#354: Acid POURED Down 6 Year Old Boy’s Throat & Body - South Korea’s “Acid Boy” Case

0:03Hello, I am still feeling a little bit under the weather. So this episode is actually going to be two cases that we've covered previously, many years ago, I want to say, on a separate channel called Stephanie Su. And I really think that these cases are just so unsettling, so bizarre, and I think that they should be talked about. There was a six-year-old in South Korea who had acid poured all over him, and somehow it leads back to a chicken shop, like a fried chicken store. There was another case where 55 unmarked graves behind a school for boys was uncovered. so we're gonna dive deep into those cases today and we will be back on schedule on may 8th i'm gonna see you guys with brand new rotten mango episodes video and audio on may 8th

1:09sulfuric acid scares me honestly any sort of acid scares me it scares me not in the same way that fire scares me if not it scares me a little bit more at least for fire i would hope that i'm in a position where i can see it first maybe i can smell it first before i get burnt but sulfuric acid is scary it kind of looks like water it just looks like a liquid at concentrated levels sulfuric acid is highly corrosive towards other materials. It could burn rocks. It could corrode metals. Upon contact with human skin, I mean, you're expecting a nightmare of a time. This is not going to be a joyous occasion.

1:44You're expecting severe acidic chemical burns, even secondary thermal burns. It's intense, but sulfuric acid is pretty common. You can buy it online. I don't recommend that you do anything weird or fishy with it because for one, ethics and morality, but two, they're going to trace it back to you. Sulfuric acid is found in domestic drain cleaners, you buy at Target, in lead acid batteries, in strong industrial cleaners, like it's everywhere. Even on a large scale, it's used in the water processing plants, which all sounds like, you know, things that we need in life, things to sacrifice for the greater good of, I don't know, filtering our poop.

2:23It's not the most corrosive acid. There's actually ones that are super corrosive that are really hard to get your hands on. This is just a really relatively common one. And sometimes it is used for murder. Owning a fried chicken shop sounds glamorous, but it's not. You know, the business of fried chicken itself is draining. To stand in front of a hot boiling vat of oil, drenching each piece of chicken in a thick glob of perfectly seasoned batter, dropping it into the sizzling oil, making sure not to burn your hand, timing it so perfectly that the chicken is not too dry, It's perfectly cooked on the inside and juicy But the outside has this crisp layer of crust Where you can run your knife through And it's supposed to sound like tree bark And don't even get Mr.

3:10A started on the dinner rushes I mean, sure, it's better than having no business But it's exhausting So that morning, Mr. A, the chicken shop owner Is in his little chicken shop And it was pretty slow Nobody really wakes up and eats fried chicken at 11am Except Stephanie So Mr. A said that inside of his fried chicken shop that morning He's thinking about the lunch rush that's coming ahead And then he heard the most ear-piercing, screeching noise It sounded straight out of one of those horror movies Where you've got the monster You can't see it because it's foggy outside And they make these like Is that even a human noise?

3:45That was a noise It almost sounded like a child But it's not a kid that was out playing and having fun It sounded like a kid that was in trouble So Mr. A drops everything Rushes out of his little chicken shop and frantically looks for the source of the sounds. He didn't have to look far. A little six-year-old boy was sitting near a pole on the street and his face was contorted in pain, like literally twisted in pain. There were pieces of flesh seemingly hanging off of his own face. His face was burned and completely turning black. Blood was pouring out of... It didn't even look like wounds at this point.

4:22You couldn't even decipher which part of his face was bleeding, if his body was bleeding. It was such a traumatic scene. Blood was soaking his clothes. The cement sidewalk around this little boy had turned black. It's almost as if a meteoroid had struck planet Earth, but only on this little boy, and that was it. I mean, imagine, even where he's standing, the floor is completely scorched. The air around the little boy seemed to carry this cloud of, like, a very chemically scent, you know? What is that scent? Have you ever smelled sulfuric acid before? It was that said. So he gets rushed to the hospital.

