Original subtitles

THE FOLLOWING EPISODE CONTAINS

GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS AND FOOTAGE OF MASS SUICIDE

WHICH MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME VIEWERS

[thunder crashing]

[man 1 speaking Korean]

[interpreter] Everybody has had a very chaotic summer.

However, on this last weekend of August,

an unspeakably horrible tragedy shocked us all.

[man 2] They noticed that the ceiling had been ripped off

at the factory's cafeteria.

When they went up to check what had happened,

they found 32 bodies hanging from the rafters,

and they were all tangled up with one another.

[shouting]

[man 3] Can we get this over with?

Let's get out of here fast, okay?

- [man 4] Did they hang themselves? - [man 5] Yeah.

[man 6] Where is it?

[man 3] This is a mess. There's no way they're gonna air it.

[man 7] Thirty-two people died at the same place.

Thirty-two.

It was impossible to understand.

There's much that remains a mystery.

FOUR MEN

TWENTY-EIGHT WOMEN

A TOTAL OF 32 PEOPLE COMMITS MASS SUICIDE

[man 8] There is speculation that these people committed suicide

after performing a ritual with their leader, Park Soon-ja.

STRANGLED AFTER BEING DRUGGED

[man 9] They believed they would certainly go to heaven.

CEO PARK SOON-JA

Nothing was off-limits for them.

SHE DEMANDED TO COMMIT SUICIDE TOGETHER INSIDE FACTORY CEILING

MASS SUICIDE?

That's not true at all.

It was a mass homicide, not suicide.

MASS HOMICIDE?

[man 10] The investigation faces some difficulties,

as all who knew the truth have died, and the key evidence was damaged.

Someone else was involved.

[child, in Korean] ♪ This is a blessed land ♪

♪ Where milk and honey flow ♪

♪ This is Five Oceans, the land of peace ♪

FIVE OCEANS, GOD AND 32 DEAD BODIES

IN THE NAME OF GOD: A HOLY BETRAYAL

AUGUST 29, 1987 32 DEAD BODIES ON THE CEILING

I became a policeman in 1960 I started working in forensics in 1964.

LEE SAM-JAE, FORMER SENIOR SUPERINTENDENT

SCENES-OF-CRIME OFFICER IN THE FIVE OCEANS CASE

I served in the police force a long time,

but I never saw another case like that one.

On August 29th,

it rained during the whole afternoon.

[thunder crashing]

[telephone ringing]

AUGUST 29, 1987, 17:00

The phone rang, and they told me there was a case in Yongin.

They didn't give me details, but they said,

"There's a bunch of dead people in a ceiling."

AUGUST 29, 1987, 20:00 ARRIVAL AT THE SCENE

So I went there in the pouring rain.

[siren blaring]

When I arrived, they had already finished opening the ceiling so they could work.

They told me...

this was the place where everything had happened.

It was too dark.

I took a flashlight, and I saw the bodies.

ACTUAL FOOTAGE FROM THE SCENE

There were so many.

And there was one hanging from the ceiling.

The weird thing was their wrists and ankles were tied up.

Their nostrils and mouths were stuffed.

Why?

One of them was in a kneeling position.

So bizarre.

Why?

What was the cause of death?

Had someone else killed them?

This is group A.

You see how 19 were stacked on top of each other?

This is group B, Park Soon-ja's group.

There are 12 bodies.

That's Soon-ja.

Soon-ja was actually the cult leader.

PARK SOON-JA, 48 YEARS OLD

We faced a conundrum with her.

See all those lacerations?

She fought.

These are scratches.

MARK OF RESISTANCE

CHART OF THE SCENE INSIDE THE CEILING

Excluding the man in the kneeling possition, there were 31 people.

All 31 of them didn't do anything while the person next to them was dying.

They didn't move or put up resistance.

They simply didn't fight back.

Each one of them had cotton stuffed in their moutj and nose.

Why did they do that?

They collected more than a hundred pieces of cotton,

and we suspected they were soaked with chemicals.

I mean, there had to be toxic chemicals on the swabs.

So we collecte and had them analyzed at the lab.

[man] I remember it was August 30th, 1987.

I received a call from the National Forensic Service at three in the morning.

SEO JAE-KWAN, M.D. CORONER IN THE FIVE OCEANS CASE

CHIEF OF FORENSIC MEDICINE

They said "The police have a case of unnatural deaths."

"A lot of people died."

"You need to come quickly."

AUGUST 30, 1987, 05:00 CORONERS STANDING BY AT THE CRIME SCENE

When I arrived, the bodies were already lined up on the ground.

So I thought, "All right, it's all over."

"The only thing that remains is to determine the cause of death."

As the bodies had already been moved.

AUGUST 30, 1987, 10:00 THE AUTOPSY BEGINS

AUTOPSY ROOM

First, we looked at their spines.

CERVICAL SPINE: REFERS TO THE NECK

Then their necks, where we found signs of ligature strangulation.

Most of them died by strangulation.

Usually, when people die like this...

STRANGULATION: CHOKED TO DEATH BY ANOTHER PERSON WITH A ROPE

...there is somebody else choking them.

Furthermore, they do not hang themselves.

One of them was identified as the factory manager,

and that man did show signs of suicide around his neck.

EUISA: HANGING ONESELF TO DEATH

He hanged himself out of his own will.

POLICE ANNOUNCEMENT

ALL 32 DIED FROM SUFFOCATION BY HAVING THEIR NECKS STRANGLED

ONE MALE HANGED HIMSELF

31 OTHERS, INCLUDING PARK SOON-JA, STRANGLED TO DEATH BY SOMEBODY ELSE

When a woman dies, the first thing we do is a vaginal examination.

KIM HYEON, SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR FOR THE FIVE OCEANS INCIDENT

And we found traces of semen.

We looked for semen traces.

That's the protocol.

And we did find it in 12 of the examinations.

SPERM

SPERM

Finding semen inside of them suggests they had intercourse

within a window of two or perhaps three days.

If those women were there for four days,

they may have been forced to have sex while they were there.

Finding sperm in the bodies was very disturbing,

because there were two sons and a daughter among the bodies.

FIRST DAUGHTER, SECOND SON

PARK SOON-JA, FIRST SON

PARK SOON-JA (AGE 48) FIRST SON LEE YEONG * (AGE 24)

SECOND SON LEE JAE * (AGE 22) FIRST DAUGHTER LEE GYEONG * (AGE 19)

That means her sons and daughter were present during the intercourse.

That's unthinkable.

