to opinions other than his own. 
It piqued the intelligent and quick-witted Kim Hyun Joon that the older profiler was fiercely resistant to change and other possibilities for solving the case. His suggestion was rejected without much discussion by the other members of the team. It spoke volumes about the mental state of the Team Leader. Frustration burned into Kim Hyun Joon as he looked strangely at the disoriented profiler.
  In that tense moment, Yoo Min Young announced that the first victim had regained consciousness.   |
THE FIRST VICTIM
Kim Hyun Joon and Ha Sun Woo visited the first victim at the hospital. She was in a neck brace. They were tracking every lead to unmask the gunman.
Ha Sun Woo started the questioning while Kim Hyun Joon looked on anxiously. The victim was encouraged to think about her fearful encounter.
          
‘I was calling my friend on the phone.’ The victim had been gossiping about her son. ‘There was a car that was not moving. I sounded the horn but it didn’t work.’
She was in a hurry to get to her son’s school and she was running out of time.’
‘Is that why you overtook the car?’
     
She had overtaken Jang Gi Tae’s car. He had pulled his car right up next to hers and tried to explain that he had given her signals to overtake.
She had chastised him, ‘Who are you to tell me to stop?’
She admitted that she was angry and had acted rashly.
     
Kim Hyun Joo was curious about the unsub’s response.
‘What did he say to you then? Did he sound the horn or shout curse words? Did he do something to threaten you?’
         ‘No, he couldn’t say anything. I didn’t let him speak. I’m always on edge whenever I drive. I didn’t want to appear to be fragile,’ she explained.      
After the interview, the two NCI profilers discussed the issue.
‘The first case was unintentional,’ Ha Sun Woo stressed.
 Kim Hyun Joon was convinced that his suppressed anger must have exploded.  Ha Sun Woo believed that if the unsub did anything to upset the woman in his next encounter, the woman’s angry reaction would immediately precipitate his next crime.   Kim Hyun Joon thought that the particular type of crime was like a drug. ‘This one concerns the shooting and targeting of random people.’               Kim Hyun Joon agreed that if the unsub wanted to repeat the crime pattern that happened in the first case, he would look for another victim soon. He would then become uncontrollable.              |