TWO AGAINST ONE
KIM HYUN JOON THE FIRST INTERROGATION
Back at the NCI headquarters, the investigation was geared up after the arrest of Kang Chi Hwan.
Kim Hyun Joon took the first stab at tricking the young criminal to confess to his crimes.
Kang Chi Hwan was questioned about why he fled from the law enforcement agents if he had nothing to hide. His answer was wishy-washy but from the information he provided, the young suspect was a straight-A student. An intelligent criminal.
Kim Hyun Joon already knew Kang Chi Hwan had mental health issues and he was, without a shadow of a doubt, the criminal that the NCI had been searching for.
       
Kim Hyun Joon could not conceal his smirk, as the young man tried to weasel himself out of the NCI interrogation.
        
Staring coldly at him, Kim Hyun Joon whipped out a newspaper and rapped on The Phantom Club advertisement which promoted their Fan Fiction membership recruitment drive.
There was no stonewalling on the queries about his membership. Kang Chi Hwan was cooperative; he acknowledged that he was familiar with the club and asserted that all criminal psychology research students were members of the club.
         Kim Hyun Joon gave the young suspect a withering glance. His accusation was Kang Chi Hwan had committed copycat murders by mimicking the murders posted on the fan fiction website. Drilling Kang Chi Hwan seemed pointless; Kim Hyun Joon had a tough time getting a direct confession out of the wily youngster.     Kang Chi Hwan feigned surprise. He was unflappable; he laughed at Kim Hyun Joon for his amateurish sleuthing skills. He was dismissive of Kim Hyun Joon’s assumptions of his guilt. He did not even flinch nor fidget. The unsettling thing about him was he apparently found perverse joy in revealing that 'Fake murder' was a game people played for fun.       
To him, fake murder practice was a game – a harmless escapade. The sicko suddenly leaned over and laugh in the profiler’s face.
He hissed, ‘They didn’t kill for real!’ That was the ugly truth about some of the young would-be cybercriminals.
  
‘Murder practice? Kim Hyun Joon’s eyebrow shot up.
‘Isn’t the website interesting?’ the criminal crowed.
   
Kim Hyun Joon’s eyes bored coldly into his. Kang Chi Hwan may not have regaled the profiler with the horrific crime stories that he had read on the web but, Kim Hyun Joon knew the young man spelled trouble.
What was bone-chilling was his bizarre confession about the effect of the postings on him. He gleefully admitted that on reading the stories, his fingers started to tingle and sometimes, he felt that he was actually committing the murder that was being described.
Kim Hyun Joon seemed equally shocked by his degenerate talk and revelation of the evil goings-on in the dark web. It must have made his skin crawl.
        
‘Don’t you want to know what it feels like to kill someone?’ he said calmly, taunting the profiler. ‘People will die eventually. Why do I have to waste my time on people who are already dead?’
       
It was a test of wills. It was difficult for Kim Hyun Joon to
ensnare him and ferret out a confession from him.
The unrepentant youngster did not cave in under pressure
because he was confident and intelligent enough to understand his rights
under the law. The NCI had no scintilla of evidence to pin him down; they
neither had forensic evidence nor eyewitness accounts to link him to any of
the murders.
|
TWO AGAINST ONE KIM HYUN JOON AND TEAM LEADER KANG VERSUS THE REAPER'S CLONE
On sensing the difficulty faced by the younger profiler, Team Leader Kang decided to use his experience and skills to interrogate Kang Chi Hwan.
The older profiler used all his usual interrogation methods to stress the young suspect out psychologically but to no avail. The reduction of the room temperature was ineffective.
         
Kang Chi Hwan was questioned on the death of his first victim, his girlfriend, Ko Joon Hee. The young criminal was neither rattled nor angry; he did not crack under pressure. He may be depraved but he was sophisticated.
      
He clarified that they operated a mystery club called Journal Holmse. Although he found her to be cute, he stopped seeing her when she became clingy. Pretending to be ignorant of the cause of her death, he blatantly asked about her murderer.
      
When he glanced at the photos of his dead girlfriend on the projection screen, he was calm and collected.
He taunted the profilers with his knowledge about her murder. He knew that she was the first victim who was stunned with a stun gun, abducted and murdered.
Smiling complacently, he compared her corpse to a piece of garbage tossed out at the dumpsite. Even Kim Hyun Joon was sickened by his lack of guilt and remorse.          
It was also mind-boggling that he could talk easily about the shooting case without remorse or guilt. It was apparent that Kang Chi Hwan was well-versed in the details of crime and was able to give exact descriptions of the murder. He could even spell out the modus operandi of the murderer!
              
‘Did I get anything wrong?’ he asked smugly.
  Kim Hyun Joon tried using flattery to trap the young criminal. The Reaper's clone had got everything pat down - the order of the crimes, the patterns, the methods and even the after-measures taken by the murderer!      
‘It’s all perfect! How did you find out about the signature?’ The younger profiler smiled and played along with the young criminal.
     ‘It’s all in the fan fiction!’ Kang Chi Hwan laughed gleefully, deriving much pleasure from repeating the evil and gory crimes from the fan fiction that he had read. One would have recoiled in horror.   ‘It sounds like you’re admitting to your crimes,’ Team Leader Kang asked calmly for confirmation, hoping that Kang Chi Hwan would trip and trap himself but the student was wily and smart. It was not easy to take Kang Chi Hwan apart to get him to confess to the crimes; he made no crucial slip-ups or mistakes.  
‘Do you have any more questions?’ Kang Chi Hwan asked.
    
When they remained silent, he talked derisively of the main thrust of NCI’s methods of interrogation - the lowering of the temperature in the interrogation room. It seemed he was familiar with their tactics and took the dimmest view of them.
He did not hesitate to tell them off about their ineffective ways: the dimming of the lights, the deliberate display of gory photos of every dead victim, and their psychological intimidation by giving him the silent treatment. He let the full effect of his derision settle in.         
The suspect even scornfully requested that the temperature be lowered some more as his brain worked better at colder temperatures, an indication that he was not, in the least, intimidated.
       
Had the situation been less serious, the young killer’s words would have been quite entertaining. Kang Chi Hwan did not look like the usual serial killer. If he had killed, he did not exhibit any telling post-offense behaviour; he was not stressed, fearful, unsettled or worried about the murders despite the intensive grilling of the profilers.
The futility of the interrogation exercise was clear when, with the help of an experienced lawyer, the student was released. The offender was smiling and had clearly enjoyed turning the tables against the profilers.
It was disappointing that the pair of high-pedigree NCI profilers was no match for the skills and cunning of the supposedly inexperienced, young criminal.
   |