Wood confirmed what I had heard from several officers, that this murder investigation is the biggest investigation since the merger of city and county police.

"We've tapped every resource. We've used every homicide detective. We've partnered up with the Crimes Against Children Unit. I'm tapping detectives from all other investigative units that work for me and the division detectives have offered to help us run down leads," Wood explained.

The day after Cesar Ivan Aguilar-Cano was reported missing, LMPD started a parallel homicide investigation, just in case. A homicide detective shadowed a counterpart in the search investigation. This foresight allowed for a "seamless transition" to a homicide investigation once Ivan's body was found. It's what police have to always do: prepare for the worst.

Wood is the latest LMPD official to comment on the investigation, with Chief Robert White, Lt. Col. Tim Emington (who commanded the search) and the head of homicide, Lt. Barry Wilkerson all speaking at one time or another to the media. Det. Phil Russell and Alicia Smiley in the Media and Public Relations Office will often answer questions, but in this case have more often arranged for those more directly involved to answer questions.

If you watched the Emington news conference or saw any of my interview with Dave Wood, you might think that police are being evasive, often responding with "I can't address that," or "I'm not prepared to answer that." As a reporter, I am interested in as many answers as I can get, but I also understand that information is one of the many tools police use to solve crimes and they release that information strategically.

Conversely, not releasing some information is also strategic. For instance, police will not disclose the last time any witnesses report seeing Ivan.

Yet, we journalists trudge on with our curiosity, which explains answers like "less than ten," when I asked Wood about how many searches have been conducted. He would not give me a number, so I guessed, "more than ten?" Thus, his answer.

It's a way to give the public a glimpse of the investigation without hampering it.

Wood, surprisingly, did confirm that police have in their possession security camera video of Ivan's mother, Rosa Cano, attempting to get a passport for her four year old son. Wood says she did this within a week prior to Ivan's disappearance. I think Wood verified this only because Rosa Cano had already spoken to me about this, saying she wanted Ivan to be able to return to the U.S. after visiting his grandparents in Guatemala.

Any fact or piece of information, by itself, might seem irrelevant to this case. But, this is what police have to do; collect as much information as possible. One person's incomplete story matched with another's incomplete story might add up to tell THE story.

"Obviously, everybody's a suspect until you make an arrest in the case," Wood said, "we're just going where the information gives us."