My Son Is Missing by Colleen Collins & Shaun Kaufman How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths, available on Kindle Thank you for hosting us today at Defrosting Cold Cases. We are a husband and wife investigative team who own Highlands Investigations & Legal Services, [...]
Tags: Book Reviews, Colleen Collins, Colorado, How to write a Dick, Missing Persons, Shaun Kaufman, Writing PisThe Kentucky State Police is actively pursuing new ways to get answers in their unsolved cases. They have distributed 400 card decks to inmates in hopes to get tips about some of their cases featured on the card decks. If you like to see the card deck, click here. From the Evansville Courier and Press: “The [...]
Tags: Crime Scene, Evidence, Kentucky, Missing Persons, Police, Unidentified, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, WitnessesThe News Tribune brings us the sad news that the Tacoma Police and Pierce County Sheriff’s departments in Washington will not be getting the federal funding that would enable them to set up full-time “cold case” squads. The National Institute of Justice recently announced the 2010 grants that will allow law enforcement agencies to devote detectives [...]
Tags: Cold Case Grants, Missing Person, Missing Persons, Unidentified, Unsolved HomicideOn the fifth anniversary of the disappearance of Tamara Chipman, one of many women to go missing along B.C.’s “Highway of Tears, Canada,” police are pleading for help from the public. Tamara Chipman, 22, was last seen on Sept. 21, 2005, five kilometres east of Prince Rupert. She was hitchhiking to Terrace along Highway 16 — on [...]
Tags: Autopsy, Canada, Crime Scene, E-Pana, Evidence, Forensics, Highway of Tears, Identification, Investigations Division, Missing Persons, Police, Unsolved Homicide, VictimIn my post “Missing in small towns…” I wrote about women who disappeared and were later found murdered. The cases were from North Carolina and Louisiana. I am more than pleased to be able to update you now on the North Carolina cases: Investigators in North Carolina have reason to believe that Antwan Maurice Pittman [...]
Tags: Autopsy, Crime Scene, DNA, Evidence, FBI, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Missing Persons, North Carolina, Police, Rape kits, Unsolved Homicide, VictimThe FBI’s forensic DNA case load is so backlogged that it would take two years to complete – even without any new cases added, according to a new report released by the Department of Justices’ inspector general. More than 3,200 backlogged DNA cases are still awaiting analysis as of March, and the number is growing. [...]
Tags: Crime Labs, DNA, DNA Database, Evidence, Expert Testimony, FBI, Forensics, Identification, Missing Person, Missing Persons, Unsolved Homicide, VictimEdward Edwards, of Louisville, Ky., was arrested after DNA connected him to the deaths of Tim Hack and his girlfriend, Kelly Drew, who disappeared from a Wisconsin wedding reception in August 1980. Their bodies were found weeks later in the woods. Investigators believe Hack was stabbed and Drew strangled. Auhorities said the state crime lab matched Edwards’ [...]
Tags: Autopsy, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, DNA, DNA Database, Evidence, FBI, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Missing Persons, Ohio, Police, Prisons, Rape kits, Unsolved Homicide, VictimNearly three weeks since Elizabeth Heath’s remains were found, the medical examiner still has not identified the cause of death, police said. “They’re still doing forensic testing,” Police Chief Michael Kehoe said of staff at the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Kehoe said the medical examiner’s office has more work to do before [...]
Tags: Autopsy, Connecticut, Crime Scene, Dental Charts, Dental Records, Elizabeth Heath, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Missing Persons, Police, VictimPolice have cracked a major cold case that’s gone unsolved for more than 30 years. Five teenagers vanished on a summer day in 1978. But now, the family members of those missing have new reason for hope. For justice, because the boys are gone forever. Suddenly gone were Randy Johnson, Michael McDowell, Melvin Pittman, Ernest Taylor [...]
Tags: Evidence, Investigations Division, Missing Persons, New York, Newark, PoliceNamUS, a new online database, promises to crack some of the nation’s 100,000 missing persons cases and provide answers to desperate families, but only a fraction of law enforcement agencies are using it. The clearinghouse, dubbed NamUs (Name Us), offers a quick way to check whether a missing loved one might be among the 40,000 sets [...]
Tags: Dental Records, DNA, Finger Printing, Investigations Division, Law Enforcement Agencies, medical examiners, Missing Persons, NAMUS, Unidentified
