In the March 9 episode of Channel A's Detectives' Trade Secrets, in the "Case Notebook" segment, a man who was due to marry in a month asked the show to investigate, saying, "My future mother-in-law seems to be avoiding me on purpose." The client, a licensed practitioner of Korean medicine, said he fell in love at first sight with his girlfriend — the daughter of the clinic director, who also worked as the clinic manager — and that they soon agreed to marry. At first, his girlfriend's family appeared to be an ideal, close-knit household.
But the prospective mother-in-law began disappearing from view. The client grew suspicious after noticing CCTV cameras inside the home and a locked room secured with a padlock. During the detectives' investigation, footage showed the woman repeatedly fleeing from bodyguards only to be brought back by family members. When the client learned there were signs the family might be confining her, he went to the house and found the woman bound and locked inside that padlocked room.
The truth that emerged was even more startling: the woman had chosen to confine herself in an effort to stop a pathological compulsion to steal. She admitted, "I served time for habitual theft and underwent every possible treatment, but I could not stop." After the revelation spread, her daughter quit her job and ended her relationship with the client. The family eventually left Seoul and moved to an undisclosed provincial town. The woman said through tears, "When I came to, I always had stolen items in my hands. I felt like a monster." Confronted with the in-laws' secret, the client abandoned the wedding and ended the relationship.
When married man Kim Poong was asked, "If you had known about the mother-in-law's compulsion before marrying, what would you have done?" he replied, "I still would have married my wife," a response that drew admiration. Ozon, a short-term detective who gained attention by recounting an eight-year romance with a beautiful girlfriend, offered a warm message to the prospective mother-in-law: "Please stay well..."
Channel A airs the reality-based detective series Detectives' Trade Secrets every Monday at 10 p.m.
