8 ms·

What it's like to work on cold cases

42 points by samclemens 2y ago

brudgers 2y ago
https://archive.ph/pT0gz https://archive.ph/pT0gz
xivzgrev 2y ago
I have a lot of respect for good detectives. I really enjoyed "Homicide Hunter" - which is a retired detective's recollection of past murder cases. Who knows how much was myth vs fact, but I got the sense he kept good notes because he would speak to exacting detail about decades old cases. One of my favorite episodes was his first homicide case. A gas station was robbed and the clerk was killed. No video, no prints, etc. However there was a necklace that was dropped. It had some kind of pattern, so he called every. single. jeweler in the area. He called a lot, and eventually got a hit and found his man. It's this kind of diligence and dedication (plus technology) that can crack cases open, even cold ones. Like the article here, he found 4 untested hairs that cracked it open.
- lisper 2y ago
  > I got the sense he kept good notes because he would speak to exacting detail about decades old cases. Maybe good notes, but also maybe good staff writers. > there was a necklace that was dropped. How did he know that it was dropped by the killer and not some random customer?
  - southernplaces7 2y ago
    >How did he know that it was dropped by the killer and not some random customer? As any diligent investigator (not just of the criminal justice type) can tell you, he didn't, but it was something to dig deeper into and then hopefully find the next piece of information that it connects to. In this case that was just the identity of its buyer, but from there he could scrutinize that person to see if anything else about them lines up, or if they were just coincidentally there. Usually, if you track someone down based on something very circumstantial, but they really were the guilty party, you'll eventually find other information to cement that connection. It's not as if he would have found the owner of the necklace and arrested them right then.
drewcoo 2y ago
Outlier amateur detective wins are commendable, but also emblematic of a problem. Why aren't the real police revisiting these cases? Why are we arming them better and better against our own people instead of spending some money on actual cops to solve crimes? Every time one of these is solved by amateurs, we should be asking why the system is failing.
- jimbob45 2y ago
  Why are we arming them better and better against our own people instead of spending some money on actual cops to solve crimes? The current party in power ran verbatim on a platform of "defund the police".
  - LevGoldstein 2y ago
    You say that as though this is a brand new problem and not something that's been an issue for many, many decades regardless of what party has majority control at the federal level.
  - hoten 2y ago
    That's hardly a supported policy you'd find in the Democratic party platform, or the position of the Biden administration. Don't confuse a few of the most left leaning members of the party with the whole. It's a big tent. https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_fa5dd2d9-baea-4f8c-bd53-7e9c70b1765d https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_fa5dd2d9-b...
  - altruios 2y ago
    Sigh... Remove funding for the police to gather used and new military gear to use against the populace, while much more accurate - isn't as sticky... Sticky thoughts win over accurate ones. Truth needs a proper wrapping now a-days to even get looked at. How about this for a new phase: "pay for: effective Detectives; not toys." OR: "detectives solves cases: military toys melt faces."
    - munificent 2y ago
paulpauper 2y ago
This is why stats that purport a low clearance rate for murders in the US are misleading. Cases never expire until either someone is convicted or the perp can be presumed dead. The file is always open, someone is always investigating.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  Just this morning, there was a story on CNN about a cold case hit and run from 1989 being solved because of DNA on a joint left in the stolen car. It wasn't even solved because detectives were actively looking at it - they received an (incorrect) tip, and decided to just check out what else was in the case, and ended up sequencing some DNA left in the vehicle. I imagine there are hundreds of thousands of such cases out there like that. https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/25/us/charlotte-nc-cold-case-solved/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/25/us/charlotte-nc-cold-case-sol...
  - philwelch 2y ago
    If it takes over thirty years to clear a homicide case, that’s a failure by any reasonable standard.
    - jjtheblunt 2y ago
      ...or a success for a serial killer. i mention this becaues the golden state killer was a police officer _and_ serial killer, and took advantage of the delay to kill over a great span of time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo
    - bsder 2y ago
      Almost all of these cases are being cleared because DNA got shoved into a large enough private database that practically everybody now coughs up a correlation. This has very little to do with diligence and more with technology advancing. And, while clearing murders is nice, wait until the equivalent RealPage gets hold of that database and starts discriminating based on your DNA.
julienchastang 2y ago
> there remain hundreds of thousands of unsolved homicides across the country Wow.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  If you want to be horrified, look up how many african american women go missing every year without a trace - it is truly insane. https://naacp.org/resources/missing-african-american-women-and-children-united-states-america https://naacp.org/resources/missing-african-american-women-a...
  - southernplaces7 2y ago
    If you look at the stats for how disproportionately higher the murder rate is inside black communities in the U.S, this isn't as surprising.
    - JohnMakin 2y ago
      Can you quote the statistics you are referencing and the implication you are making with them?
      - southernplaces7 2y ago
        The source? Feel free to do a Google search for the FBI's Uniform crime statistics. They're very easy to find and very robustly segmented along demographic lines. The implication? What implication should there be other than that homicide is much higher in these communities and that by extension it doesn't seem surprising that an abnormally large number of female residents of these communities might be victims of it too.
        JohnMakin 2y ago
        Oh, I’m very familiar with the statistics you’re referring to and how often they’re ripped without context and injected into arguments like these, often with a barely veiled racist tinge to it. I was just curious if you were brave enough to say what you’re actually trying to say - clearly no. There’s no causal relationship between black on black homicides (especially in the fbi statistics you are allegedly referencing - those crimes would be solved and not related to missing persons) and missing black women and even taking your argument as generously as I possibly can, suggesting so is very victim blamey and a little gross. For your statement to be true you’d have to also allege that the same statistics you’re referencing (but won’t post) are actually incorrect and the violence rate is much higher within the black community than the “authoritative” source you won’t post, which kind of invalidates your entire point, if you even had a real one.

