Every once in a while someone asks me how to find out more about a murder and I suggest going the library. No one seems to like hearing this. But here’s the thing—if you contact the police department without dates and names and locations and ask them for more information, you’re basically asking them to do the research you’re not willing to do yourself. What do you think the response is going to be from someone who is juggling an insane number of cases already and has plenty of other work to do, thank you very much?

If you grew up thinking going to the library was a chore, that’s probably because you didn’t have things like Proquest. Proquest is a database of newspapers.

If you’re in New York, go to the New York Public Library’s website to see which branches have access to Proquest. Outside New York contact your local library and ask if they have it. If not, you’ll have to search through microfiche, which takes longer, but it’s still a great resource.

Here’s how Proquest works. Let’s say you’re researching a murder that happened in the subway in 1967.  With Proquest, you can narrow the search to that year, and then tell it to search on “homicide” and “subway”. Any articles that were written about murders in the subways that year will come back.  If you just have the murder victim’s name and nothing else, just type in the person’s name. You can narrow the search down later if too much comes back. If you’re researching a murder in your building but you don’t have the year, just type in the address of your building and see what comes back. I was researching my own building once, and all these articles came back about things that happened in my building over the past 100 years, crimes, interesting people who lived here, etc.

There are actually lots of other amazing databases and resources out there, but this is a good place to start.  If you don’t have access to Proquest—and Proquest doesn’t have all the newspapers in the country digitized yet, although they seem to be working towards that—good old microfiche is still a dependable, valuable resource.

If you need help with Proquest ask a librarian.  This is their thing, finding information.  They are information detectives!  So not only can they help you with Proquest, they will suggest other things to try.  Befriend your local librarian.

I got that picture of the main branch of the New York Public Library from the library itself.  They have a growing collection of digitized images that is fun to explore. When I typed in my street name I found pictures of my block spanning a century.

Please let me know that you exist. If you look over to the column on the left there’s a link called Cold Case Squads and Other Organizations.

For the past few years I’ve been maintaining a list of cold case squads around the country. If you don’t see your squad or related organization on this list, please email me the contact information for your squad or organization so I can add you to my list. Thank you!

This not only helps the friends and families of murder victims but other squads around the country and the world who need to contact you.  (The picture is of the grave of one of the murder victims I wrote about, Jean Sanseverino.)

Here’s something disturbing. When I first started researching my book I made a list of all the detectives and commanding officers in the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad. The disturbing fact is at the end of the list.

Cold Case Staff

Commanding Officer: Deputy Inspector Vito Spano
Executive Officer: Lt. Robert McHugh

Manhattan

Lt. Antonio Collazo.
Det. Dominic Andreno
Det. Stefano Braccini
Det. Dexter Honora
Det. Sylvia Bone
Det. Robert Santiago
Det. Wendell Stradford

Brooklyn

Sgt. Dennis Bootle
Det. Carl “Chuck” Harrison
Det. Brian O’Toole
Det. Daniel D’Alessandro
Det. James Dudziec
Det. Toni Vanzetta
Angelo Cioffi, retired, kinda.

Queens

Lt. Phillip Panzarella
Det. Steven Kaplan
Det. Oscar Hernandez
Det. Michael Solomeno
Det. Tommy Wray
Det. Pat Dolan
Det. Kevin Cashen
Det. Mike Carrano

Bronx

Sgt. Robert Galvin
Det. Steven Berger
Det. Margaret Fisher
Det. Kevin Lauler
Det. Michael Navarez
Det. Mark Tebbins
Det. Pablo Moss

The last I heard there are only 12 people left in the squad. (And they started out with around 50.)

Jerry Mitchell, investigative journalist for the Jackson, Mississippi newspaper, The Clarion-Ledger just won a $500,000 “genius award,” from the MacArthur Foundation.  I mention this here because Mitchell not only writes about cold-case murders from the civil rights era, his work has helped put murderers in jail.

From his paper: “Since 1989, the 50-year-old investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., has unearthed documents, cajoled suspects and witnesses, and quietly pursued evidence in the nation’s notorious killings from the civil rights era.

“His work so far has helped put four Klansmen behind bars: Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers; Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, for ordering the fatal firebombing of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer in 1966; Bobby Cherry, for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls; and Edgar Ray Killen, for helping organize the June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Schwerner (popularized by the movie, Mississippi Burning, about that case).” Full article here.

Good work, Jerry Mitchell.  According to the New York Times, Mitchell said he would use the money to help write a book on the subject.  I can’t wait!

I just became aware of a great use of Blog Talk Radio. First, if you don’t know what Blog Talk Radio is, from their website:

“BlogTalkRadio is the social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers. Our network has produced hundreds of thousands of episodes since it launched in August of 2006.”

Author and former law enforcement professional Dennis N. Griffin has a blog talk radio show called Seeking Justice which focuses on true crime and cold cases. On September 22, at 9pm, for instance, he is going to focus on the case. To participate, go here.  Ricky’s mother Josie Dyer and his sister Rose will be participating.

I just did a quick search to see if there are other shows like this and found Justice Interrupted, hosted by prosecutor and author Robin Sax, police officer and author Stacy Dittrich, and advocate and author Susan Murphy-Milano.

And When Justice Fails, hosted by author Jerry C. Berry.

Great use of the tools of the service and the internet.