A simple Mashimaro sticker might be the key to stopping a killer.
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00:00 *Music*
00:13 So today I just want to ask you a question. Do you know what a marshmallow is?
00:19 Is it like a marshmallow?
00:22 Dude, a marshmallow is actually a rabbit. A white rabbit.
00:27 Well, I'm not too far off. Yeah, me.
00:30 You're very far off, yeah?
00:32 So it's a character that was created in South Korea.
00:37 So some people, sometimes, it is usually compared to the Japanese Hello Kitty.
00:44 It's a character for that, you know, cartoon character that's very famous from that country.
00:51 Really?
00:52 Wait, let me show you. Maybe you know because from the photo.
00:55 No!
00:57 Anyways, we go back to 2005. How old were you in 2005?
01:02 2005?
01:04 I have to count also.
01:06 Maybe 10?
01:09 Are we the same age?
01:10 No.
01:12 It's a secret.
01:14 I don't want to expose my age. But 2005, I think I'm in lower school.
01:18 Yeah, I was in lower school too.
01:19 Okay, we're close in age.
01:22 So one day, a cleaner was cleaning and he found a giant white sack lying on the ground.
01:32 So he was curious. He went towards the white sack and then he found a hand sticking out from the sack.
01:40 But he thought it was a mannequin because, you know, people throw out weird things all the time.
01:44 So he thought, oh, that's probably like a retail store and sell clothes throughout an old mannequin.
01:53 So he was trying to lift it up and like, you know, bring it somewhere to clear the space.
01:59 Anyways, so he tried lifting the sack and then it was a little bit heavier than he expected.
02:06 Because mannequins usually are not that heavy because you have to transport them all the time, right?
02:11 If you want to move them around.
02:13 So at first he was a bit weirded out.
02:16 So he tried touching the hand.
02:21 And apparently it's a little bit squishy.
02:25 So yeah, he called the police and the police investigated and found a body of a woman.
02:34 And the way the body was found was she had a black plastic bag wrapped around her head.
02:45 And it was tied. There's something like a thali tied in a knot.
02:49 Like tighten it. Yeah.
02:52 They suffocated her to death?
02:53 Yeah. So the cause of death was suffocation.
02:57 And that's the only thing the police know.
03:04 Further investigation did find some tissues and menstrual pads inside her body.
03:10 So they think it was like she was sexually assaulted.
03:20 Yeah. So that's all they know about what happened.
03:26 There's no more clues. There's nothing. There's no DNA samples.
03:30 There's no signs of struggling. So they don't know who did it.
03:34 What does this have to do with Maschimaro?
03:38 It's a long story. So we have to write it for now.
03:43 So six months later. So there's nothing after that.
03:49 And then six months later, a restaurant owner.
03:54 I don't know what time it is in the day.
03:56 Doesn't say. Probably he was closing his restaurant or he's opening up his restaurant.
04:01 But in front of his restaurant, he found a giant white sack.
04:07 This time there was no hand sticking out.
04:10 But he was sus. So he called the police immediately.
04:14 It's always the white sack.
04:15 Sack in front of his restaurant. He called the police because it was sus.
04:19 He did not touch it this time.
04:22 The police opened the sack and found another woman's body.
04:27 The same way they found the first one.
04:30 With a black bag tied around her head.
04:34 With a knot. With a rope tied in a knot.
04:37 And like the previous one, there's also no signs of struggling.
04:44 Or any evidence. Yeah, there's no evidence.
04:49 So she was suffocated and she died like that.
04:53 Anyways, a law professor, Yu Seong-ho.
04:58 He noticed the similarities in the two cases.
05:03 They were both women thrown out in a white sack.
05:10 But the most thing they said that can be a huge clue is how
05:18 the rope was tied. It was the knot.
05:22 So imagine you tying your shoes.
05:26 You have your own way of tying your shoes.
05:29 Because if you tie your shoes everyday, it becomes a habit.
05:32 Because when you tie, you know.
05:34 Did this person have a special knot?
05:37 Like a butterfly knot?
05:40 So for us, it's probably tying our shoes.
05:44 But for this person, the professor, he said the way he ties it
05:50 is someone who works, he works to tie knots.
05:55 So he works probably packing boxes or packages.
06:00 Because the way he ties it is very professional.
06:04 Not like tying shoes.
06:06 And the other thing about his style of tying the knots.
06:11 There's one side of the knot a little bit shorter than the other.