There were only a few men there, maybe three or four.

if they did that to all those women,

that would constitute the crime of mass rape.

But on second thought, honestly,

could four men really rape them all?

It doesn't make sense to me.

DETECTIVE TEAM 3

The next day, I got another call.

They didn't find anything.

Nothing at all.

How did all those people die?

FIVE OCEANS DEATHS WERE STRANGULATION TOXIC SUBSTANCES WERE NOT DETECTED

MYSTERIOUS MASS DEATH OF THE FANATICAL CULT

Did they truly kill themselves?

And if they did, why did they choose to die along with Ms. Park?

FIVE OCEANS, SUICIDE OR HOMICIDE?

FULL OF MYSTERIES FIVE OCEANS MASS SUICIDE CASE

The disturbing mystery of the Five Oceans incident remains unsolved.

AUGUST 29, 1987 32 DEAD BODIES IN THE CEILING

AUGUST 16, 1987

(13 DAYS BEFORE FINDING THE BODIES) CREDITORS ASSAULTED

[sirens blaring]

In 1987, I was in the social affairs department at Daejeon Ilbo

and I reported on criminal cases.

LIM JEONG-JAE, REPORTER FIRST TO COVER FIVE OCEANS

FORMER REPORTER AT DAEJON ILBO IN THE SOCIAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT

The last place I went to that morning, as far as I remember,

was the infamous detention room

that is located at the Police Station.

As I went in there, I noticed... five or six men.

In general, they looked perfectly normal.

But something in their eyes looked kind of soulless.

They were at a police station, they should have been making excuses.

But they showed no signs of doing that.

After the interrogation, I asked the detective,

"What were those men doing there?"

He told me that there was a company called Five Oceans in Gasuwon-dong.

FIVE OCEANS CO., LTD.

And those men had assaulted some creditors.

PARENTS, WHO DEMANDED REPAYMENT, WERE LOCKED UP AND ASSAULTED

The incident started with Lee Sang-bae...

YOO DU-HYEON INVESTIGATIONS CHIEF OF GYEONGGI-DO POLICE

...who reportedly owns a gas station.

And it is known that he lives in Ippo-ri.

PROFESSOR TAK JI-IL NEW RELIGION RESEARCHER

Lee Sang-bae's daughters got involved with Five Oceans.

DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY BUSAN PRESBYTERIAN UNIVERSITY

They got over 500 million won from their father.

They gave the money to Five Oceans.

ESCAPING THE NIGHTMARE-LIKE LIFE OF THE FIVE OCEANS

Me and my six siblings started working,

eating, and sleeping at Five Oceans without our parents knowing.

FIVE OCEANS TRADING CO., LTD.

Me and my siblings collected 500 million won

from my parents' money.

We made all sorts of excuses.

This man, Mr. Lee Sang-bae,

went to find Park Soon-ja to get his money back.

He requested the restitution of these funds,

but instead, he ended up signing a bond waiver,

and he was beaten by several people.

[groaning]

I WILL FORFEIT THE RIGHT TO COLLECT LOAN FROM FIVE OCEANS TRADING CO., LTD.

After that happened, Lee Sang-bae reported them to the police.

And that's how the Five Oceans incident started to be investigated.

[Jeong-jae] I wanted to meet with the CEO of the company.

I thought that Park Soon-ja would have the answers.

PARK SOON-JA CEO OF FIVE OCEANS

The detective's office was underground,

and as I went in,

I saw a very skinny woman sitting in there.

That was Park Soon-ja.

She didn't respond to most of the questions.

Piercing eyes.

She was listening to them when people from a TV station came in.

They asked who Park Soon-ja was.

The detective glanced at her, they pointed the camera to her,

and in that moment, she fainted.

There was a young man sitting next to her.

Turned out that man was Soon-ja's first son.

It was an urgent situation,

so he ran somewhere with his mother on his back.

That was the last time we saw Soon-ja.

[siren wailing]

There was an emergency room nearby in a hospital,

and I think they went there.

That's where Park Soon-ja disappeared, along with her followers.

STILL NO ANSWERS IN FIVE OCEANS CASE

[man] Park Soon-ja, the leader and CEO of Five Oceans,

...was taken to the emergency room after fainting during an interrogation.

She then disappeared with her son and director Lee Yeong-ho,

along with several employees and orphans.

Meanwhile, more creditors are making themselves known.

AUGUST 25, 1987 PARK SOON-JA'S ESCAPE

JUNE, 1986 FIVE OCEANS TRADING CO., LTD.

SEO YEONG-SUK

REPORTED ON FIVE OCEANS FACTORY ONE YEAR BEFORE THE INCIDENT

FORMER DIRECTOR OF NEWS DEPARTMENT AT MBC DAEJEON

When we reported on Five Oceans, they were set up as a craft company.

MANUFACTURER OF CRAFTWORK

They received the presidential award at a national competition.

As far as I know, they were considered an exemplary company in their area,

and called an excellent medium-sized company.

Park Soon-ja was a successful female entrepreneur in Daejeon.

She did a lot of charity work.

She was known for helping the poor and disadvantaged.

I've never been interested in money

or investing in stocks.

I may be a woman, but I don't care about fashion or collecting jewelry.

Please allow me to live...

a selfless life for the underprivileged.

That's my wish.

So, the company said they were giving benefits to their employees.

They said they lived as if they were a family.

We reported on and interviewed the children who lived there.

[man] We actually filmed them frequently,

and interviewed the students pretty often.

They were living very luxurious lives.

KIM SU-AN FORMER PRODUCER AT DAEJEON MBC

The children seemed very lively.

You could tell they felt very grateful toward Park Soon-ja.

[man] What do you think of Ms. Park?

- [woman] Our CEO? - [man] Yes.

[woman] Uh... There's nobody else like her in this whole wide world.

[man] What do you mean?

[woman] Uh, I don't really know what... other people might think of her,

but... I can't even dare to compare her to anybody.

♪ This is a blessed land Where milk and honey flow ♪

CHILD IN THE FIVE OCEANS SCHOOL DORMITORY

♪ This is Five Oceans, the land of peace ♪

Do you know what that song is about?

GUARANTEED THAT CHILDREN WILL GROW UP WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT MONEY

THEY EVEN PROVIDED PREMIUM-QUALITY SOCKS

MOST OF HER FOLLOWERS WERE NOT VERY WELL-OFF

SO THEY WERE GRATEFUL TO MS. PARK AND BECAME EVEN MORE DEVOTED

Park Soon-ja's husband was Lee Gi-jeong

who was the director of the construction bureau in Chungcheongnam-do.

