Channel A ‘Detectives’ Trade Secrets’
A chilling story aired about a trainwreck mother-in-law who instigated her daughter-in-law’s affair by arranging a sponsor man ‘young enough to be her son’, and how her motive was to remarry her son to the ‘university president’s granddaughter’. It also reported a shocking case in which missing companion dogs were found inside garbage bags.
On the ‘Detective 24 Hours’ segment of Channel A’s “Detectives’ Trade Secrets” that aired on the 11th, an appalling ‘animal hoarder’ case was revealed, with numerous dog and cat remains discovered in a heap. It began with the request: “I was assigned overseas and entrusted my dog to a temporary caregiver, but I suddenly received a call that the dog had died,” asking to confirm the pet’s fate. Dog trainer Kim Hyo-jin, who took on the case, gathered testimony from the caregiver’s neighbors and acquaintances suggesting animal abuse, and launched an emergency rescue with four animal-welfare groups, police, and local government officials. Inside the caregiver’s home, which was in chaos with trash and feces, five dogs and three cats on the brink of starvation, their bones showing, were rescued. Maggots were swarming, and piles of decomposed animal remains were found throughout the house. The client’s dog Cloud (alias), which the caregiver had claimed was cremated after a funeral, was also found as a corpse in a garbage bag. In all, eight animal corpses were recovered from the scene that day: six dogs and two cats.
The temporary caregiver admitted that the cause of death for Cloud and the other dogs was ‘starvation’. However, they added, “During the month I was away from home, I found someone through a local community to provide care, and the dogs died in the meantime,” raising further questions. Even in this situation, they insisted, “I cannot live without those friends,” stubbornly refusing to relinquish ownership, which angered the cast. On this, Kim Hyo-jin explained, “A textbook animal-hoarder case,” adding, “It often starts with affection, but gradually turns into collecting dogs and obsessively feeding one’s own sense of ownership.” After prolonged persuasion, the caregiver ultimately signed a statement relinquishing and transferring ownership, and is now awaiting the court’s judgment on charges of violating the Animal Protection Act. Defconn fumed, “I have never seen a scene this horrific.” He added, “The dogs were dying, yet the person ate to stay alivethat is utterly shocking,” and, “Stuffing bodies into garbage bags and piling them up, then placing another body on top of a body... What is this,” venting his outrage. Yoo In-na likewise said, “I cannot believe it,” at a loss for words, and even after the video ended, Kim Poong said, “My anger will not subside,” revealing his devastated state.
The ‘Case Notebook’ segment dealt with a case that laid bare the ugly sides of human nature: a husband who cheated on his wife, a mother-in-law who trapped her daughter-in-law, a daughter-in-law who easily fell into the snare, and the adulterer who exploited that desire. At the center was a mother-in-law who in her youth had made a name for herself among chaebol madams as a former bathhouse body-scrub worker. She scraped together money relentlessly by using tidbits of information gleaned from clients and eventually became a successful aesthetic-business owner.
Yet even after her flashy success, the inferiority complex of being ‘a former scrubber’ dogged her throughout her life. She became obsessed with marrying her son into a good family. However, her son married a woman from a poor background who had worked at her aesthetic shop, after a premarital pregnancy led to a shotgun wedding, and the mother-in-law disapproved of such a daughter-in-law. On top of that, the whispers around them never stopped: “In the end, like attracts like,” “A scrubber who became a nouveau riche by gleaning scraps does not escape her origins,” and so on. In response, the mother-in-law suffocatingly controlled what her daughter-in-law ate, wore, and with whom she associated, and the daughter-in-law, under extreme stress, suffered a miscarriage and even developed panic disorder.
The mother-in-law learned that her son’s affair partner was the daughter of a professorial family whose grandfather had served as a university president. Consumed by greed, she went so far as to engineer a ‘planned divorce’. The plan was meticulous. Under the pretext of treating panic disorder, she sent her daughter-in-law to the pottery studio of a young man who had long had a sponsor relationship with her, and maneuvered the two into an affair.
Caught in the trap set by her mother-in-law, the daughter-in-law even brought the adulterer into the newlyweds’ home and, dreaming of a fresh start after divorce, fell for him completely. The mother-in-law then intentionally exposed the daughter-in-law’s infidelity, used it as leverage to divorce the couple, and even arranged her son’s remarriage to a new daughter-in-law from the professor’s family. Watching the footage, the day’s guest detective, singer Byul, clicked her tongue, saying, “It’s a battle over who is more at fault,” and Yoo In-na said bitterly, “There is no end to greed.” Finally, Byul said, “I realized how happy my noisy, busy life is,” and, “My husband could not be more precious,” expressing her affection toward her husband Haha, and the broadcast wrapped on a warm note.
The real-life, everyday-investigation drama Channel A’s “Detectives’ Trade Secrets” airs every Monday at 10 p.m.
