Suspect

Albert Conaghan.

Forty-three-year-old man, runs a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Acquitted of rape three times, got off on technicalities twice. The third time, another technicality got him only five years. The guy's good at what he does, and right now, he's our only suspect.

Recent pictures put him at balding, with a blank face like nothing ever fazes him, and almost always dressed in formal attire. That right there was enough to convince me, but it's not enough to book him. His habits, though, would be enough to at least put forth an investigation. He was always one of those “sneak in through the windows and drag them off into the woods” kind of guys; fast, dirty, and never letting them see his face. That would explain Victoria Krell, at least. Maybe she had gone out to look at the sky and he finally nabbed her.

Two irregularities here, at least, at first glance. There may be more, I'll need to look more into it. One, he had never been known to target males. In my mind, if your side-profession was a rapist, the only thing that meant was that you hadn't tried it yet. See, in my little world, if you like forcefully sticking your dick in things you shouldn't be sticking it in, then before long you'd try to stick your dick in a crocodile's mouth for pleasure. That's just in my world, though. You can tell I don't think too highly of the subject, huh?

The second irregularity is that he never left a calling sign. In this case, the “X” in the circle, which, although I'm sure this will re-attract all the Slender Man fankids, does look a lot like the Operator symbol. Maybe the guy's watched the videos and decided to make it his own calling card, like he's trying to be funny. Yeah, well, I'd like to see him laugh behind bars, because I'm making sure that he goes away permanently this time.

He's got a lot of properties in this city. Problem is, we can't seem to locate him at any of them. He dropped off the map about six months ago, and no one has an exact clue as to where he is. My guess is that he conducts his business like he does every other day, just a bit more quietly.

We've put out a bulletin to all local towns telling him to keep a lookout and handed over the most recent pictures. The guy can't hide forever, and when he pops up, we'll be on him like vultures to a dead carcass.

In other news, Sam's spent two nights here, and nothing bad has happened. He's actually even calmed down a little bit. Chief's thinking about sending him home and keeping a few guards outside his house. Might not be a bad idea; only problem is, how long can we afford to keep it up?

We interviewed all the other kids who saw him that day. All of them are perfectly healthy, doing regular routines, not having a care in the world. They all remember seeing him, but none of them thought too much of it and they pushed him out of their minds. So again, I'm back to asking what is so special about Sam. Did he just look more vulnerable? True, he's probably been stuffed in a couple dumpsters in his day, but that can't be the only reason.

Lizzie keeps going over all the stuff we've found. The drawings, the journal, the tape recording from the interrogation, all of it. I tell her to take a break, but she just smiles and waves me off. She's a fanatic with her work, it's unhealthy. She's got more vacation time saved up than any of us combined, and yet she still shows up here six days a week, seven if she's not feeling like taking a day off or needs to get some work finished. I admire that about her, but at the same time it bothers me that she works herself to near-death.

She needs a life. I try to make her have one, but nothing I do works. That's just how she's programmed.

Alright, I'm stopping here, because I should have eaten lunch an hour ago and I'm starving.