4:59And the little six-year-old boy's name was Tae-wan. He was covered in burns head to toe. He couldn't see. He was blinded from his attack. And even then, he laid in that hospital bed and he tried to be positive. He asked his parents if he could get the little robot shoes that he wanted later when he got out. And if he could eat all the ice cream in the world when he got out. He even sang his favorite songs from his favorite cartoons. There's interviews of him in bed. his entire body covered in bandages and his face is just like this bandaged mask of medical gauze and i mean when news broke of this incident the whole nation like not even just this small town the entire nation of south korea was confused and shocked to say the least because who on earth would be so disgustingly evil and vile to not only do that to somebody anybody but to do it to a six year old little boy i mean this six year old probably has so much trust in the world he's probably excited and curious i mean he's a little boy how could somebody do that it's just not a normal thing so when the little boy is asked whose voice did you hear when the acid was thrown on you did you see anyone do you think you know who did it tay took a moment and he said the ajashi from the chicken shop no the old man yeah from the chicken shop ajashi is like anyone who's like when you're a kid and when you're six i called anyone like 20 i just see but he is a little bit older i mean he's middle-aged but mr a he's accusing mr a the guy that ran out of the chicken shop literally to save this kid of being the one to pour acid on him what's going on so let's start from the beginning may 20th was a normal day for everybody or at least for pak jungsook and her six-year-old son taewon okay this was back in the day when six-year-olds could so easily walk to school by themselves without anyone or anything just bothering them especially in this tiny little town in korea it's a safe area everything is everywhere it's almost like this live work space so you kind of have your shop at the bottom floor and then a lot of people live on top of it there's that's where i how i go yeah it's like a mixture of you know you go downstairs and there's a hair salon but then right on top of it is somebody's apartment yeah yeah it's it's like one of those places.

7:11So school is very, very close by. It's not like a dangerous city walk. It's a nice small town where everybody looks out for one another. So Tay, he started on his journey to class like he did every single day. He had a routine. He took the same little alleyway every single day. And this day he was joined with his friend named Lee. And like kids do, they were probably bouncing off the walls, you know, full of energy, trying to face the day, giggling, poking at each other, you know, teasing each other. They probably didn't even notice that a man had been watching them, if not following them. Because when the man finally got his chance, he took it.

7:49And it happened almost in the blink of an eye. A man jumped out behind Tay, grabbed onto his hair. And of course, you know, Tay's going to start screaming. Like, would you not scream if somebody grabbed you by the hair? Someone's like yanking your hair and not letting go. He starts screaming. But before anybody around could even register what the hell was going on, it was almost instantly. This man poured a burning hot liquid down on top of Tay's head. It slid down his forehead, onto his cheeks, into his eyes, into his mouth, down his throat, down his neck. The stinging liquid seemed to get everywhere.

8:27It was raining down onto this little boy's arms and chest and legs now. It seemed like the liquid was on a mission to cover his entire body as quickly as possible. So Tae lets out a high-pitched screech, but he realized that anytime that he screamed, his throat was burning. It's like the liquid was choking him. So it was almost like this half screech, half not a screech. He screamed a couple of times, but it wasn't what I would call like a full force scream. But his mom heard. So his mom actually heard the scream, and he had not made it that far out of the house, right? And she was like cleaning something and she heard it.

9:03And I don't know if it's mother's intuition. I don't know if it sounded like Tay in the scream, but she felt like it was her son. So she rushed through his little routine of which way he goes and she sees her son leaned up against a pole on the sidewalk and she couldn't even recognize him. She had always poked fun at his chubby little cheeks and had squeezed them with her fingers, but now his face was just contorted in pain. It was like twisted in pain. His entire face was like blackened. There was blood all over his clothes. I mean, I can't even imagine the trauma of seeing your kid in this state.

9:39With the help of a few passerbys, including the fried chicken shop owner, Tae's mom gets Tae to the ER. And they confirmed that Tae had been burned with sulfuric acid. The effects were much worse on a six-year-old compared to, let's say, a full-grown adult. six-year-old skin is so much more sensitive and because the acid was poured from the top of his head tay's head had the most injuries followed by his chest his back and his arms about 40 percent of little tay's tiny little body was burned and a large portion of that area had third degree burns which is the second worst level of burns it's considered a full thickness burn this this This type of burn destroys two full layers of your skin.