06:19 So he's used to make it easier for it to open.
06:24 To pull and open.
06:26 There's some knots.
06:28 And then the way for you, you have to open the knots.
06:31 Not a dead knot.
06:33 Yeah, so it's not a dead knot.
06:35 So he has his own style.
06:37 He just left one rope a little bit longer.
06:40 This person sounds really creepy.
06:43 He does sound creepy when you can tie things.
06:50 For me.
06:51 You have that skill.
06:53 You professionally tie things and use it to murder people.
06:57 That's cool.
06:58 Okay, so that's the second murder case.
07:03 So then, just like the first one, they didn't find anything.
07:09 There's no new evidence.
07:11 There's nothing leading to who would have done it.
07:16 So the case went cold.
07:19 And then, conveniently, six months later.
07:25 So it's a year after the first case.
07:29 A woman came to the police station in a panic.
07:37 She told the police that she was kidnapped.
07:41 And the police asked her what happened.
07:44 So this is what happened.
07:46 And it will finally answer your question about the Mashi Maro.
07:52 Okay, so apparently, on May 31st in 2006.
07:58 The woman was at Shinjong Station in Seoul, South Korea.
08:03 She was kidnapped at that station.
08:06 And she was brought to a dark basement.
08:10 So she was kidnapped at a dark basement.
08:13 She was brought there.
08:15 And then, she told the police that she waited for a while.
08:20 Because the kidnapper suddenly wanted to go to the bathroom.
08:25 So he left the basement.
08:28 And then she tried to find a way to leave.
08:31 So she went to the door.
08:36 And the door was unlocked.
08:39 Lucky for her, the door was unlocked.
08:42 So she didn't know which building she was in.
08:45 So she left the basement.
08:47 And then she went to the second floor.
08:50 Like two upper floors.
08:52 Because now she didn't know.
08:54 Is the building a house or apartment?
08:56 That's what she doesn't know.
08:57 Because she's from the inside right now.
08:59 So she just left the basement.
09:01 So she doesn't know where to go.
09:03 So she went to the second floor.
09:05 She went to the second floor.
09:07 And then she found a shoe rack.
09:11 She found a shoe rack.
09:12 And she hid behind the shoe rack.
09:15 So while she was waiting, she was trying to find clues.
09:19 Because she wanted to know where she was.
09:22 So when she was looking around, on the shoe rack, she found a sticker.
09:27 So on the shoe rack, there was a Mashi Maro sticker.
09:30 And also there's a tiny flower pot on top of the shoe rack.
09:36 So that's the only thing she saw at that time.
09:39 And then she kind of waited for a while.
09:42 And then when she felt like the coast was clear, she found an exit.
09:48 She didn't say anything to anyone because she was so scared.
09:51 She was afraid that she accidentally talked to the kidnapper.
09:54 So she tried to find a way to exit.
09:57 And she managed to escape.
09:59 But because she was so scared, she ran as fast as she could.
10:03 And she hid inside a school.
10:06 So when she was at the school, that's when she was looking for a police station
10:14 where she can report what happened.
10:17 But because she couldn't remember what road she used or what building she was from.
10:21 It must be scary in 2005 because you don't have data, you don't have Google Maps.
10:27 Yeah. And also, as we know that in South Korea, especially in Seoul,
10:32 there's a lot of CCTV cameras.
10:35 But I don't think there's as much CCTV cameras in 2005 as it is now.
10:40 Yeah. And I don't think they would probably have the capacity to do it
10:44 because cloud wasn't a thing back then and storage devices weren't big.
10:48 Like having 2GB is quite huge.
10:51 Yeah. The technology was not that great at that time.
10:54 And probably at that time, there were no CCTV cameras on the streets.
10:57 Phones didn't have cameras back then.
10:59 2005.
11:00 Yeah. Smartphones weren't a thing.
11:03 Yeah. But the days when Nokia was rolling.
11:05 It was just a phone with colour.
11:07 And you can play MP3 songs.
11:09 Not yet.
11:10 No?
11:11 Not yet.
11:12 Wow. Far off.
11:13 I think MP3 songs all came when I was in middle school.
11:17 Okay. Wow. He remembers things.
11:19 I remember things.
11:20 Anyways, the only thing she could tell the police was that
11:25 she was hiding behind a shoe rack with a Mashi Maru sticker and a flower pot on top.
11:30 And then the police asked her, "What else did you see when you were in the basement?"
