'Unsolved for 20 Years': Father in His 90s and YouTuber Indicted for Accusing Classmate in Lee Yoon-hee Disappearance Case

Repeatedly Accusing a Classmate
of Being the "Culprit in the Disappearance"

The father of Lee Yoon-hee, who went missing 20 years ago at the age of 29, has been brought to trial on charges of defaming and spreading false information by identifying an acquaintance of Yoon-hee as a suspect in the case.

According to Yonhap News on August 13, the Criminal Division 2 of the Jeonju District Prosecutors' Office, headed by Chief Prosecutor Lee Kyung-seok, indicted Mr. Lee (90) and YouTuber Mr. Park (54) without detention on charges including defamation and violations of the Act on Punishment of Stalking.

From 2024 until recently, they are accused of falsely identifying Mr. A, a college classmate of Yoon-hee, as the perpetrator of the missing person case and spreading false information about him via social networking services (SNS). They are also accused of stalking, such as placing a life-size cutout of Yoon-hee along Mr. A’s commute route and holding solo protests at his workplace.

Mr. Lee and Mr. Park even received a temporary restraining order (Category 2: No Contact) from the court in April 2025 due to these acts. However, they continued to repeatedly claim that “Mr. A is the criminal in the missing person case.”

Mr. A's legal representative stated, “Mr. A was more committed than anyone to resolving the situation, distributing flyers and helping Yoon-hee’s father search for the missing person immediately after the incident. How does it make sense, after all this time, to suspect someone who assisted in the search of being the perpetrator?”

On the evening of June 5, 2006, while attending Chonbuk National University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Yoon-hee attended an end-of-semester gathering at a restaurant in Jeonju with around 40 professors and classmates. She returned to her one-room apartment, about 1.5 km from the venue, at around 2:30 a.m. the following day, but has been missing ever since.

At the time, the police failed to secure the scene of the disappearance, and allowed Yoon-hee’s friends to clean the apartment. In addition, a week after the incident, someone accessed Yoon-hee’s computer, but this was never clearly explained. Yoon-hee’s parents have spent nearly 20 years doing everything possible to find their daughter, but her whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.