Once-retired Lakewood Police Department homicide Detective Alex Jameson stands next to files on 22 cold-case homicides. Familiar with many of the cases, Jameson works part time and enjoys being back on the job. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post).

The article also includes a link to another article about some of Denver’s cold cases.

I noticed an amazing fact while I was browsing the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports—in 2008 there were more white murder victims than black. Figures for 2009 haven’t been released yet, but I believe this might be the first year where there were more white victims.

Success against homicide in Newark makes detectives’ demotions puzzling, by Joan Whitlow — Friday, June 4th, 2010, The Newark Star-Ledger.

“A statue of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan was unveiled at the Essex County court complex yesterday, a long overdue honor for the associate justice who was born and raised in Newark.”

“In recent weeks, that court complex has been the scene of events that should reassure residents about justice being served in Newark. Prosecutors and detectives stood before the cameras in April to announce arrests, finally, in the three-decade-old murders of five teenage boys. Last month, prosecutors won the first conviction in the 2007 Mount Vernon schoolyard murders.”

“Those are important successes in a jurisdiction where the forensic unit used to be a joke, where the local police and county prosecutors used to blame each other for the failure to make murder cases and where a poor conviction rate led the state Attorney General’s Office to take over the prosecutor’s office in 1991.”

“Many citizens had the understandable perception that the police couldn’t catch the murderers, and if they did, the prosecutors couldn’t put them away.”

“Certainly, the brave testimony of the surviving victim in the Mount Vernon shooting was a major factor in the conviction of the first defendant in that case. Witness Natasha Aeriel will have to keep her courage as the others accused of killing her brother and two of her friends come to trial.”

“There have been enough successes, however, to suggest that more justice is being done these days for homicide victims in Newark and Essex County. The most recent figures, from 2008, showed the homicide conviction rate in Essex County had risen above 80 percent, and the prosecutor’s office says it’s continued to improve.”

“That was what I wanted to write about last week. Then I found out that the Newark Police Department had suddenly reassigned three homicide detectives — who had worked those two previously mentioned big cases — to be patrol car officers …”

The rest of this piece is here. The photograph was taken by Ed Murray/The Star-Ledger.

I suggest first reading the document titled Before You Contact a Cold Case Squad Read This. Then look up the number in the document Cold Case Squad and Other Organizations.

If you can’t find a number for your city or town, call your local police department and ask them if they have a cold case squad or a person in their homicide squad who specializes in cold cases. If they don’t then ask to speak to someone in their homicide squad. If you don’t get what you believe is a decent response, then go to the document on the left titled, Escalating Your Case.

If you have specific questions after reading through the instructions or after contacting your local police department or cold case squad post them here. But please come back to see my response to your question!

(Those are pictures of the barrels of evidence at the NYPD’s Property Clerk Division.)

I first heard about him after following a link to his appearance on the Dating Game, one of the creepiest things I’ve seen in a while.  It’s very interesting that the woman who chose him for a date refused to actually going the date with him.  She knew something was off about him.  She’s obviously very intuitive.

California law enforcement sent copies of photographs Alcala had been taking of young women over the years to the NYPD. They were hoping the NYPD will help locate more of Alcala’s victims. The NYPD hesitated about releasing them, but you can see them now.

You can read a recent story in the Daily News here, which includes the 215 photographs. The one above is the first one that comes up if you follow their link.

In 2008, one of the murderers visited a brother of one of the victims. “He said he’d become a born-again Christian and so he had to tell the truth.” That stood out for me. Murderers often use the fact that they are born-again as a reason why they should be pardoned.

I always thought if they were truly born again and repentant they would say the exact opposite. They would say they were ready to pay for their sins.

Honestly, I don’t know how anyone can pay for what they did, the truth of what happened is spectacularly horrible, and it’s just so wrong that one of the killers got to live out his life and die of natural causes, but the complete New York Times article I quoted from can be found here (the picture is from the Times article).

