Off the coast of Yeongdo in Busan lies a small island called Jodo, or Achi Island.
Connected to the mainland by a single bridge, almost the whole of it is the campus of Korea Maritime University.
A university ringed by the sea. A place where the only way in or out is, in practice, that one bridge.
In the summer of 2006, a foul smell began to rise from a manhole in the island's parking lot.
August 22, 2006
"That manhole keeps giving off a rotten smell."
When the complaints kept coming, the school ordered the manhole cleaned.
Around 11 a.m. on August 22, a worker lifted the manhole cover.
Inside was a blue bag for a jade heating mat.
The ordinary kind of bag, sold everywhere, for a therapeutic mat.
And inside it, there was a man.
What covered his face
The body was so badly decomposed it was hard to make out.
A man, estimated to be in his thirties or forties. Short, around 165 centimeters. A stocky build.
When he was found, he was wearing only boxer shorts.
And over his face, a plastic bag bearing the name of a Busan-area discount store.
Investigators fixed on this detail.
That whoever dumped the body had taken the trouble to cover the face.
That usually means one thing.
That this man's identity was not meant to become known.
A man with no name
The investigation soon hit a wall.
They could not establish the victim's identity.
The fingerprints were lost to decay. Searching the missing-persons database turned up no match.
A man who was someone's son and someone's friend
had vanished from the world without a trace, and no one came looking for him.
Or else, he had been made impossible to find.
Bringing back a face
The case seemed destined to go cold.
Then in 2013, the investigating team managed to recover DNA from the body's front teeth.
But with no family to match it against, the DNA gave up no name either.
In 2016, police tried one last method.
They exhumed the remains they had kept and reconstructed the face he'd had in life through 3D scanning.
The face a computer brought back was released that year,
and when Unanswered Questions covered the case, tips poured in from across the country.
Could this be our family member. Could this be that person from back then.
But not one of the tips could carry him home.
Before we close this drawer
This case still holds three questions with no answer.
Who was he.
Who did this to him, and why.
And,
on that island campus ringed by sea, how did someone carry in a bag with a body inside, put it down a manhole, and walk back out.
A closed island joined by a single bridge. Someone must have crossed that bridge.
Once, carrying the bag in. Once, walking out empty-handed.
Twenty years have passed.
A computer brought his face back, but the person who could give that face a name has not yet come forward.
He still sleeps, in some cold storage, under the name "unidentified."
If anyone remembers this face, however long ago it may have been,
please, help send him home.
