Spending a couple of years with the Cold Case detectives was in some ways a fantasy-killer. Yeah, it’s no surprise that TV and movies romanticizes what they do, we know this, but still. We expect more excitement. It’s weird to see how it’s still a job, with all these office-y, 9 to 5 elements. It’s guns and bad guys and crime scenes then, ” … wrangling for more money, steaming about someone else’s promotion, sitting on hold, reading, filling out forms, and every once in a while, arresting a bad guy, that’s what they do. That’s their job.” (That was from my book.)

Nothing looks like what you think. DNA screens look like spreadsheets, it’s not graphic, it’s all numbers. The programs used to find fingerprints are messy-looking and slow. Here’s what a homicide file really looks like.

Reality, in the end, is always more interesting, though. Maybe precisely because we only get rare glimpses of it. The living, breathing guy, the real detectives, with whatever combination of talent, quirks and flaws are better than the cowboys on TV.

The depressing part, of course, was how ordinary, everyday and mundane murder is. Murder isn’t exciting. It’s dull and ugly. And smells bad.

I talked to John Bearchell last year. Bearchell is an Acting Detective Chief Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police Service, and the Commander of Homicide Support, which includes the Murder Review Group. Formed in 1999, the Murder Review Group investigates serious crimes in London including unsolved murders. With a staff of about 75, it is the largest such group in the United Kingdom. The Murder Review Group utilizes the newer LCN testing for DNA analysis (low copy number – this enables them to test from smaller samples). LCN testing should be available in New York when the new lab at the OCME is complete (Office of the Chief Medical Examiner).

Like New York, the Murder Review Group generally looks at cases going back to 1985, but they will look at earlier murders on a case-by-case request. Their clearance, (they call it detection rate) is 90% or better, according to Bearchell. With roughly 200 murders a year in London, that’s 20 cold cases every year.

We’re up to 515 murders in New York as of December 15th. Still well below last years total of 572. It’s weird (and sad) to think that since the last time I was sitting here, typing away in this very same place, seven more people who were just going along, living their lives, were murdered. Seven more people who won’t see today. (And probably many more people spending Christmas day shell-shocked from the loss.)

I edited out the body in this photograph, but Estaban Martinez was laying in front of the Christmas tree to the right. On December 15, 1996, Linda Leon, 23 years old, and Estaban Martinez, 29 years old, were tortured then shot in the head while their three children listened from the next room.

This case was cleared by Det. Wendell Stradford and was one of the cases I covered in the book. Not that it’s any less horrible to be killed any other month, but I do wonder about their children, and if they have ever had a happy Christmas since. The oldest was 6, so perhaps it’s possible that the memories have faded enough for them to enjoy Christmas once again.