10:23And instead of your skin turning red, like when you accidentally touch, you know, a piping hot stove or something, it'll appear sometimes white almost or yellow. But a lot of the times brown or completely blackened, like you've literally scorched it. This type of burn can often damage the underlying bones, muscles and tendons, and it'll definitely damage nerve endings. It's just it's a lot. So 40 % of Tae's body was filled with third degree burns. To put that into better perspective, burns affecting 10 % of a child's body are considered major injuries. They require hospitalization and extensive rehabilitation afterwards.

11:0310%. And you say it went into his mouth. And his eyes, he was blinded. Oh my god. So the probability of Tae's survival was only 5%. I can't imagine telling this news to his parents, but somehow they both remained strong. Both of them were devastated, but right now they felt like they needed to be strong for their son. Their son is showing courage and strength and trying to sing songs and trying to talk about ice cream. He was blinded, but he's still trying to remain positive. He's even comforting his own parents. And he only knew that his parents were in the room because of their voices. And I'm sure as a parent, this is a really tough thing because you want your child to rest and you want them to recover.

11:45but at the same time, in order for your child to be safe, you know, whoever did this needs to be caught. So the parents, they grab a tape recorder and they went into Tae's room to ask him everything that he remembered about the attack. They knew that every question that they asked, every time that Tae responded or talked, he was going to be in agonizing pain. But he tried. He said, I was walking to piano class with my friend, but not too long after I left the house, I heard an ajashi call my name. So I stopped, and in that moment, some ajushi came up to me, and he looked like a monster. He poured some liquid onto my face, and the smell was so strong, it felt like a burning sensation everywhere.

12:22Like he was throwing burning hot water down my face, and even into my eyes and down my throat, it was just everywhere on my skin. I tried to scream, but when I screamed, the hot liquid went down my throat, and it hurt more. Now, Tae wasn't really able to provide any information that would help catch this person. He just said that the ajashi looked like a monster. It's really hard to chase someone down with that description. But one thing that stood out was that the ajashi, this guy, whoever did this, knew Tae's name. So maybe instead of targeting Tae, because who's got beef with a six-year-old, they were targeting Tae's parents.

12:56That makes more sense. This was like their sick revenge on the parents. To hurt their kid is the best way to get revenge on these adults, right? So the police, they want to talk to Lee, the friend that Tae was walking with to school. Maybe he remembered something about the acid ajushi. And Lee is this six-year-old boy, and he had a hearing impairment. He said he didn't even hear the ajushi calling Tae's name, but he did see an ajushi. And he did see him pour something out of a black plastic bag onto Tae's face. So this is where it gets weird. You know, the police were able to confirm that whoever did this was indeed an ajushi.

13:30But that was about it, you know? The description of a monster, of course, when someone does something this horrendous to you, they're going to look like a monster in hindsight. But what does that mean? Lee couldn't give further description on this guy other than the fact that he was an older male. They also said it was kind of confusing that Lee stated that the acid was in a plastic bag. That doesn't make any sense. I mean, it's a corrosive material. Who puts that into like a little black shopping bag? So a bunch of professionals, they tested the theory online because at this point, the police didn't even believe the kids.

14:02They're like, these kids don't know what they're talking about. clearly their traumatized black plastic bag with acid? I don't think so. So these professionals, they even air this on news segments. So shockingly enough, they were able to confirm that a lot of black plastic bags seem to hold up well. I guess maybe there is a lack of oxygen, so it's not as corrosive. Listen, I'm not a chemist, but just know that the story made sense. Lee's story made sense. But then another confusing part is how did somebody pour out acid from a black plastic bag without burning themselves. That sounds harder than, let's say, putting that acid into a water bottle or some sort of container, maybe a spray bottle.

14:42Like, maybe the bag is easier to trash. I'm not sure. So again, that's not really leading us anywhere. How did people even come up with the fried chicken shop owner being the perpetrator? Like, where did that come from? It's so random. So the parents, they had sat down with Tay and they had asked him about 300 hours worth of questions. Like, they talked to this kid for 300 hours and recorded it all what that's like yeah what 10 15 days and during the 300 hours every single time they said do you know who did this to you like you know he's saying i don't really remember the face what do you remember the voice when they yelled your name like who did that sound like and tay kept saying okay well it sounded like mr a from the chicken shop and i think at first the parents were confused.