42 points by samclemens 2y ago

https://archive.ph/pT0gz https://archive.ph/pT0gz

I have a lot of respect for good detectives. I really enjoyed "Homicide Hunter" - which is a retired detective's recollection of past murder cases. Who knows how much was myth vs fact, but I got the sense he kept good notes because he would speak to exacting detail about decades old cases. One of my favorite episodes was his first homicide case. A gas station was robbed and the clerk was killed. No video, no prints, etc. However there was a necklace that was dropped. It had some kind of pattern, so he called every. single. jeweler in the area. He called a lot, and eventually got a hit and found his man. It's this kind of diligence and dedication (plus technology) that can crack cases open, even cold ones. Like the article here, he found 4 untested hairs that cracked it open.

lisper 2y ago
> I got the sense he kept good notes because he would speak to exacting detail about decades old cases. Maybe good notes, but also maybe good staff writers. > there was a necklace that was dropped. How did he know that it was dropped by the killer and not some random customer?
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  >How did he know that it was dropped by the killer and not some random customer? As any diligent investigator (not just of the criminal justice type) can tell you, he didn't, but it was something to dig deeper into and then hopefully find the next piece of information that it connects to. In this case that was just the identity of its buyer, but from there he could scrutinize that person to see if anything else about them lines up, or if they were just coincidentally there. Usually, if you track someone down based on something very circumstantial, but they really were the guilty party, you'll eventually find other information to cement that connection. It's not as if he would have found the owner of the necklace and arrested them right then.

drewcoo 2y ago

Outlier amateur detective wins are commendable, but also emblematic of a problem. Why aren't the real police revisiting these cases? Why are we arming them better and better against our own people instead of spending some money on actual cops to solve crimes? Every time one of these is solved by amateurs, we should be asking why the system is failing.

jimbob45 2y ago
Why are we arming them better and better against our own people instead of spending some money on actual cops to solve crimes? The current party in power ran verbatim on a platform of "defund the police".
- LevGoldstein 2y ago
  You say that as though this is a brand new problem and not something that's been an issue for many, many decades regardless of what party has majority control at the federal level.
- hoten 2y ago
  That's hardly a supported policy you'd find in the Democratic party platform, or the position of the Biden administration. Don't confuse a few of the most left leaning members of the party with the whole. It's a big tent. https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_fa5dd2d9-baea-4f8c-bd53-7e9c70b1765d https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_fa5dd2d9-b...
- altruios 2y ago
  Sigh... Remove funding for the police to gather used and new military gear to use against the populace, while much more accurate - isn't as sticky... Sticky thoughts win over accurate ones. Truth needs a proper wrapping now a-days to even get looked at. How about this for a new phase: "pay for: effective Detectives; not toys." OR: "detectives solves cases: military toys melt faces."
  - munificent 2y ago

paulpauper 2y ago

This is why stats that purport a low clearance rate for murders in the US are misleading. Cases never expire until either someone is convicted or the perp can be presumed dead. The file is always open, someone is always investigating.

IncreasePosts 2y ago
Just this morning, there was a story on CNN about a cold case hit and run from 1989 being solved because of DNA on a joint left in the stolen car. It wasn't even solved because detectives were actively looking at it - they received an (incorrect) tip, and decided to just check out what else was in the case, and ended up sequencing some DNA left in the vehicle. I imagine there are hundreds of thousands of such cases out there like that. https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/25/us/charlotte-nc-cold-case-solved/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/25/us/charlotte-nc-cold-case-sol...
- philwelch 2y ago
  If it takes over thirty years to clear a homicide case, that’s a failure by any reasonable standard.
  - jjtheblunt 2y ago
    ...or a success for a serial killer. i mention this becaues the golden state killer was a police officer _and_ serial killer, and took advantage of the delay to kill over a great span of time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo
  - bsder 2y ago
    Almost all of these cases are being cleared because DNA got shoved into a large enough private database that practically everybody now coughs up a correlation. This has very little to do with diligence and more with technology advancing. And, while clearing murders is nice, wait until the equivalent RealPage gets hold of that database and starts discriminating based on your DNA.

julienchastang 2y ago

> there remain hundreds of thousands of unsolved homicides across the country Wow.

JohnMakin 2y ago
If you want to be horrified, look up how many african american women go missing every year without a trace - it is truly insane. https://naacp.org/resources/missing-african-american-women-and-children-united-states-america https://naacp.org/resources/missing-african-american-women-a...
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  If you look at the stats for how disproportionately higher the murder rate is inside black communities in the U.S, this isn't as surprising.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    Can you quote the statistics you are referencing and the implication you are making with them?
    - southernplaces7 2y ago
      The source? Feel free to do a Google search for the FBI's Uniform crime statistics. They're very easy to find and very robustly segmented along demographic lines. The implication? What implication should there be other than that homicide is much higher in these communities and that by extension it doesn't seem surprising that an abnormally large number of female residents of these communities might be victims of it too.
      - JohnMakin 2y ago
        Oh, I’m very familiar with the statistics you’re referring to and how often they’re ripped without context and injected into arguments like these, often with a barely veiled racist tinge to it. I was just curious if you were brave enough to say what you’re actually trying to say - clearly no. There’s no causal relationship between black on black homicides (especially in the fbi statistics you are allegedly referencing - those crimes would be solved and not related to missing persons) and missing black women and even taking your argument as generously as I possibly can, suggesting so is very victim blamey and a little gross. For your statement to be true you’d have to also allege that the same statistics you’re referencing (but won’t post) are actually incorrect and the violence rate is much higher within the black community than the “authoritative” source you won’t post, which kind of invalidates your entire point, if you even had a real one.