The Blacklist

Chapter 386 Treating to Protect the Murderer

Reddington told Elizabeth about this situation, which meant that SER's previous judgment was wrong, and they could only change the direction of the investigation according to Reddington's judgment.

Carrie knew the truth, but in order to train Elizabeth, he did not force any instructions. Instead, he supported them to continue investigating.

Elizabeth and Nawabi went to visit Jerry Jawar's wife, hoping to learn some new information from his widow, but they were shocked when they entered the door - Jerry's wife Reva was actually a childish 16-year-old child who was still in high school!
Because Reeva was not yet 18, Elizabeth and Nawabi, accompanied by her parents, questioned her husband about his death. The law in the United States is so lax. In many states, there is no limit on the age of marriage, as long as there is parental consent! However, you can only join the army at the age of 18, have the right to vote at the age of 21, and can only buy alcohol at the age of 23. The meaning of this is worth pondering.

Reeva said in her narration that when the murder happened, she was doing homework in the living room downstairs from the study, and she was listening to music with headphones on, and she didn't hear what happened upstairs at all...

This situation seemed a little abnormal. When Elizabeth and Nawabi were about to continue questioning, Riva suddenly fainted and the interrogation had to be stopped.

Seeing the situation was abnormal, Elizabeth immediately used the privileges of CTU to conduct a forced search of Jerry's house. She found an underground chat room on Reva's computer, which was full of girls under the age of 18 who were forced to marry adults for various reasons. In addition to complaining and comforting each other, the chat content revolved around a "guardian angel" who could give them freedom.

In the subsequent investigation, SER found that among the many members in the chat room, the husbands of nine girls had been killed or died accidentally not long ago, which almost meant that the "guardian angel" was a serial killer.

After receiving the report, Carrie directly put this newly discovered case on the blacklist and asked Elizabeth to conduct a formal investigation into it.
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Elizabeth and Nawabi went to the hospital to wait for Reva, who was previously unconscious, and questioned him as soon as he woke up.

Although she is still young, Elizabeth did not let her off this time because of her experience. She told her clearly: Jerry was related to a drug cartel and was murdered. If she refused to reveal the identity of the "guardian angel", it would implicate her and her parents.

The inexperienced Riva was frightened and confessed that she did not know the identity of the "guardian angel" and had never paid any money to the other party. The reward the other party asked for was to provide information about the next child bride who needed help!
Elizabeth felt sympathy for these young girls who were being tortured, but she could not allow them to continue killing people like this.

Aram soon found out that Tara, the girl Riva provided as the "guardian angel", was also a 16-year-old high school student, and her husband, Dale Rayburn, was a used car dealer.

Nawabi goes to the school to interrogate Tara, while Elizabeth and Dembe go to the used car market to look for Dell.

While they were talking to Dale, a second-hand car was driven to the floor-to-ceiling window of the office. Dembe sensitively noticed something was wrong and rescued Dale before the car exploded!

When Dumby and Elizabeth chased out of the office, they found a suspect, but the hooded girl pretended to be pitiful and asked a passerby for help, blocking their way and escaping. Although they failed to catch the girl, Elizabeth and Dumby brought back the passerby's leather jacket, and Abby extracted fingerprints on it, confirming that the suspicious girl was 17-year-old Brazilian immigrant Garcia Duarte, who came to the United States at the age of 13 with her 43-year-old husband.

Elizabeth, Nawabi, Demby and others rushed to Garcia's residence. Knowing that he could not escape the blame, Garcia ran to the roof and planned to commit suicide by jumping off the building!

Nawabi chased her to the roof, put away his gun, and tried to persuade her to give up the idea of ​​committing suicide...

Garcia cried and said that she was raped by a neighbor when she was 13 years old, but her family thought it was a scandal and married her to the rapist to cover up the shame! Later, she followed her husband to the United States and lived in pain all the time... A year ago, she killed her husband with a knife to get rid of it, and also made a vow to save other child brides.

Nawabi was born in the Middle East and is disgusted by the common phenomenon of child marriage there, so she actually supports Garcia's approach. At this time, she doesn't want him to die in front of her, so she also tells Garcia about her cousin's tragedy... and tells Garcia that she still has a long life to live and she can start over again!
Thanks to Nawabi's efforts, Garcia gave up his desire to commit suicide and was taken back to the post office.
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This case caused a stir within the post office. The agents were very sympathetic to Garcia. More than a dozen female agents even went to find Carrie, hoping that he could find a way to help Garcia so that she could receive a light sentence!

In fact, Carrie has been thinking about this issue since he learned about the case...

On the evening of June 6, Friday, Kerry, through National Security Advisor Wright, invited the chairpersons of the Women's and Children's Rights Committees of both houses of Congress, the Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of juvenile delinquency, the Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Federal Court, CTU Director Cooper, and FBI Psychological Counseling Office Chief Doctor Fulton to a banquet at the Officers Club at Andrews Air Force Base to discuss the Garcia case...

On Monday, the federal court in the District of Columbia held a hearing and reached a conclusion on Garcia's case: In view of the special circumstances of his juvenile crime, the federal child protection regulations were applied, and he would not be sentenced to imprisonment. However, he was required to be supervised by the FBI Crime Prevention Office and receive regular psychological treatment before he turned 21. If he behaved well, he would be released from supervision at the age of 21 and his normal status would be restored.

In addition, the cases of several other underage girls involved in the case who were complicit in the crime will no longer be pursued, but their parents will be deprived of their guardianship rights and the guardianship will be performed by the Women and Children's Rights Protection Committee until they are 21 years old.

This ruling brought cheers to everyone in the post office, especially Elizabeth and Nawabi, who both breathed a sigh of relief.
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There was a small episode during this period. With the cooperation of Riva, Garcia shot her husband Jerry and emptied his safe, just to disguise the murder as a robbery. Those things, including the account books of the Nash Group, were taken away by him and thrown into the garbage dump under an overpass.

After receiving the news, Reddington led his men to rummage through the garbage for a whole day and finally found the black account book stained with blood, which allowed him to grasp some of the secrets of the Nash Group.

(End of this chapter)