15:29I mean, I'm sure they believed it in the beginning, but I'm sure that also it didn't make sense. So they asked, are you sure it was Mr. A? Because, you know, we've known him for years now and he's the nice guy that owns the chicken shop. I'm sure it was Mr. A. Are you sure it wasn't your teacher from school? Was it this person? That person or stranger? It was Mr. A. So the parents, they're infuriated. They're upset and they're thinking about it. they're like wait okay this is crazy maybe it does make sense so mr a the chicken shop owner which by the way that's not his real name um we just legally have to call him mr a right now he was short on cash a couple days before tay's incident happened he had gone from neighbor to neighbor asking to borrow money and his shop was right across the street from tay's house It was a pretty sad moment.

16:22He had knocked on the door and he was so desperate that he even got down on his knees to Tay's parents to beg for money to keep his shop open. But Tay's own parents, they weren't doing that well. They were financially stressed and they couldn't spare the extra money and it was a large sum of money. So they refused. Maybe, maybe he was so angry that he felt like he had to get back at Tay's parents and his best idea was to go after Tay. But that doesn't even make sense. So the parents keep asking Tay. And like I said, again, all of this is recorded. And Tay said he was certain it was the chicken shop owner.

16:59And prior to all of this, none of his story was nonsensical. He wasn't like, and then I rode on a broom and I hovered into town and then I was going to Hogwarts. Like this six-year-old kid is like, yeah, I was going to piano lessons. He's very straightforward. He remembers the day very clearly. It didn't sound like a kid that was confused and filling in his memory holes. What's wild though? Is that the family told the police all of this showed them the tapes and the police did not believe them So the police were like I think it's just neighborly drama like I get it You guys want justice, but the parents are being a little bit crazy and the parents are like we're not being crazy here Watch these tapes.

17:34They watch it and the police are like, ah See that question that you just asked you probably don't know this because you're not a police officer like myself But you were leading tay You were leading him into giving you that answer Why don't they want to just investigate the dude? I don't know They didn't even try to see if the chicken shop owner Had an acid purchase history Which buying acid at that time Especially at this concentration It was pretty difficult Like it was 78 % pure sulfuric acid So it's not like he got drain cleaner And poured it down the kid's throat So they didn't even investigate I guess the police really didn't think it was the chicken shop owner They always kept saying Why would he help bring Tay to the hospital then?

18:13That doesn't make sense Who holds a grudge for something so unreasonable? On top of that, we brought him in for a lie detector test, and he passed. An officer even said, you know, it's our job not just to listen to one side of the story, but both sides. And it feels like Tay's parents are pushing this narrative. They're really pushing for it. And honestly, that kind of makes us mad. They're impeding with the investigation. So how do you explain Tay constantly remembering that he was a chicken shop owner? Well, you know what adults say. They say the six-year-old has a vivid imagination, a fantastic memory.

18:48They're just thinking about these things. But some neighbors reported it wasn't that crazy. It wasn't a vivid imagination because some of them reported seeing noticeable burn scars on the chicken shop owner's hands shortly after what happened to Tay. And apparently Mr. A's leather shoes were corroding, which, you know, it's not just worn. It's not like the soles are worn out. It looks like it's corroding. Like it's been dipped into a vat of acid. That's a very different look. Which side note, the police didn't even take Mr. A's clothes in for testing until four months later. And they just bunched all of his clothes and his shoes into one evidence bag.

19:24So all of it was bunched together and it all tested positive for acid. But again, Mr. A is like, yeah, because I carried Tay partly to the hospital. So of course, I'm going to have some acid on the clothes that I was wearing that day. The police just said, yeah, makes sense. And regardless, we can't even use that as evidence because we storaged it wrong. So we were supposed to put the shoes separate. Our bad. Other experts said that doesn't make any sense. It didn't look like the damage done to somebody's clothes when they were just in close proximity to someone that had acid on their clothes.

