Film made about missing boys in South Korea

According to the Korea Times, a film that’s coming out in February, titled “Children,” is based on a 1991 case in which five boys between 9 and 13 years old vanished when they went out to hunt frogs. They became known as the Frog Boys and there was a massive search for them, but to this day none of them have been found. Apparently the parents of the boys have approved of the film.

Foul play is suspected in the disappearance of the Frog Boys. Perhaps inevitably, I wondered if they had been kidnapped to North Korea. I know that has happened before. But Wikipedia says Daegu, the area the boys disappeared from, is all the way on the other side of SK, quite far from the border.

One thing that puzzles me. The article says the case “finally came to a close in 2006 when the statute of limitation ran out after 15 years.” What statute of limitations? Is it the law in SK that they can’t look for a missing person who’s been gone more than 15 years? Or is that the statute of limitations on murder, or what? Is anyone familiar with South Korean law and able to enlighten me on this?

A new way to identify bodies?

From an article about Korean War soldiers missing in action:

Perry said scientists have discovered that the shape of a clavicle is unique, much like a fingerprint. Before U.S. soldiers were sent to Korea, they had their chests X-rayed to check for tuberculosis. Military officials are putting the chest X-rays of missing soldiers into a database.

Perry said scientists are working on a way to match those X-rays with the unidentified remains as an alternative to DNA analysis.

He said it is early in the process and scientists haven’t perfected the method.

That sounds wonderful and I hope this gets somewhere. DNA testing is expensive and time-consuming and, as the article notes, not always practicable. The more ways there are to identify human remains, the better.