Being the director of construction gives you power.

LEE GI-JEONG, HUSBAND PARK SOON-JA, CEO OF FIVE OCEANS

[Yeong-suk] Within the community,

Lee Gi-jeong held an important leadership position.

That's why a lot of people really trusted them.

When Park Soon-ja first started getting private loans,

the rate of interest she paid was so high

that today... it'd be unpayable.

Forty percent.

If she borrowed a million won,

she payed 40 percent interest.

I gave her the money that I had made in Saudi Arabia.

I... wanted to live a better life.

We thought that the wife of an officer

would never try to trick us or steal our money from us.

Because of that, we kept investing all of our money,

even though we never got any interest back.

AUGUST 26, 1987

10 BILLION WON DISAPPEARS THREE DAYS BEFORE THE INCIDENT

The police received a warrant

for the search and seizure of eight financial institutions,

in order to locate Park Soon-ja

and investigate private loans of eight billion won.

[man] The CEO, Ms. Park, told her employees

that borrowing money was the only way to obey the Holy Spirit.

But she was ripping them off and brainwashing them,

since her actions have made it clear that she didn't really care about them.

[man] Why did you lend her your money?

I lent her money because I felt safe

after someone showed me all Five Oceans' certificates and their facilities.

She never said she'd pay us interest.

She said she was gonna help the poor and the needy.

People like me. I was not perceived as a creditor.

So I trusted her with my money.

[man] Do you know a lot of people who were defrauded by her?

As far as I know...

RECEPTION FOR NEW CREDITORS

...when I saw the creditors list,

I saw there were about 200 victims, maybe more.

FIND THE HIDDEN MONEY

When I estimated the total amount of debt at the time, it was over ten billion won.

Today, that would be hundreds of billions of won.

It was a lot.

And at the time,

most private loans had an interest rate of 20 percent.

They succeeded because the interest was paid in advance.

PROMISSORY NOTE

So they paid the interest up front, and sent the money to the bank account.

FIVE OCEANS TRADING CO., LTD. PARK SOON-JA, CEO

[man] As the number of creditors increased,

the police investigation changed course,

from assault to large-scale fraud.

They are trying to locate the CEO, who has fled.

EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE MOBILIZED TO USE HIGH INTEREST RATES AS BAIT

A SYSTEM BASED COMPLETELY ON PERFORMANCE ONE MEMBER EVEN RECRUITED 106 PEOPLE

PARK SOON-JA

[Jeong-jae] She couldn't handle constantly borrowing money to pay back interest.

It was difficult.

I think she ran away because in the end, she couldn't handle the situation.

LAST WHEREABOUTS OF PARK SOON-JA

FAINTED DURING POLICE INTERROGATION ON AUGUST 24, 1987

RAN AWAY FROM DAEJEON ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL

DISAPPEARED WITH HER FOLLOWERS ON AUGUST 25, 1987

I saw they were leaving the factory.

YANG HAN-SEONG FORMER EMPLOYEE OF FIVE OCEANS

I wondered why they were leaving.

25 AUGUST 1987 FACTORY IN DAEJEON THE DAY THEY DISAPPEARED

And if something bad had happened.

It was strange.

They were in a hurry, and yet they all looked so cheerful and happy.

I think they even felt blessed.

We didn't know where she and her followers had gone.

They were all having such a great time.

AUGUST 26, 1987

10 BILLION WON DISAPPEARS THREE DAYS BEFORE THE INCIDENT

1985 MY FAMILY WAS BRAINWASHED BY FIVE OCEANS

JO CHEONG-JA CREDITOR OF FIVE OCEANS

I remember back then, I had a job at the post office.

It was a pretty decent job.

A female friend of mine who worked at the post office too

told me that she had another very good friend at Five Oceans.

She told me about them.

She said they did admirable work.

So we went there.

MANUFACTURER OF CRAFTWORK FIVE OCEANS TRADING CO., LTD.

I remember they said, "If you lend us money, you'll be helping our cause."

"With your money, you'd be helping Ms. Park do great things."

"She always pays interest on time."

That being said,

I gave them my money.

I asked about the interest rate,

and they said it was always deposited on time.

Back then, the interest rate was 20 percent, which was quite a lot.

PROMISSORY NOTE

TEN MILLION WON

So I started borrowing money myself to give them.

FIVE MILLION WON

I invested around 85 million won, and so did my father.

My father gave them more than 90 million won.

He lost it all.

Back then, my husband decided to take a break from work.

Park Soon-ja said that a man should take care of his family,

and she offered him a job.

YANG HAN-SEONG FORMER FIVE OCEANS EMPLOYEE HUSBAND OF CREDITOR JO CHEONG-JA

I met Park Soon-ja. Then I began... working at Five Oceans.

I thought she was a good person.

I thought she was special.

The place was lively when I first visited

but that changed once I started working there.

In fact, it changed a lot.

[thunder rumbling]

Part of the mystery was that everyone was strangely subdued.

There weren't a lot of people working inside the factory.

On top of that, there weren't many finished products.

Five Oceans wasn't a company that produced and sold products.

They bought finished products,

placed them around, and made it look like they had made them.

She was lying about that, too.

THE MOTHER OF ORPHANS?

[children playing]

Also, they weren't orphans.

They were the children of the people who gave her their money.

They were the creditors' kids.

They said, "It must be so hard raising kids and working."

SENT TWO OF HER CHILDREN TO FIVE OCEANS NURSERY SCHOOL

And they offered to take care of them for me.

They said, "If you bring your kids here, we'll take good care of them."

In their operation, they ran a daycare center and raised creditor's kids there.

ROH YI-HO FAMILY MEMBER OF A FIVE OCEANS EMPLOYEE

They woud never let my kids call their father "Dad."

They had to call him "Big Chief" instead.

They wouldn't let parents treat their kids like their own.

That's the way we lived in there.

One day, I saw something very disturbing on television.

She was dressing the kids in hanbok and saekdongot.

They were supposed to be orphans for the television.

A PICTURE OF HIS SON AS A PROMOTIONAL MODEL FOR FIVE OCEANS

I started noticing everything, because it was so ridiculous.

I realized something was off.

FIVE OCEANS TRADING CO., LTD.

[I-ho] Of course they provided food and shelter, they all lived in there.

But they weren't allowed to talk.

Even if an entire family was living in there,

they couldn't talk to each other.

I heard married couples couldn't live together.

They made them live separately.

They kept so many secrets there.