19:57Does that make sense? It looks like a more intimate contact. Later, neighbors reported seeing just straight up burns on Mr. A's hands. And when they questioned him about it, Mr. A just said, oh, it's because I helped Taiwan to the hospital. So of course, I'm also going to have burns on my hands because the acid from his body transferred to mine.

20:27Other neighbors had other suspicions. Like how did he even hear Tae's screams to begin with? Some neighbors reported it was a piercing sound, but they were very close to Tae. Other neighbors who were near the chicken shop, like outside the chicken shop said i didn't even hear a scream so how would he have heard a scream if he was inside the chicken shop where there's music playing a tv on and you know the kitchen noise is loud in a restaurant just the whirring of the refrigerator and the stove how could he have heard that so they tested it by playing a radio at like 80 decibels which is what they consider um a child's loudest scream they went into the chicken shop they couldn't hear a single thing they could barely hear it outside the chicken shop so there's no way that he could have heard something then a ton of neighbors came out to say wait i didn't even see him running from the direction of the chicken shop i don't know where he came out of but then one neighbor came out and said i actually saw mr a running towards tay but from the opposite direction of the chicken shop like if the chicken shop is here tay is here i saw him come this way oh that's weird then he's lying yeah so when the police asked him about it and when the neighbors were questioning about it he was like what are you talking about i ran out of the chicken shop and i was running and because tay wasn't screaming anymore i didn't know where he was so i ran past the source of the noise only to realize oh it's that little boy up against the pole so i u-turned it back later he said oh it was because there was a lady in my way so i like ran around her and i guess someone had seen me looking like i was um coming from the other direction but it was just because I ran around somebody to get to Tay.

22:06None of this makes sense because I don't know. This is a very small street. I'm going to put a picture right here. It's a very tight street. It's not one of those massive intersections. Tay was leaned up against the pole. The sidewalk around him was scorched. His whole face was blackened. There was blood all over his shirt. This is what his shirt looked like. How do you run past him? I would imagine if I see a kid in that level of distress and there's a lady in my way i'm not just gonna like jog around her i think i might be like move lady like it's going down we gotta save this kid you know it just was all bizarre but the police decided it was not enough to prosecute mr a even at the parents urging the police said that they couldn't do anything as there was insufficient evidence so apparently a six-year-old's memory is not enough evidence even though many experts have studied the 300 hours of tapes and they said sure kids can lie they can make up imaginative stories maybe they want to protect themselves from this traumatic incident maybe they don't know what they're talking about but tay was asked multiple times in different variations who did it and each time he responded confidently that it was mr a from the chicken shop so the child behavior experts believed tay but the police didn't and after 49 long hard days of fighting with death at eight in the morning on July 8th, Tae-won passed away.

23:23And Tae's case would become one of the most famous unsolved cases in all of South Korea. Tae would actually go on to change South Korea law forever during the short amount of time that Tae was alive. And a little bit afterwards, honestly, South Korea had a statute of limitations for murder 15 years after the time of death of the victim. Meaning if you kill someone and you get caught 15 years and one day later, you're going to be a free man. You just got away with murder so they said that this was there so that it would protect citizens from police officers who wanted to frame people for murder i guess 20 years after the fact or i guess they were saying evidence at that point would be really hard to prove because it's been so long so that was in place yeah it's just bizarre so tay's parents fought to have that law changed and it worked the taiwan act was put in place and it went back so i think it was in like the 2010s that it was put in place, but they went back to August 1st of 2000.

24:20Any homicide that happened afterwards would have no statute of limitations. But Tae's murder happened even before that. And the statute of limitations for his murder was going to be up in 2014. So Tae's parents tried to include Tae-won into the Tae-won Act, but their appeals were rejected and rejected by the Supreme Court. Tae's mom even went to the streets every single day to protest, but there was nothing that could be done. it it just felt so unfair and depressing like the fact that tae would change all of south korea and help victims but he himself would never get justice it just feels that work yeah it just feels so depressing and they name it yeah his name wow but they couldn't use that no to help him no like this law is groundbreaking and i'm sure you can already understand the scope of it which is to put it into perspective a lot of serious crimes have been prosecuted because of tae and his law including one of the most notorious serial killers in all of south korea the hua sang serial killer and that was all thanks to the tae wan case wow and to tae wan's law but the statute of limitations closed for his case in 2014 and this is one of the most infuriating but but also most prominent case of an unsolved murder in South Korea because who does that to a six-year-old?

