Detectives Search for Father Who Vanished 10 Years After Child’s Birth

The 10-Year Search for an Absent Father

The case centers on an anonymous client who gave birth at age 17 during her final year of high school after an unexpected and previously unnoticed pregnancy. According to the broadcast details reported by bntnews, the client experienced sudden abdominal pain, discovered the infant’s head in a restroom, and delivered the baby alone in her room. The child arrived seven months premature as a low-birth-weight infant and required a month-long incubator stay due to a fragile health condition.

When informed of the birth, the infant’s biological father questioned the news, asking if it was a joke, and never visited the hospital. Although he initially promised to provide hospital expenses and told the mother to wait, he changed his phone number shortly afterward and cut off all contact. Now that the child has reached age 10 without knowing an identity or even a name, the mother enlisted the Baekho Detective Team to track down the missing father, as detailed by bntnews.

Dead Ends and Conflicting Accounts in the Investigation

The Baekho Detective Team’s initial inquiries yielded immediate roadblocks. According to bntnews, the detectives located the father’s own father, who stated that he had not been in contact with his son for three to four years and told the investigators to resolve the matter with his son directly. An interview with a close friend of the biological father brought further confusion, with the friend stating that they had not spoken since sharing a drink two years prior and noting that the man had even missed a close friend’s funeral.

However, that same friend offered a contradictory account of the father’s perspective. According to statements reported by bntnews, the friend recalled the father expressing distress over the child during a drinking session, quoting him as saying that the mother’s family would raise the child well and that he was told not to show his face. This testimony challenges the mother’s assertion that the father simply cut off contact unilaterally. The Baekho Detective Team continued tracking the missing man’s movements by canvassing the neighborhood where he resided two years ago.

Director Bong Man-dae Joins as Guest Investigator

Film director Bong Man-dae joins the program as a guest investigator for this broadcast, according to bntnews. Often referred to in media coverage as the “Dark Bong Joon-ho”—a moniker he playfully attributed in the preview to sharing a family lineage and clan name with director Bong Joon-ho, while joking that he operates in the darkness compared to Bong Joon-ho’s daylight—the director discussed his artistic shift. Known in Korean cinema for erotic films, Bong stated that while youth favored erotic work, age draws him toward melodrama and pure romance. He also mentioned current projects directing a musical featuring a dog, alongside a remark about rejecting a 100 billion won film offer, the background of which will air during the program.