The world of American TV series: Starting with the L.A. Patrol

"It's not certain yet. What I can tell you now is that the deceased was a girl."

The information revealed in the sergeant's words made everyone who had just arrived frown. It had been three hours since the body was found, but the police still could not determine the identity, or even determine which of the missing people the deceased was.

Police Station No. 18 of the LAPD Southern Division, also known as the Southeast Precinct. Although it is a little inferior to the wealthy precincts like the Wilshire Division, it is not a small police station in a remote area.

It's certainly not incompetent to this extent, not to mention the fact that the FBI was involved from the beginning. Having said that, there is only one answer.

The extent of the damage to the body can no longer be determined through simple methods such as photos and fingerprints. It must be determined through a long-term autopsy or even DNA testing.

Sure enough, when the group came to the dry drainage ditch, they saw the body of a red barley female whose head was smashed to a bloody pulp, and her hands were also seriously damaged.

Hannah, who arrived at the scene earlier than everyone in the BAU, was standing by the ditch and had just finished communicating the situation with several on-site forensic personnel.

Of course Jack knew that she had been busy with this case last night. A phone call in the middle of the night woke Hannah up from her sleep while she was sleeping soundly in his arms.

He specially stewed a portion of chicken soup with wolfberry and black bone for lunch today and sent it to her, but he didn't expect that BAU would be asked to intervene so quickly.

"Let me briefly introduce the situation. Katie Owen and Lindsay Vonn are minors. They both just turned 15 years old. They disappeared in the cinema at midnight yesterday. Their parents are over there. This is the list of contacts I have just compiled. It’s all up there.”

As she spoke, Hannah handed the information in her hand to Hotchner, and she looked very professional when she got into working mode.

"Don't tell me that their parents have seen the corpse." Jiejie whispered.

"Not yet. As soon as the K9 police officers (police dogs) captured her scent, we isolated them from the scene." The police chief on the side said.

"So they've been waiting outside?" Jiejie raised her eyebrows.

The police chief sighed, "Yes, I can't delay any longer. I've run out of excuses."

"I'll go talk to them." Jiejie took the initiative to take over the most troublesome matter at the moment to appease the family members.

The scene was too tragic for them to see. Parents who had a mental breakdown would not be helpful to the investigation of the case, and might even lead to extreme incidents.

"Jiejie, I'll go with you." Hannah followed.

Of these two girls, one recently bought a lot of popular psychology books and made herself sleepy every day, while the other practiced shooting at the shooting range every day, and her hands were covered with gun calluses.

Jack could only try to appease each other separately, and there was no particularly good way to do it.

"I'm glad you can come. I've never seen such a scene." The police chief looked young, in his early 30s.

"Let's go down and take a look." Hotchner said as he put on his gloves.

Jack carefully avoided the evidence markers on the ground and came to the body with Red, Hotchner, Rosie and Emily standing behind them.

"This is not the first scene." Jack, who had recently improved his forensic skills through reading and studying, could tell something was wrong at a glance.

The corpse was covered with scars, large bruises, and knife marks all over the body. However, there were only clear drag marks on the ground, there were very few footprints, and almost no blood could be seen around it.

"There are obvious signs of being tied up on the arms and thighs. This girl was tortured for a long time." Rhett squatted down next to the body and observed carefully.

It was getting dark now. Jack turned on the flashlight and shined it on the girl's neck. "The cause of death was most likely strangulation. The bruises on the neck were very obvious."

Rhett nodded in agreement, "There are clear belt buckle marks on it."

"Why did you destroy her face and hands?" the police sergeant who followed him asked in confusion.

"This is a kidnapping case, isn't it? It's totally unnecessary."

"Obviously the purpose of the kidnapping is not extortion." Hotchner replied. "The victim probably knows the murderer. In this way, the murderer wants to force us to spend time identifying himself, thereby buying time for his escape."

"Do you think the other girl is still alive?" The police chief may have heard of BAU's name and has completely given up thinking about himself.

At least among the LAPDs Jack knew, probably only John, who was still a rookie, could ask such a question.

Rosie still took the trouble to answer, "Before the body is found, we must assume that she is still alive."

"What we need to do now is to find the place where she was killed and determine which girl we are looking for."

When everyone left the drainage channel and came to the blockade, Jiejie and Hannah were still communicating with the parents of the two girls.

"This is Mrs. Owen's mobile phone. She is used to turning on the automatic call recording function. At about one o'clock last night, a call came in from Katie's number."

Hannah said as she handed Jack an iPhone, "I checked and found that the call lasted less than a minute. It must have been dialed secretly. It's almost impossible to hear what was being said. Technical processing is required."

Jack nodded, found the recording file directly, sent it to his mobile phone, and then forwarded it to Garcia.

"Hey, cutie." Garcia's cheerful voice came from the connected phone.

Hannah's face suddenly showed an expression that was half-smiling, and she looked at Jiejie on the side, and Jiejie made a silent mouth gesture, which meant that we would talk about this later.

"Ahem, let's get down to business, Garcia." Jack looked at the two of them awkwardly. Is this a consensus?

"I have a call recording here to help filter out the background sound and extract useful information."

"No problem, leave it to me. Sister, this place will always be your peaceful little harbor."

It's almost okay, just let him go. Jack is already regretting why he talks so much with Garcia. Usually it's nothing. But now in front of Hannah, this scene is too social.

On the other side, Hotchner and Rossi were questioning the parents of the two girls.

"Do you mind telling me what happened before?" Hotchner's serious expression seemed to calm the family members' emotions better than the two ladies.

Mrs. Irving, with red and swollen eyes, clasped her hands on her chest with a sad look on her face, "Yesterday was Bruce and I's wedding anniversary. We went out to dinner together, and Keith drove the girls to the cinema."

"I'm Keith Vaughn, Lindsay's father." A sturdy middle-aged man took over Mrs. Owen's words, introduced himself, and continued.

"I was responsible for taking them home two hours later, but I waited outside for a long time and didn't see them."

It’s my birthday today. I’ll go out to get my bones straightened out later. If it’s still too late when I come back, I’ll write another chapter. If I don’t have time, I’ll give myself a break today, hehe.