25:44So nobody, that's it? The chicken shop owner just went on to live his life? Went on to live his life. We don't know his name? No. I believe we know his last name. But he's still very private. Yes. The justice system is supposed to serve the parents of victims and the families of victims. but a lot of the times you see the families trying to reform law to get justice but the law should have been on their side to begin with like there should have never been a statute of limitations for murder or even what are your thoughts on this case do you guys think it was the chicken shop owner and do you really think it was because his parents refused to loan him money which sounds like the most entitled evil thing i've ever heard

26:31Jack was walking through the building and it definitely was not what he was expecting, like at all. I mean, what do you expect when you hear the dozier school for boys? Maybe you're thinking rows and rows of desks, maybe a campus with other activities, sports, a big cafeteria. It had all of those things. It did. None of them were well kept, but there was more. Past all of that, there was where the areas where the boys would sleep and would spend most of their time, where they were kept. I mean, it's supposed to be a place to help children, right? But instead, Jack said it looked like a prison.

27:03The whole place felt grimy and dark and depressing. Like right when you walk in, there's this suffocating feeling and you can't even quite put your finger on it. It seemed like body odor was the smell. Maybe that's what was so suffocating. It was heavy. It lingered long after you left. And why on earth does this place, this school for boys smell so strongly of urine? Jack didn't have to wonder long. He would get those answers immediately. Being a teacher of delinquent kids at a short-term residential center in, I believe, Tallahassee, Florida, Jack found it really hard to keep walking because it genuinely looked like a prison for boys.

27:44He asked one of the guards, yeah, there's guards in this place. Jack asked the guard are there kids in here yeah i want to meet one how about in this cell and jack is looking the cell up and down and there's locks and bolts up and down the whole thing and the guard is like hold on this lock is a little bit fussy so he goes and grabs something and comes back with the holy bible and he whacks the lock with the holy bible and it comes undone yeah this is how just horrible and deplorable this place is. Jack walks in inside the concrete box and he sees on top of another concrete slab, like there's no mattress in here.

28:24He sees a tiny little boy and he looks so thin. He looks like he could disappear into the walls. He looked terrified. He had no pajama bottoms, no shirt. His head was shaven. And Jack sits down next to the young boy and is like, how long have you, how long have you been in here? And he just shrugged. So the guard answers for him and he's like, oh, he's been in here a while, but it's for his own protection. The other boys were sodomizing him. What? Well, why is his head shaved? Oh, because he was pulling out his hair. Well, is he getting any help? That's not normal for a kid to do. And the guard just shrugs and is like, we just passed the food in through the cell.

29:04So Jack is disgusted. He's horrified. Listen, there had been a lot of rumors and talks about what had been going on in here. I mean, a few years before Jack even arrived, a reporter visited the school and found that a 16 year old boy was placed in solitary confinement yeah like prison and his name was jim and jim had consumed a full glass light bulb because he was losing his mind in solitary confinement and then he used pieces of the glass light bulb to gash his arm a dozen times and nobody no guard no teacher no staff member nobody cared so you're like okay well how on earth is the school open in the middle of the state of freaking florida sunny sunshine and oranges a reporter saw that a teacher saw that abuse why wasn't the school immediately shut down and the administrators arrested let's talk about the dozier school for boys the dozier school for boys was actually known as the florida school for boys originally they opened in 1900 and you're like oh okay so this case is like from a million years ago the school was formally shut down in 2011.

30:08It was open for over 100 years. And when it was finally shut down, there was a massive graveyard found with countless children buried in the back that nobody knew for 100 plus years. I find that very hard to believe, don't you? So this is how the Florida School for Boys was marketed. If you look at this picture, I mean, yeah, it's horribly color enhanced. It looks like it's just they turned the saturation up, but it feels picturesque, doesn't it? You know, the property is not fenced. There's no electric barbed wire. It's covered by well-manicured lawns. It has pine trees, maybe some palm trees.