UNDER THE ORDER OF CEO PARK

THE SEVEN OF US HAD TO HIDE THE FACT THAT WE'RE SIBLINGS

THERE WERE TEN MARRIED COUPLES IN THE DORMS, BUT THEY LIVED SEPARATELY

[Han-seong] We needed permission to leave the premises.

We were questioned about our motivations.

For some reason, they didn't want us to leave that place.

They also set aside some time to "repent."

They gathered people.

[grunting]

They beat people,

saying, "You need to repent."

They told them to reflect on their sins.

THEY MADE EVERYONE ATTEND THE SESSION OF REPENTANCE ONCE A MONTH

AND CONFESS IN FRONT OF OTHERS

THEY BEAT EACH OTHER UP AS A GROUP TO "GET RID OF THEIR EVIL FEELINGS"

- [producer] Was Soon-ja God? - She was.

- [producer] Soon-ja was God. - Yes.

She said, "You'll die if you don't obey me."

I'm quoting her.

According to some of the survivors' testimony of Five Oceans,

Soon-ja always emphasized that she was somebody

who had received some sort of revelation from God.

She claimed she had received God's warning,

and basically, the world was to end very soon.

[choral music]

MS. PARK SAID SHE'D BEEN HEALED

FROM DIAPHRAGM CANCER IN 1978 WITH THE HELP OF THE HEAVENS

AS THE CONQUEROR OF FIVE OCEANS

SHE SAID SHE WOULD RULE THE WORLD

AND SHE MADE OTHERS THINK THAT SHE IS A GOD-LIKE BEING

[thunder crashing]

AUGUST 25, 1987 PARK SOON-JA'S ESCAPE

AUGUST 28, 1987

FIVE OCEANS' YONGIN FACTORY THE DAY BEFORE THE BODIES WERE FOUND

[siren blaring]

[man] The police dispatched detectives to locate Ms. Park and her employees,

but they were nowhere to be found.

However, 49 children from the nursery school were found

in Yongin, Gyeonggi-do yesterday afternoon.

[man] The police found 49 children

hiding in a farm in Sangin-dong, Gyeonggi-do.

They were sent back to their homes pending investigation,

but nobody told us anything.

[ringing]

[Jeong-jae] We got an anonymous call saying Soon-ja's followers

were hiding in a farm in Samin-dong, Yongin, Gyeonggi-do.

SAMIN-DONG, YONGIN, GYEONGGI-DO

The investigation

revealed there was a factory at the base of the mountains.

The factory was dead silent.

No one was there.

[ominous music]

We decided to search the place,

and that's when we found a van.

The vehicle was totally empty and the doors were closed,

except for a small ticket I found when I looked at the driver's side.

It read "Daejeon, Yongin."

So I realized it was theirs.

DAEJEON TO YONGIN

The van belonged to Five Oceans.

I went in.

Deathly silence.

There were people... hiding in the ceiling.

While we were searching the place,

I took a look up, and I noticed that somebody was there.

But I didn't think that 32 people would be hiding up there.

Then surprisingly, the next day, they found the bodies.

[melancholy music]

AUGUST 29, 1987 THE DAY OF THE INCIDENT

A woman in her 40s who incurred a lot of debt

while running a nursery and craftwork factory

has killed 31 people as well as herself.

[man] The police concluded that Park Soon-ja and her blind followers

had committed mass suicide, allegedly driven by religious fanaticism.

She called the place Heaven on Earth.

And she said we'd be revived and go to Heaven. Yes.

- [camera shutters whirring] - [screaming and sobbing]

Don't cry.

Be careful with that.

I never thought they'd die like that.

I certainly never thought Park Soon-ja would die, either.

It was baffling.

No matter how much you've sinned, death is still the ultimate punishment.

[rainfall]

This is Kim Yeong-hui

who worked in the factory's kitchen, where the incident took place.

KIM YEONG-HUI

We were told Ms. Park brought the people here from Daejeon in a van.

What happened after that?

After the van arrived, everyone spent a day sleeping.

The next day, they went up to the ceiling.

AUGUST 26, 1987

PARK SOON-JA AND HER FOLLOWERS HEAD UP INTO THE CEILING

I found they climbed through here, so we were looking for fingerprints.

We searched all over the walls.

And while we were on it, we found fingerprints,

footprints, handprints, palm lines...

hands and feet of all sizes.

That's how they got there.

They climbed up and down the walls.

[soft slapping sounds]

[man] How did you supply them with food?

I made rice balls and sent them up in plastic bags.

Once a day, I put them in bags

and handed them up into the ceiling.

- [man] What time did you give them food? - [Yeong-hui] At eight a.m.

SHE GAVE THEM RICE BALLS ONCE A DAY AT EIGHT A.M.

[man] So they ate those rice balls only once a day?

[Yeong-hui] Yes.

[man] Surely the rice balls were not sufficient.

Was that all they were eating?

Yes.

They got one meal a day, but they didn't even eat that.

Ten rice balls were rotting up there.

They barely ate anything,

although they spent five days up there in the heat.

I mean, anyone would have been exhausted.

[man] What did they do during the day?

Nothing at all.

- [man] They didn't make noise? - No.

ESTIMATED TEMPERATURE 40 DEGREES CELSIUS

- [man] Up there? - [Yeong-hui] Yes.

- [man] They stayed in the ceiling? - [Yeong-hui] Yes.

THEY STAYED FOR THREE NIGHTS AND FOUR DAYS

[man] You can't tell us what they did there?

[Yeong-hui] No, I don't know what they did there.

I couldn't see them from here.

AUGUST 30, 1987 THE DAY AFTER THE BODIES WERE FOUND

THE PROSECUTION'S ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE INVESTIGATION

The leader and CEO of Five Oceans, Park Soon-ja...

PARK YEONG-SU, CHIEF PROSECUTOR AT THE TIME OF THE FIVE OCEANS CASE

...decided to kill herself

because she had a lot of debts.

As for he rest of the people found,

it was known

they depended on her spiritually.

Therefore, they decided

to all die, together with her.

We have determined

that this incident is a very tragic mass suicide,

and most likely the result of religious fanaticism.

The cause of death for Lee Gyeong-su was suicide.

The others, including Park Soon-ja,

they died of strangulation.

The events were as follows.

Park Soon-ja ordered Lee Gyeong-su, her male employee,

to end everyone's life.

He murdered them one by one.

After that, Lee Gyeong-su was to end his own life as well, so he hanged himself.

[rope creaking]

Now, according to the investigation,

Park Soon-ja was the first to die.

