CHAPTER 444: CHAPTER 272 THE LAS VEGAS SERIAL MURDER-DUMPING CASE_2

This location was closer to Las Vegas.

Nevada’s largest city, it was home to a large population. As a gambling hub, it attracted numerous outsiders, bringing together all sorts of people, and cases there were endless.

This place was undoubtedly his first choice.

Having determined the area, the next step was the category of the case.

The cases here were all old, cold cases.

This meant that the most significant help for Dean would be the current case files in his hands, while much of the other evidence had likely dissipated over time.

Therefore, suitable cases would be relatively recent ones where the investigation identified clear suspects but ultimately failed to secure a conviction.

Soon, under Dean’s screening, the large number of cases began to dwindle.

He took a sip of his coffee, summoned his spirit, and once again earnestly clicked on the case at the top of the list.

...

"Jim’s Death Case"

"In 1980, in Las Vegas, a young man named Jim attended his girlfriend’s party. The next day, his body was discovered in a trash bin not far from the party’s location. He had signs of being beaten, and the cause of death was intracranial hemorrhage.

He had been beaten to death."

Dean uttered a sound of surprise at this point.

The FBI had the authority to investigate any case violating federal law. However, they normally wouldn’t get involved in minor murder cases like this. Such cases were usually the responsibility of the local police detective bureau. The FBI would only step in if a case had a major impact or for other specific reasons.

He continued to read on.

Jim’s body was discovered by a sanitation worker.

After the worker reported it, the Las Vegas Police Department immediately assigned an investigator to the case.

The investigation revealed a witness claim: on the night before Jim’s death, they saw him in a conflict at the party where the other person humiliated him by splashing a drink on his face.

The detective in charge of the case immediately located the person who had an altercation with Jim.

This person was Jim’s girlfriend’s brother.

The brother disapproved of his sister dating Jim, whom he considered a "poor kid." He had deliberately humiliated Jim publicly at the party and had even planned further humiliations, but didn’t carry them out due to his sister’s intervention.

At the time of Jim’s death, the brother was partying with a group of cronies. Plenty of witnesses could attest to his whereabouts, so he had a strong alibi.

At this point in the case, the detective in charge would normally investigate the deceased’s social connections, question his girlfriend, and visit the neighbors.

But none of this happened.

The case file indicated that the investigation stopped there.

This was because the detective in charge of the case died in a car accident on his way home from work.

The police department was short-staffed at the time, and the case was subsequently shelved.

Why would this kind of case be recorded in an FBI file?

A flicker of confusion crossed Dean’s eyes.

Wasn’t this just an ordinary murder case?

There’s no information about an FBI agent’s involvement anywhere.

Truly baffling!

Suddenly, Dean’s gaze moved up the file, stopping at the last name of Jim’s girlfriend.

Bona Thomas!

Dean had no impression of this surname.

But a computer search revealed that the Thomas family was well-known in Las Vegas. While not exceptionally powerful, they held local prestige as one of the pioneering families in the city’s development, essentially landowners.

From this perspective, Jim and his girlfriend’s story was a classic tale of a poor boy wooing a princess.

Such things often happen during the naive days of youth.

Family...

A thought flickered bright in Dean’s mind!

He immediately looked into the Thomas family members. He discovered that two years after Jim’s death, his girlfriend, Bona Thomas, began dating someone else. She eventually married this person in 1984 and gave birth to a son in 1985.

Bona Thomas’s husband was the eldest son of a local casino family.

This connection also explained how Dean had once seen a photo of Bona Thomas’s son, taken at an event hosted by that casino.

"WHOA."

In the photo, a dapper young man in a sharp suit, his hair styled with mousse, bore about a fifty to sixty percent resemblance to Bona Thomas’s brother.

Considering the FBI’s typical practices, Dean suddenly understood why Jim’s seemingly insignificant case was in their files.

It went without saying.

Nine times out of ten, Jim was killed by his girlfriend Bona Thomas’s brother.

Bona Thomas’s brother must have a sister complex. He might have even laid hands on his own sister after killing Jim.

The detective investigating the case probably hadn’t really died in a car accident. It was more likely that he had stumbled upon some leads during the investigation and was subsequently silenced.

As mentioned before, the FBI was quite chaotic internally.

Each state had its own field office.

The supervisor of each field office wielded considerable authority, yet their compensation was mediocre, even poor.

If they wanted to live prosperously, they had to use their position and various dealings to get rich.

For example, there was the previous bounty hunt for the Skinning Brothers, on which Dean had collaborated with that senior Black agent.

That was one way of making extra money, relatively low-end.

Another method involved leveraging the powerful intelligence system to uncover secrets about members of influential local families. They would then use this information for extortion, offer protection in exchange for benefits, or use it as leverage to cooperate on illicit ventures, essentially engaging in collusion.

Damn, isn’t this just like the Imperial Secret Police?

Dean touched the agent ID in his pocket, a glint of excitement flashing in his eyes.