Woo Cheol-won, Jo Ho-yeon, Kim Yeong-gyu, Park Chan-in, Kim Tae-ryong, and Kim Jong-sik decided to take advantage of the day off from school and went for a walk towards the nearby mountain. They wanted to find frog eggs. They were determined not to disturb the adults, who kept shooing them away from different places. The boys told their parents they were going to play and would be back by evening. But they never returned. As darkness began to fall, worried parents started searching, but the boys were nowhere to be found.
A trip to find salamander eggs
The five boys took only cans with them to carry the treasures they found. They didn’t take backpacks, water, or food because they expected to be home soon. It was a safe area. Many Koreans often walked the forest trails there, and children from nearby villages played on the mountain slopes, all familiar with the terrain.
So, what happened on March 26, 1991? The five boys who set off towards the mountain never returned to their homes. As it grew dark, the parents became anxious. They organized their own search efforts. Some headed toward the mountain, while others scoured the surrounding area. Late in the evening, they went to the local police station to report the boys missing. Initially, authorities were skeptical, assuming the boys had either run away from home or simply gotten lost. They searched all night, but as dawn broke and the boys still hadn’t been found, other possibilities began to be considered.
When the search efforts proved fruitless, three fathers of the missing boys took time off work and traveled the country in a truck covered with photos of their sons, hoping to find them somewhere. At that point, the media picked up the story, dubbing the missing children the "Frog Boys".
The "Frog Boys" never returned home. Will the truth ever come out?
The case became highly publicized, even reaching the President of Korea, who ordered the formation of a special search unit and directed them to comb the mountain area once again. Still, it was all in vain. There were no clues that could shed light on what had happened.
Years passed, with new leads that always turned out to be false. The worst part was the uncertainty. A breakthrough finally came on September 26, 2002, when a man on Mount Waryong stumbled upon human remains with fragments of clothing. He alerted the police. Forensic teams arrived immediately, securing the bones and clothing pieces. Testing confirmed that the remains belonged to the boys who had disappeared years earlier.
Initially, their deaths were attributed to hypothermia. It was believed the children had gotten lost, became cold, fell asleep, and never woke up. However, the victims' families rejected this theory, arguing that the boys knew the area well, making the idea of them getting lost implausible. At the families’ request, the investigation was reopened. Further examination of the bones revealed blunt force trauma marks on the skulls, suggesting the boys may have been beaten or even tortured. One of the skulls bore a clear mark from a gunshot wound. Despite uncovering the true cause of death, the person responsible for their deaths was never identified. This case remains a mystery.
