Before You Contact the Cold Case Squad

The detectives have huge case loads. You're more likely to get help quickly if you give them everything they need to help you right up front, and if you give it to them succinctly. Keep your phone call or email brief.

Before you call them, or in your initial correspondence, include any or all of the following, as much as you can pull together. If you don't have everything, contact them with what you have, but the more you can give them the better. Try calling a relative, or someone else who knows the victim. Maybe they have some of the information you do not.

Bottomline, and I can't stress this enough, the more effort you put into this upfront, the more likely it is that you will get help.

- Name of Victim (include nicknames, married names, maiden names).
- Date of Homicide (as exact as you can).
- Location of Homicide (as exact as you can).
- How they were killed.
- Victim's Date of Birth.
- Victim's Social Security Number.
- Victim's Death Certificate (Contact your city's Department of Vital Records. However, they will only give death certificates to the immediate family. If you can't get a death certificate, don't despair. This is only useful in certain cases.)
- Law Enforcement Agencies that have worked on the case, include case numbers, names and telephone numbers of anyone who worked on the case.
- The date of your last contact with law enforcement. (Again, as close as you can get, even if it's only a year, ie, "The last call I got was in 1988.") How it was left? Who called you? What information did they give you?
- Your name.
- Your telephone number.
- Your relationship to the victim.

Here is a list of Cold Case Squads nationwide, and other useful organizations: click here.

If you are not getting an adequate response from law enforcement click here
for instructions.

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