A forensic expert has likened the homicide where the bodies of two children were found in suitcases to a jigsaw puzzle that could take months to piece together.
Tom Coyle, who has spent more than 30 years as a fingerprint expert, crime scene investigator, and victim identifier both in New Zealand and in London at Scotland Yard, said the age of the children will make identification difficult. He also said it's unlikely the storage unit itself retained fingerprints of the suspect.
The suitcase homicide investigation is complex, he said.
"They won't have criminal records," he said, referring to the challenges police face given the human remains found belong to children.
"They won't have DNA comparisons in the background, they're very rarely going to have X-rays taken."
But police can still build up a DNA profile using skin and bones, or check the victim's teeth on the off-chance they'll get a positive ID.
"I suspect, in my opinion, they still would use a forensic odontologist to record the teeth formation just in case, in the past, these persons have been to a dentist to have an X-ray for dental work," Coyle said.
Coyle, who now runs consultancy Forensic Insight, said police would have tried to get fingerprints from the remains. Depending on the state of them, that could be done either by taking photographs or making a cast of them.
He said fingerprints could be key, as they could be compared to any prints found at the primary crime scene, which could, for example, be their former home. Coyle doubts the primary scene is the storage unit where the remains had been kept for up to four years.
"There may be a primary location where this offence actually happened. There could be areas which could have been protected which they could chemically treat so they could see if there's any fingerprint ridge detail that could be developed," Coyle said.
He doubts the cold, metal storage unit would retain the fingerprints of the suspect unless they were imprinted with blood.
"It's mainly sweat, and sweat is 99 percent water," Coyle said. "That will just evaporate over a very short period of time."
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Police said there was "no update" on work to formally identify the victims.
But Coyle believes the fact the remains were kept in suitcases in storage would have preserved the bodies, which will help investigators.
"If they [the bodies] were wrapped properly, they could have been preserved for a number of years. In this case, three to four years and be in that mummified state where they could retrieve quite a lot of information from them," he said.
It's all forensic information that will help put together the puzzle.
"So each of these clues that they're getting, they can turn a piece of the jigsaw over. It's then down to the investigating officer to put them in some sort of logical order," Coyle said.
But he added that could take weeks or months. It's further complicated by the development that a woman, believed to be the children's mother, is not in New Zealand but in South Korea.
New Zealand police have asked their South Korean counterparts for information about the woman.
However when Newshub spoke to police in Seoul on Tuesday, they didn't want to discuss the case further as New Zealand police had asked them to remain silent.