FINDINGS FROM THE INVESTIGATION OF PROSECUTION IN 1987

FOLLOWING CEO PARK SOON-JA'S ORDERS

FACTORY MANAGER LEE GYEONG-SU FIRST STRANGLED CEO PARK SOON-JA TO DEATH

HE THEN STRANGLED THE 30 OTHERS

LASTLY, HE HANGED HIMSELF TO DEATH

DO NOT ENTER INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS

[producer] Do you agree with the prosecutor?

No, I do not.

I feel like some of it was quite a stretch.

I think they should have...

made additional investigations.

They didn't conduct the investigation properly.

Back then, the government

just wanted to get it over with quickly.

They didn't want to complicate things by saying it was a murder.

They didn't provide any proof whatsoever.

1987 THE PROSECUTION'S ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE INVESTIGATION

1988 THE SPECIAL INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE

FOR CORRUPTION IN THE FIFTH REPUBLIC REINVESTIGATES THE FIVE OCEANS CASE

Special Committee to Investigate Corruption Chariman, Kim Hyeon

recently claimed the Five Oceans incident was most likely a mass murder.

He announced he will do everything in his power to find the truth.

I reported it to the police in Daejeon.

I represented Daejeon at the National Assembly..

There were so many questions about the case,

but they just concluded as a suicide, even though nothing was resolved.

And I believe that the National Assembly should re-open the case.

[man] He claimed it was a mass homicide committed by a third party.

KIM HYEON, CHAIRMAN OF THE SPECIAL INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE

[Hyeon] It's a murder.

A homicide disguised as suicide.

Basically, they said Lee Gyeong-su killed them and eventually hanged himself.

From a forensic

and medical perspective,

that makes no sense at all.

SUSPICION NUMBER 1 THE CIRCULAR MARK

[man 1 exhales] My goodness.

- [man 2] Did they hang themselves? - [man 1] Yeah.

[man 3] This is a mess.

Where did he hang himself from?

[Hyeon] Lee Gyeong-su was the manager of the factory

in Yongin, Namsa-myeon, where the mass murder occurred.

Here we can see this put pressure on his blood vessels

while he was still alive.

This bloodstain is a ligature mark caused by the rope.

It circles his neck from the front

and goes all the way around.

The mark continues to the back of his neck.

That's the way the rope ran around his neck.

Now, any forensic textbook says

that a mark circling the entire neck to the back

means that the victim was strangled.

And then, if we examine the position of the body,

you can see how the back of the rope is not touching his neck at all.

The noose elevates because it's carrying the weight of the corpse.

EUISA: HANGING ONESELF TO DEATH

STRANGULATION: CHOKED TO DEATH BY ANOTHER PERSON WITH A ROPE

STRANGULATION: LEAVES A CIRCULAR MARK

EUISA: DOES NOT LEAVE A CIRCULAR MARK

None of the women there were hanged to death,

they were all strangled from the back.

What I'm trying to say

is that the marks suggest somebody placed the rope around the neck

and tied it to make it tighten in the back.

That's how they were killed.

Ergo, they were all murdered.

SAME CIRCULAR MARKS FOUND ON THE 31 PEOPLE WHO WERE STRANGLED TO DEATH

THE SAME MARK WAS FOUND ON LEE GYEONG-SU, WHO SUPPOSEDLY KILLED HIMSELF

Here we can see the rope was tied very tightly around the neck.

Very tight. Extremely tight.

But when a 140-pound male is hanging on the rope by his neck,

this part of the neck will get squeezed because it's soft.

If the rope goes in like that, leaving a gap, right in the back.

WHY A CIRCULAR MARK WAS FOUND ON LEE, WHO SUPPOSEDLY COMMITTED SUICIDE

1. HE CHOKES HIS OWN NECK STRONGLY WITH AN OVERHAND KNOT

SO, A CIRCULAR MARK APPEARS

2. AS TIME PASSES, THE ROPE CUTS INTO THE FRONT OF HIS NECK

SPACE FORMS AT THE BACK OF HIS NECK

SUICIDE?

SUSPICION NUMBER 2

FACTORY MANAGER LEE GYEONG-SU KILLED 31 PEOPLE ALL BY HIMSELF?

It would have taken Lee Gyeong-su at least two months

to kill all 30 people by himself.

There's no way he did it alone.

On top of that, if he actually killed 31 people,

there should have been signs of friction on his hands.

But they didn't find anything like that.

This shouldn't be the case.

We can't say that the investigation was completely accurate.

Lee Gyeong-su couldn't possibly

have killed every single person there by himself.

It's not viable.

It's also difficult to conclude that they simply killed each other.

It's more logical to consider that someone else executed them.

[Hyeon] If we assume Lee Gyeong-su was murdered with everybody else,

my professional opinion would be that, given the number of victims in this case,

it would take more than six people, and I dare to calculate at least ten hours,

to accomplish something like this.

And I might be underestimating the time.

It'd be a very time-consuming task.

SUSPICION NUMBER 3 CULT LEADER PARK SOON-JA BEATEN TO DEATH?

PARK SOON-JA, CEO OF FIVE OCEANS

First, we focused on examining Park Soon-ja's neck.

We found significant signs of ligature strangulation.

We thought the marks came from being strangled to death.

[camera shutter clicking]

Where the rope had been tied around her neck,

we found lacerations all over her skin.

There were lots of marks.

This indicates that when the killer was pulling on the rope, she was resisting.

We also performed an autopsy of her head.

We found a hemorrhage under her scalp.

The hemorrhage probably means

she was attacked and assaulted violently before her aggressor took her life.

SKULL

SCALP

Normally, there should be no such bleeding under the scalp, unless someone hits you.

Here, it's quite large.

These hemorrhages only appear if you get hit by a hammer or club,

or if you get slammed into a wall.

SCALP HEMORRHAGE

Park Soon-ja was the leader, and her children were there.

If someone was choking her and she was resisting,

shouldn't they have helped her?

It doesn't make any sense.

[man] Do you think Soon-ja wanted to die or not?

[Hyeon] She didn't! She fought for her life.

They concluded that Park Soon-ja died a bit earlier

than the other members of the community.

It doesn't make sense that the leader died first.

We are estimating

that the deaths of the 32 people

happened in a time frame of more than ten hours.

The investigation shows that the leader and CEO, Park Soon-ja,

died before any of the followers that were there with her.

And Lee Gyeong-su died last by hanging himself.

