Officer suspected of falsely closing Jang Mi-ran missing case tried to delete records by labeling her a traffic accident victim

A junior police officer suspected of falsely closing a missing persons case in Jeju appears to have manipulated records by classifying missing woman Jang Mi-ran, 37, as a "traffic accident victim" in May in an attempt to delete her file from the system, according to investigators.

Police are investigating whether Officer A selected the "traffic accident victim" code in the department's missing persons profiling system at 9:16 p.m. on May 15 to erase records related to Jang, Yonhap reported Tuesday.

Under the system, records can only be removed from the management list by selecting a specific reason code — such as "unnatural death" or "traffic accident victim."

Investigators had been considering the possibility that Officer A entered either "unnatural death" — which would indicate Jang had died — or "traffic accident victim" to purge her file from the profiling system's management list.

Officer A deleted the missing persons report and its management list entry at 6:43 p.m. on May 15, just two hours and 30 minutes after the missing persons report was filed.

Officer A called the person who reported Jang missing, falsely told them she was safe, closed the case without basis, and deleted the records from the system, according to the investigation.

Police have applied for an arrest warrant for Officer A on related charges, and a warrant review hearing was held Tuesday.