Chapter 1167 - 599: Targeting Three Suspects

At this moment, only Jiang An, Chen Guan, and Director Hou remained in the meeting room.

Jiang An appeared calm, organizing his thoughts in his mind, then said: "Director Hou, from the investigation of the missing persons, although we haven’t found anything concrete yet, based on my inference, if the deceased is a male from outside Guangling City, the likelihood of the murderer intentionally bringing the corpse here for burial isn’t very high."

Upon hearing this, Director Hou looked at him with some surprise and said, "Why? Mr. Jiang, do you mean there’s a gap in the preliminary review?"

"Or is there a problem with the information collected by the local police stations?"

Following this, Chen Guan added: "Mr. Jiang, our entire Guangling City’s police system is running digitally now. As long as there are reports or missing persons, they will be entered into the system."

"Now with the involvement of unusual deaths of minors and children, the sensitivity is very high. Once a problem arises, the responsibility is enormous, so I think there shouldn’t be any issue with this result."

After hearing the discussion between the two, Jiang An nodded slightly and then said: "We certainly recognize Guangling’s police reception situation. Now everyone uses a modernized police operating model, unlike the old days when records were only kept in notebooks. Now they need to be transmitted to the command center."

"Just there’s one thing I’ve always been puzzled about, in this case, if the sorted data is correct, does it mean that these three deceased were never reported missing at all?"

"If one person went missing without being reported, that can be understood, but three people dying simultaneously without anyone reporting them missing, isn’t the probability a bit low?"

"Exactly." Director Hou was also puzzled, "A single person dying quietly without someone reporting it isn’t strange."

"But with multiple people, it might be another story."

Jiang An proceeded to analyze: "What I meant to say just now is that in the current scenario, single males are not necessarily few."

"If the deceased happened to have deceased parents or were divorced and not in contact with their ex-wife, isn’t it possible they were in a state where no one paid attention?"

"If a free-spirited person, like a freelancer, an independent taxi driver, or even a delivery person, were to disappear suddenly, who would notice?"

Upon hearing these words, Chen Guan and Director Hou exchanged glances and nodded at the meeting of their eyes.

Chen Guan speculated: "Believe it or not, these kinds of people indeed belong to the bottom layer of society, with no fixed residence, especially the homeless."

"We’ve dealt with homeless people before, and many corpses were left unclaimed. For a homeless person, who would care after they died? After all, they lived silently, and left just as quietly."

Then, Jiang An said: "I suggest we sift through all the single males throughout Guangling City, filtering them by age, with a range fluctuating within five years."

"Although the deceased’s clothes have endured a long period of animal chewing and microbial erosion on the ground, overall, they don’t resemble homeless attire."

"I believe we can sort out all the single males in the city!"

After listening to Jiang An’s analysis, Vice Director Chen Guan fell into contemplation.

The case involving these three deceased seemed like a sword of Damocles hanging overhead. The identities of the first step hadn’t been identified, and subsequent personnel investigations essentially amounted to zero.

For these skeletal remains, identifying the victims basically marks halfway through cracking the case.

In this world, there’s no love without reason, nor hate without reason, especially when three people were murdered simultaneously—there definitely is a significant motive.

If killing one person is a crime of passion...

Or even two people might be considered passion killings...

But three people killed, and at different times, clearly cannot be explained by passion killings; this must be premeditated murder.

Vice Director Chen Guan, once a key force in the criminal investigation, understood this quite clearly.

Then, he said: "I’ll immediately arrange for someone to sort through all males aged 30 to 35 in the city."

Jiang An waved his hand and said: "I think we can expand the range within five years up or down."

Mr. Chen smiled and said: "I trust your judgment. Let’s identify the most likely range first, then gradually expand."

"If we find the target individuals within this precise range, later, we won’t need to conduct such a broad search."

After saying this, Chen Guan immediately left the office to arrange for people to go to the population registration department to retrieve relevant data.

Only Jiang An and Director Hou remained in the meeting room.

Director Hou said solemnly: "Mr. Jiang, this case involves three people; our pressure is quite significant. Mr. Zhang has high hopes for us."

Jiang An turned his head to glance over and said: "Director Hou, I know that of course."

"I’ve worked in Jiangcheng for so many years and encountered quite a few cases, but in this situation, where the murderer is so rampant, killing three people at different times and burying them in the same pit, obviously, they aren’t lacking courage."

"Exactly." Director Hou said, "So, while at the scene, I suddenly had an idea."

"I was thinking, since they buried the bodies at the same location, needing to dig three times, why weren’t they discovered?"