If you look at other cases that occurred in similar cults,

the leader usually doesn't die before his or her followers,

unless they die an accidental death.

The leader usually committs suicide after confirming everyone else has died.

But here, the 32 people died

after Park Soon-ja was killed.

When you consider that Five Oceans

wasn't just a business, but a religious group,

it seems very unlikely,

at least in my opinion,

that she was physically assaulted and killed

while she was resisting.

I think that in this case, it was a tragic, accidental death.

They all keep calling her "the cult leader",

and back then they called her "the leader of the Five Oceans Church,"

to get it done with as soon as possible.

But Five Oceans Church never even existed.

THE MYSTERY INSIDE THE CEILING THE THIRD HYPOTHESIS

Was the location where the bodies were found

suitable for 32 people to commit suicide?

It's possible.

That's the biggest question, really.

That's why people started theorizing that someone from outside was involved.

Some think that they had been killed outside and moved into the ceiling.

[man] Push it in.

The police thought that they had been killed up there, one by one.

Well, I think there's no way they were killed up there.

They put plywood there because they would have fallen if they hadn't.

That's why they stacked all the bodies on top of that thick plywood.

If they stepped beyond that, they would have fallen through the ceiling.

Now.

LOCATIONS WHERE THE KILLINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE

Did somebody actually kill those people

while there were ten or 13 bodies piled up right next to them?

Unlikely.

They fit up there because they were in a pile.

How could somebody have killed 14 people in there?

And one by one?

That's impossible.

According to the testimonies obtained by the detectives for the investigation,

on the day of the incident,

during the period of time in which all these victims are assumed to have died,

the van entered and left the factory two different times.

Considering those testimonies, it's possible

that somebody murdered those people elsewhere,

then moved the bodies to the factory.

I think that's most likely what happened.

LEE SAM-JAE FORMER SENIOR SUPERINTENDENT

SCENES-OF-CRIME OFFICER IN THE FIVE OCEANS CASE

If you look at the scene of the incident

and think someone killed them and then ran away?

You cant see it like that.

This is a urine container.

Here's a blanket.

A water container and some cups for the water.

[producer] Was there a lot of urine?

It was over half full.

They were there from August 25th to 29th, four days in total.

During those four days,

they must have had to eat, and defecate,

which are the basic needs.

That is half-eaten food. See the glasses?

But if you pay attention, they didn't even get to eat a lot of it.

Those are boxes of ramen.

They're closed.

They had five more boxes of ramen in stock.

They were rationing the food

because they thought they might be staying there for a long period of time.

They must have gotten exhausted after a day, and couldn't eat.

But why didn't they leave? Huh?

Here, they're bringing the bodies down one by one.

Three or four people are receiving the body,

and three more people are in the ceiling.

Despite that, it wasn't easy to take down the bodies.

No one could have put the bodies there.

If they had, it would have required a lot of effort and several people.

What about their clothes?

They would have been torn apart by the manipulation.

But their clothes looked tidy.

Their wrists and ankles weren't tied up tightly.

They were tied up very sloppily, using blankets.

They were lifted up together.

They bound them while lifting, because the limbs were hanging.

But they didn't tie them up in order to kill them

like you see in the movies.

Lifting people up and putting them in a pile is easy,

but killing them is very difficult.

[scoffs]

The people who say that never saw the scene.

They are using their imagination.

You can't lift up a dead body so easily.

You can't lift up anyone like that.

And they think someone lifted up the bodies? All 32 of them?

No way.

That's coming from somebody who didn't see the scene.

Don't listen to them.

When I went into the ceiling,

I found small pieces of torn-up paper

here and there with something written on them.

ENDURE

My gut told me there was something fishy.

I thought that... I decided to pick them up.

They were everywhere

They formed half a sheet of paper.

I took the pieces carefully to my office.

After I brought them in,

my female colleagues put them together in less than two hours.

It was interesting.

Something was written front and back.

Here's the important part of it.

"Keep your mouth shut."

"She's already unconscious."

"Five people have died in only four hours."

"Just stay quiet."

"I planned this out."

"Endure it with his guidance."

"I think everybody will die today."

I think they were in the process of murdering people.

[dramatic music]

I kept hearing noises of somebody being beaten.

WITNESS AT THE SCENE

I heard sounds of something being hit, like this.

When I heard them crying,

I just assumed that they were all repenting.

[intense music]

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE 10 BILLION WON: THE CAUSE OF DEATH

The 30-plus innocent people that died there

were all very important members of Five Oceans.

They collected a lot of money from their relatives and acquaintances.

LIST OF AGENTS

That's what made them very important members of their community.

FIVE OCEANS' TOTAL DEBT (ESTIMATED): 11 BILLION WON

[Hyeon] All those people collected money for her, ran her errands.

Five Oceans' Park Soon-ja's total debt amounts to 11 billion won.

[man] 300 creditors gathered at Five Oceans.

During the meeting, they demanded that the police reveal

the whereabouts of Park Soon-ja's hidden money.

FIND THE HIDDEN MONEY

[Ji-il] One of the most important aspects of this case

was that somebody had earned money

while somebody else lost their money.

But nobody knew where that money had gone.

The police and the public were interested in investigating

the person who was behind the mobilization of the Five Oceans' funds.

[man] The detectives investigating the deaths at the Five Oceans factory

confirmed that Park Soon-ja's husband, Lee Gi-jeong,

was at the scene of the incident on August 29th from one to eight a.m.

They are now investigating whether or not Lee Gi-jeong

was involved in the terrible deaths of 32 people.

He was the director of the construction bureau in Chungcheongnam-do.

Excluding him, his entire family had died in Namsa-myeon.

His wife, two sons, and one daughter, all his family was gone.

[man] You were the first to discover the scene.

LEE GI-JEONG LOST ALL HIS FAMILY

Can you tell us what happened?

DIRECTOR OF CONSTRUCTION IN CHUNGCHEONGNAM-DO AT THE TIME

[sighs] I don't know what to tell you.

What can any man say...

when he has lost his entire family?

[Jeong-jae] A lot of things about Gi-jeong are still a mystery.

NEVER THOUGHT THEY WOULD COMMIT SUICIDE

HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT THE DEBT OF 7.6 BILLION WON

"I wasn't involved at all."

Then he said,

"I'm also a victim who lost his children."

That was his testimony.

[man] Did you know that your wife was running a business?

[Gi-jeong] Not really.

[man] So your wife...

[Hyeon] There's no way Gi-jeong didn't know about it.

It must have been a complicated process

to receive all that money and pay the interest.

