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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/moondog151 on 2023-12-29 17:23:39+00:00.
Original Title: The dismembered skeletal remains of a woman were found scattered near the mountainside. Police were never able to recover the entirety of her body and so because of that she is most well known for her facial reconstruction where the lower half of her face was completely blank.
On January 9, 2015, a villager in the Pyeonghae area of Uljin located in South Korea's North Gyeongsang Province, ventured to a nearby mountain in order to collect medicinal herbs. After he failed to find any he began his walk back home when he came across a human shin bone buried among fallen leaves and dried grass. The bone was identified as human because it still had some flesh attached to it. Teeth marks were also noted on the bone which indicated that the local wildlife had been chewing on it.
A large number of police officers were deployed to scour the mountain where they found a skeletonized arm and pelvis on the opposite side of the mountain from where the shin bone was found. The police initially assumed that the bones belonged to an old grave that had simply been dug up and scavenged by animals and wildlife with little to no foul play involved. On the roadside, the police dug up a skull that was missing the lower jaw and some ribs buried 500 meters away from the rest of the remains.
All these remains were sent for forensic testing where they concluded that not only did they belong to the same person, but they were fairly recent belonging to a person who had likely only died a year ago at most estimated to be between January-October of 2014. The bones had also been severed with an unknown tool and that the owner of these bones had been dismembered making this case a murder. As for the owner, the skeleton belonged to a woman in her mid-40s and of A-type blood. She was believed to be 161 centimetres tall. And lastly, there was evidence of rhinoplasty surgery using Gore-Tex material. The police attempted to identify her as the first step but this was difficult since they couldn't find any DNA evidence and her hands and jaw were missing so they couldn't use fingerprints or dental records.
The location where her remains were found was located a good distance away from the town and was rarely visited with the only people venturing there being fishermen, gravediggers and those looking for herbs. Since her remains were not just found in this area but scattered all throughout the mountain in various different places the killer likely knew this area well. After further examination of the bones, forensic examiners ruled that a bone saw was the likely weapon used to dismember her remains, likely taken from an abandoned construction site nearby to the mountain.
The first avenue investigated by the police was that she was a sex worker. They conducted thorough investigations of all missing women, households consisting of women who lived alone and even the areas where sex workers were known to operate but to no avail. Next, the police tried to investigate the Gore-Tex implants. There was only one company in that local area that imported the implants from the US but that company went defunct in 2006. The police partnered with the Korean Medical Association to track down any women who had rhinoplasty surgery from 2000-2005. The police came back empty handed as they couldn't track down the victim or even any surgeons who may have operated on her.
Next, they investigated the owners of that abandoned construction site. It was run by a man named Mr. Yoon and his live-in girlfriend, Ms. Lee. The two often fought with each other over investments and even got into altercations with the investors themselves. After the construction site went defunct the two moved to Yeongdeok and Lee later left the country. The police briefly considered that Lee leaving the country was a lie and that she may have been the victim but Lee would later be found alive in the country she left for.
The police now went public with the search and began handing out leaflets to the public and putting up flyers all over the local area. The police also produced a facial reconstruction of her face in hopes that some would recognize her. Although no one did, what little of the reconstruction could be made ruled out Lee as being the victim. This reconstruction also caught many people's attention in spite of the lack of any tips due to its eerie appearance. Because a jaw bone was never discovered, the reconstruction is missing a mouth with just more skin where one should be. This was likely a contributor to why nobody recognized her.
She remains unidentified to this day.
Sources
https://www.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/201503242073611995
https://news.kmib.co.kr/article/view.asp?arcid=0009245200
https://www.topstarnews.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=433204