Local government departments in northern China's Shanxi Province made an official response Saturday concerning the controversy sparked by the murder of a married police officer couple.

Some media outlets have suggested the pair may have been corrupt.

The population and family planning bureau in Hongtong County told Xinhua the couple, Wang Jianxiong and his wife Han Huifang, who both worked in Hongtong County's public security bureau, had two daughters and one son but withheld the truth about the birth of their second daughter.

A bureau spokesperson said the bureau is working together with related departments to discipline those responsible for concealing the birth of their second daughter.

The county's public security bureau confirmed the couple's three children are studying in the United States. But the spokesperson did not say whether or not the couple financially supported their children.

As for the online rumors the couple ran the Hongtong County Lusheng Coal Mine and the Hongtong County Dingxin Smelter, the spokesperson said neither Wang nor Han registered with the county's industry and commerce administrative bureau to establish the enterprises.

A county government official on the condition of anonymity told Xinhua whether Wang Jianxiong was the actual owner of the two businesses was being investigated.

The county's public security bureau said Friday local police detained three suspects in connection to the robbery and murder of Wang and Han.

The pair were found dead on Nov. 12 in their home in a building called Hong'an Mansion in downtown Hongtong County, Linfen City.

The bodies of Wang and Han were found after the couple's children failed to reach them on the evening of Nov. 11 over the telephone. The children telephoned the couple's driver, who discovered their bodies on Nov. 12, according to a report in Saturday's China Daily newspaper.

Wang had been strangled with a thin wire after sustaining knife wounds to his face and back. His wife had been suffocated.

Following the discovery of the couple's bodies, some media outlets reported the police couple owned a portfolio of properties, questioning how they managed to do so on police officer salaries of 2,000 yuan (301 U.S. dollars) per month.

The Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald reported Friday Wang's white BMW was parked in the underground parking lot of the apartment building the couple lived in, citing anonymous sources familiar with the case.

The newspaper said the couple made a 300 million yuan fortune from the smelter and coal mine.

Beijing News quoted an unnamed insider as saying Wang, 52, was the former head of the county public security bureau's highway patrol division before he retired two years ago.

Wang, a 20-year veteran of the department, was born into a poor farmer's family with eight siblings.

The Guangzhou-based newspaper said Wang sold the coal mine in 2005 and that the purchaser still owed him 70 million yuan.

The newspaper also reported a rumor the couple had been engaged in usurious lending, loaning tens of millions of yuan at exorbitant interest rates.

The couple reportedly owned properties in the county as well as in Beijing and Hainan Province.

Many netizens have complained about the couple's apparently shady dealings.

A Xinhua commentary on Thursday asked: "How can a couple of police officers afford to buy a BMW, go against the one-child family planning policy and afford to support their three children's studies abroad?"

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