On top of that, all three of his children were involved.

They had all these titles like "vice-chief."

It makes no sense that their father didn't know about it.

LEE GI-JEONG, HUSBAND PARK SOON-JA, CEO OF FIVE OCEANS

[Han-seong] Lee Gi-jeong visited the factory to get the products.

I don't know where he took them,

but I saw him leave with them a couple of times.

He probably knew they had borrowed a lot of money.

That's because, as far as I know,

a part of those private loans had something to do

with the society of wives of Chungcheongnam-do's public officials.

How could he not know?

FIND ROH SUN-HO WHO HAS THE ANSWER TO THE SECRET

CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DIVISION DETECTIVES

[man] In order to arrest the 31-year-old Five Oceans manager Roh Sun-ho,

who has crucial information to solve this case,

the police sent investigators to his hometown, Imsil-gun in Jeollanam-do.

[Hyeon] Roh Sun-ho was responsible for writing a ledger

to keep track of the borrowed money and where it was going.

It wasn't just me, other people also thought

that Roh Sun-ho probably held the key to solving this case.

[footsteps echoing]

[dog barking]

[man] What do you think?

ROH SUN-HO'S MOTHER

This is unbelievable.

My son is gone. He's not here.

Sun-ho, you need to talk. The truth will come out and it'll be okay.

If you don't talk, you'll be blamed.

They say you killed them and ran.

A killer?

If you didn't do anything wrong, if you're scared,

stay at a friend's house for a couple of days.

Then you can come clean and come home.

Turn yourself in and everything will be okay.

You need to do it.

The longer Roh Sun-ho remained missing,

the chances of finding him alive and well were becoming increasingly slim.

AUGUST 29, 1987 32 DEAD BODIES IN THE CEILING

JULY 11, 1991 ROH SUN-HO'S MURDERERS TURN THEMSELVES IN

SIX KEY FIGURES IN THE FIVE OCEANS CASE TURN THEMSELVES IN

[Hyeon] Six people turned themselves in.

THREE MAIN SUSPECTS ADMIT TO BURYING THE BODY

Out of nowhere, they said that they had buried Roh Sun-ho.

It's very unusual for murderers to turn themselves in a year and a half later.

[siren blaring]

[man] Five Oceans' general manager, 32-year-old Roh Sun-ho

who was missing, as well as two other accomplices,

had been beaten and murdered by Five Oceans employees and followers

the day before the incident,

and got buried afterwards.

[Hyeon] They were Five Oceans', or Park Soon-ja's employees.

LEE SE-YUN PERPETRATOR

I'd like to apologize to the victims' families.

Even though I'm a victim as well.

In any case, I'd like to apologize to the victims' families.

[reporters clamoring]

[wailing]

[gasps]

ROH YI-HO, OLDEST SISTER OF FIVE OCEANS GENERAL MANAGER ROH SUN-HO

He was so healthy and young.

He didn't get the chance to live his life.

God.

They buried him in a filthy sack.

They didn't even take him out.

They tied that sack and buried him.

I can't believe he died like that.

If he had left, no matter how much they tried to silence him,

he would have exposed them,

and that's why they killed him, so he couldn't do that.

[man] Authorities revealed that Five Oceans accumulated debt

of 10.8 billion won.

Roh Sun-ho planned to leave the company

after anticipating an impending crisis.

But he ended up killed and buried.

Why did those people turn themselves in?

They planned to turn themselves in for over a year

in a meticulous fashion.

Some police officers coached them on how to turn themselves in.

POLICE OFFICERS TRAINED THEM CONFIRMED BY THE PROSECUTION

"Say that you aren't connected to Five Oceans, but the Salvation Sect."

That's what they told them to say. A police officer trained them.

[man] It was revealed that the group was forced to confess

that Park Soon-ja had made them do everything...

NO RELATION TO THE MASS DEATHS

...and that the Five Oceans incident had nothing to do with the Salvation Sect.

MOST OF THE FIVE OCEANS CULPRITS WERE FOLLOWERS OF THE SALVATION SECT

[Hyeon] The six of them said they were followers of the Salvation Sect.

Why would they kill people from Five Oceans?

The Salvation Sect said that the six men who confessed

were not actual followers,

but previous members who had already left the Sect.

WHO WAS BEHIND THE INCIDENT?

In the videos filmed at the scene,

there was a note that said "Samwoo is suffering too."

That note was submitted as reference material.

It was used as evidence.

The investigators took care of it.

One of the clues that they found back then was Samwoo's business

SAMWOO IS NOW SUFFERING A LOT TOO

When I went into the Five Oceans factory in Gasuwon...

FIVE OCEANS TRADING CO., LTD.

...everything was Samwoo Trading Company.

SAMWOO TRADING CO., LTD.

Who owned Samwoo Trading Company?

Yoo Byeong-un, the CEO of Semo.

We thought he might be the de facto leader of the Salvation Sect.

That was our best guess.

[shouting]

[camera shutters clicking]

YOO BYEONG-UN CEO OF SAMWOO TRADING CO., LTD. THEN

LEADER OF THE EVANGELICAL BAPTIST CHURCH OF KOREA (SALVATION SECT)

[man] Although church followers refer to Mr. Yoo as "president",

most of them call him "the living Jesus," "Messiah,"

or even "the Holy Spirit."

JEONG DONG-SEOP, FORMER PROFESSOR

FORMER INTERPRETER OF YOO BYEONG-UN, KOREA BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Because he was a leader,

he needed a solid foundation,

so he started a business.

He needed money.

But making money by receiving offerings from time to time could only go so far.

So, what happened was, he took over Samwoo Trading Company

which was on the verge of bankrupcy,

then he appointed some followers

to collect and gather money for him

in major cities like Gwangju,

Daegu, Busan, and Daejeon.

Park Soon-ja was in charge of collecting private loans in the Daejeon area.

So, basically, she was just one of Yoo Byeong-un's minions.

He was just using her.

SAMWOO TRADING CO. (CURRENTLY "SEMO") YOO BYEONG-UN

FIVE OCEANS, PARK SOON-JA

[Ji-il] Judging by Yoo Byeong-un's notes,

or his sermons, From Alpha to Omega, discovered at the scene,

it's safe to assume that Five Oceans was a company

pretending to be a religious group,

but was actually just collecting private loans for him.

FIVE OCEANS TRADING CO., LTD.

[Dong-seop] She didn't transfer the money directly to Yoo Byeong-un.

There was another person named Song Jay-hwa.

She was his assistant. She was his closest assistant.