11:35 She told the police that she saw a lot of ropes in the basement.
11:40 And then the police asked her, "Where was she kidnapped?"
11:45 She told them that she was in Sinjong Station in Seoul, South Korea.
11:50 And then the police were like, "Hmm."
11:52 The two women, six months ago and a year ago, who were found dead in the sack,
11:59 their last location was actually at Sinjong Station.
12:03 So, that's how the police kind of connected her kidnapping
12:09 to the two murder cases that happened that didn't have any other clue or evidence.
12:16 So, if it wasn't for her, the police wouldn't get any more new leads.
12:22 But unfortunately, the woman doesn't remember the building because she didn't see it.
12:29 Because she ran, right?
12:31 But I feel like nine years later, in 2015,
12:37 because this happened in 2006 and then 2015, I think,
12:43 an investigative documentary publicized the evidence.
12:48 The evidence that the woman said, the marshmallow sticker, the shoe rack, and the flower pot,
12:53 in South Korea, looking for witnesses because they wanted to do a documentary
12:57 about the unsolved cases.
13:03 And then a woman called in and said that she lived in that building
13:10 and she actually owned the shoe rack with the marshmallow sticker.
13:15 And the flower pot that was on the shoe rack was actually her child's, like, school work,
13:21 and she was putting it there to dry it out.
13:23 The woman who lived in that building also mentioned that there is a man in his 30s
13:30 living in the basement.
13:33 I'm sorry, I forgot to mention too.
13:35 When the woman reported to the police, she said that she actually heard two voices.
13:41 So, there are two men.
13:42 So, the police are now looking for a man and maybe an accomplice.
13:49 Like, they do this thing together.
13:52 So, the woman who lived in the building said,
13:55 "There's a man in his 30s living in the basement and he always had a friend come over."
14:06 And that's all they have.
14:08 So, the only thing that the woman who lived in the building can do is describe his features
14:14 and have the police, like, have the person who sketched, right?
14:18 And all that happened on a weekend.
14:22 The first case, the second case, and the third kidnapping, it all happened on a weekend.
14:26 The days where, like, people use the public transport lease, lah.
14:30 Yes, yes.
14:31 And I feel like the man knows which station to go to because it wasn't captured,
14:40 the kidnapping wasn't captured on CCTV.
14:42 So, he probably knows, like, "Oh, this part of the..."
14:45 Might just be his habit and it might be the closest station to the house.
14:50 Maybe.
14:51 And he's lucky lah that particular station, macam, tak ada CCTV sangat and it didn't caught his action.
14:58 Because usually, kalau even in 2005, I think, like, an MRT station or an LRT station, ours would have a CCTV.
15:06 Yeah, I mean, I think it sucks that it's still out there.
15:11 So, what do you think, actually, you know, why did the man do it?
15:17 Why? What is it for?
15:20 I mean, based on those five series that I've watched.
15:24 What do you think, actually?
15:25 What actually happened, Tinashe? Let's crack this case open.
15:31 I mean, since...
15:33 Maybe this guy might be a victim of abuse.
15:39 During his young age, might be his parents, might be an uncle.
15:44 Just neglected, lah.
15:45 Yeah, and, you know, he might be someone that's going through something that, you know, he can't express.
15:57 That he has to take it on other people.
16:01 Yeah, so, for him to feel good, I think, like...
16:04 I seriously think that this kind of people are mentally not well.
16:09 I mean, killing more than two people, I feel like...
16:13 That's a serious killer.
16:14 It's a serial killer, kan?
16:15 A serial killer punya behaviour also is very repetitive, like, they already planned.
16:21 They usually mark an identity there.
16:23 Yeah, it's all the same, kan?
16:25 Cara kat mana, where it started, the way the victim was killed, and the way he, like, left them.
16:34 It's a very...
16:35 Very planned, organised.
16:37 Yeah, serial killer-ish behaviour.
16:40 But, unfortunately, until now, how long has it been?
16:45 If it's, like, 2006, it's been more than...
16:50 18 years, kot.
16:51 Almost 20 years.
16:53 Almost 20 years.
16:54 18 lah. Betul lah.
16:56 That was quick, okay.
16:58 So, sampai sekarang, nobody knows who the man is.
17:02 He's probably still running around Seoul.
17:05 Probably still in that area.
17:07 Probably he has done more murders, but...
17:13 He's smarter now.
17:16 [MUSIC]