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.

People often post about a friend or family member who was murdered and then ask for help. All my suggestions for how to proceed are over there on the left under the heading, Getting Help – Contacting a Cold Case Squad.

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.)

By now everyone has read about serial killer Rodney Alcala, who is on Death Row in California for killing four women and a 12-year-old girl.

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.

Another case I came across while researching my book involved five Newark boys who went missing in 1978.

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).