YOO BYEONG-UN

SONG JAE-HWA

Song Jae-hwa was the link between Samwoo Trading Company and Five Oceans.

She's the one who collected funds for Byeong-un.

SONG JAE-HWA YOO BYEONG-UN'S SECRETARY, RECRUITER

[Jae-hwa] If we get to know Mr. Yoo, just mentally and intellectually,

and realize that he's a wise man,

we'll stop opposing God's work

and start to blindly follow whatever he does.

So I say to all of you,

we must follow and obey him without hesitation or question.

Of course Yoo Byeong-un didn't take responsibility and go to jail.

He blamed everything on Song Jay-hwa.

- [Jay-hwa] Stop it! - [man] What are you doing?

[Jae-hwa yelling]

Can you do this later? I have to go!

I said I'm not going to say anything about it!

[man] Ms. Song may be the crucial link that will explain

the complicated relationship between Five Oceans' CEO, Park Soon-ja,

Semo's CEO, Yoo Byeong-un, and the Salvation Sect.

[reporter] Did you try to collect loans in Gwangju?

[Jae-hwa] No, I didn't.

[reporter] You want to say anything?

If Park Soon-ja collected a large amount of money,

one or two billion won, she sent it to Song Jay-hwa.

PARK SOON-JA, DAEJEON DEVELOPMENT EXPENSES (PRIVATE LOANS)

After sending the money to Yoo Byeong-un...

SONG JAE-HWA GENERAL MANAGER OF FUNDRAISING

...he would use that money to run his company.

He called that money "development expenses." [laughs]

He even labeled the church offerings as "development expenses."

That's it.

"I disagree."

"I completely object."

This is a note that I got from the ceiling.

NOTE FOUND AT THE SCENE OF THE MASS DEATH CASE

"If you pass it on, the development expenses will increase."

"Keep quiet."

"Keep your mouth shut."

DEVELOPMENT EXPENSES

[man] They said that you used the money for your own company.

That never happened. It never did.

EXPENSE REPORT FIVE OCEANS CO., LTD.

[man] It's been confirmed through check tracking,

Park Soon-ja sent money from her private loans

to Semo via Song Jae-hwa.

It was revealed that Yoo Byeong-un collected the loans.

PAYMENT PLAN FOR LEE GI-JEONG

PARK SOON-JA CREDIT UNION

[Yeong-suk] The prosecutors tracked down their accounts.

FIVE OCEANS CO., LTD. PARK SOON-JA

In the end, the court acknowledged 460 million won

had been transferred between them.

Between both CEOs.

With the promissory notes, some were signed by Park Soon-ja,

and some were signed by Yoo Byeong-un.

SAMWOO TRADING CO., LTD. YOO BYEONG-UN, CEO

Yong-ju is Park Soon-ja's younger sister.

It says that Yong-ju went there to ask for the debt repayment.

She went to Samwoo Trading Company and asked for their debt to be repaid.

And the response was that the other company was suffering too.

So they gave the note to Park Soon-ja in the ceiling.

"Samwoo is suffering too."

THE PROSECUTION'S FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT

When Park Soon-ja realized her last hope, Samwoo, wouldn't help her,

Park Soon-ja and her fervent followers decided

to take their own lives together, in the ceiling of the factory,

because their debts couldn't be repaid, and she was desperate.

She gave the money to Byeong-un as development expenses.

But when the creditors asked her to pay them back with interest,

she couldn't do it.

So... they ran away.

They decided to run and hide,

and that's how they ended up getting murdered or committing suicide in Yongin.

Well, at least, that's how I see things, but again, it's just my opinion.

[producer] If you look at the notes Park Soon-ja exchanged

with the people below the ceiling,

they say "Once the CEO shows up, things will be solved."

Which CEO is that?

[Yeong-suk] At the time, the court didn't have any evidence on Yoo Byeong-un

and his relationship with Park Soon-ja,

and didn't know if Yoo Byeong-un

had played a role in the mass suicide-homicide.

The fact that Park Soon-ja had collected millions and sent them to Yoo Byeong-un

was acknowledged during the investigation.

But Yoo Byeong-un wasn't punished because Park Soon-ja had died

during the tragedy of the Five Oceans incident, so the link was lost.

Yoo Byeong-un ended up being charged only for fraud

in relation to the money he received from Song Jae-hwa.

He was sentenced to four years in prison.

[reporter] Do you know Park Soon-ja?

No more questions, please.

[Hyeon] This is definitely a cold case.

In order for this case to be solved,

the reasons for the mass suicide must become clear.

[Jeong-jae] As this case has a religious background,

if they did commit suicide,

it's likely that they were forced to do it.

If they hadn't died there, they would have experienced something much worse.

[Sam-jae] They didn't deserve that.

Those people got tangled up in all this mess.

I feel so bad for all of them.

[Hyeon] Somebody has to spill tears of repentance

in order to soothe their souls.

[Jeong-jae] Looking back at my work as a journalist

and the toll it took on me as a human being,

that incident was traumatic for me.

[Sam-jae] I hope you're all happy in the afterlife.

[poignant music]

THE BODIES WERE THE ONLY DIRECT EVIDENCE IN THE FIVE OCEANS CASE

BUT MOST OF THEM WERE CREMATED WITHIN TWO DAYS

AFTERWARD, A CREMATION DOCUMENT WAS FOUND WITH TAMPERED DEATH DATES

THE DOCUMENT THAT SHOWS THE DEATH DATES CHANGED FROM AUG 29 TO AUG 27

FOOTAGE OF FORMER PRESIDENT CHUN DOO-HWAN VISITING SAMWOO

THE COURT DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE

THAT YOO BYEONG-UN HAD BEEN BEHIND THE 32 DEATHS

YOO BYEONG-UN WAS INVOLVED IN THE SEWOL FERRY DISASTER

IN WHICH 299 PEOPLE DIED, AS HE WAS THE CEO OF THE FERRY COMPANY

IN 2014, HIS DEAD BODY WAS FOUND ON A HILL

FORMER ASSEMBLYMAN KIM HYEON OWNS A FARM NEAR THE FIVE OCEANS FACTORY IN YONGIN

AND STILL VISITS THE FACTORY A FEW TIMES A YEAR

HE STILL ARGUES THAT THE VICTIMS WERE MURDERED

ALL INTERVIEWS IN THIS DOCUMENTARY USE REAL TESTIMONIES

TO PROTECT THE SUBJECTS' IDENTITY SOME INTERVIEWS HAVE BEEN REENACTED