After the fire at Eli Aaron’s house, newspapers and police try to reconstruct Eli Aaron’s life but find almost nothing. The destruction is so complete that investigators cannot confirm his background, which strengthens the theory that “Eli Aaron” was an assumed name and that he had taken over the abandoned woodland house as a squatter.

Because no body is definitively identified, police also keep open the possibility that Eli Aaron survived. Rumors spread about a badly burned man appearing at a clinic in Woodward and about a carjacking in Buchanan County that matches his description, so the investigation expands beyond the ruined property. At the same time, officers comb through the few items recovered from the fire.

That surviving evidence suggests a larger pattern of crimes. Investigators recover charred press clippings about missing girls from places as far away as Oklahoma City, along with about a hundred salvageable photographs; one image is clear enough to identify Callie Montrose. Police also visit every school Eli Aaron had entered, but the children they interview all say the same thing: Eli Aaron was so unremarkable that they barely remember him.

On the third day of searching, dogs alert investigators to a location eight miles from the house, where they uncover the first buried girl in a grave so deep that digging reaches an aquifer. At a press conference, Nix publicly praises the department’s effort and the bravery of the young girl who led police to the woods. Nix then confirms that the remains of three missing girls have now been found, giving those families a chance to bury their daughters, while making clear that the search for Callie continues and that the full number of victims is still unknown.