So to help spread the word I wanted to link to a recent AP story about NamUs.gov by Steve Karnowski. It was picked up a lot of places, and I just linking to the first one that came up in a Google search, which was Yahoo News here.

The story, which is titled, Database Can Crack Missing Person Cases—if Used, begins:

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 of unidentified remains that languish at any given time with medical examiners across the country. NamUs is free, yet many law enforcement agencies still aren’t aware of it, and others aren’t convinced they should use their limited staff resources to participate.

The picture is from the story. “In a photo made March 17, 2007, Janice Smolinski poses in her Cheshire, Conn., home where a photo of her son, Billy, is visible in the foreground. Billy disappeared from his Waterbury, Conn. home in Aug. 2004 and Smolinski believes a Justice Department database program will someday help find her son who was 31 when he vanished. (AP Photo/Michelle McLoughlin, File)”

Many detectives have worked on this case over the years, including private investigators, but I’m told Det. James Bruinsma has the case now. I just googled him and I see he has picked up other cases that I looked into years ago, like Sherri Ford. It’s not easy to pick up cases that stymied so many other detectives before you. (Hang in there, Det. Bruinsma.) I really hope they uncover new evidence in Kristine’s case (and all the others). Good luck, Det. Bruinsma and everyone else who is working to finally solve Kristine’s murder. And thank you everyone who has tried along the way.

There’s also been movement in another more recent cold case. Dmitry Yakovlev has been charged with the 2007 murder of Irina Malezhik. There’s a Daily news about this case here. This is an evolving story and Yakovlev may be charged with more murders. UPDATE: Yakovlev was also indicted for the murder of Viktor Alekseyev.

Like many other cases, a lot of people were involved in the investigation, and I believe this was retired Detective Steve Kaplan’s case originally, but it’s Det. Wendell Stradford’s now. Stradford is working with Special Agents from the FBI, and members of the NYPD’s OCID (Organized Crime Investigation Division). So congratulations to Det. Stradford, and members of the FBI and OCID. I’d name your names if I knew them.

I know that some people are like, “so what else is new,” and they don’t believe this is a big deal since crime is, in fact, genuinely down.  But it is important, especially outside Manhattan, where the numbers are the most inaccurate.  Inaccurate numbers result in an inadequate response.

Another very important thing to look at are the figures for cleared cases.  Cases are cleared, or closed, when an arrest has been made.  If the person who was arrested is later cleared, the NYPD doesn’t go back and “unclear” the case.  The case may be re-opened depending on the amount of media attention, but just as often as not, it will remain closed or dormant.  So the numbers the NYPD provides for cleared or solved cases is also not entirely accurate.  (I should point out that I’m speaking about homicide cases here.  That is the crime I researched.  What I say might be true for all crime cases investigated by the NYPD, but I can’t say that with authority.)

Perhaps what is also not a surprise is that pressure from without and within mixed with poor judgment and the culture of the NYPD created such a situation.  But CompStat is an enormously useful tool and these are fixable problems.  Bottom line, this is a good thing.  While I can just imagine what’s going on behind the scenes at the NYPD right now, this attention is good and will lead to improvement. There’s a lot of people doing a great job, and accurate information can only help them do even better.

Anyone following this subject is probably well aware of these articles, but here are links to some of the recent articles about the veracity of the CompStat numbers.

From The New York Times:

Retired Officers Raise Questions on Crime Data

Former Commander Recalls Pressure to Alter Reports

Forget Police Data; New Yorkers Rely on Own Eyes

From The Daily News:

Brooklyn’s 81st Precinct probed by NYPD for fudging stats

Report of fudged crime stats from Brooklyn’s 81st Precinct deserves hearing, Councilman Vallone says

Leonard Levitt’s comments on NYPD Confidential.Com are well worth reading.

(The picture above was taken at the Property Clerk Warehouse, and those barrels contain crime scene evidence.)