Monday, December 20, 2010

Defrosting Cold Cases

I'm taking a bit of a break for the holidays this week. However, this is interesting. The website Defrosting Cold Cases profiles cold case homicides to try an generate new information about these crimes. This past week Vidocq from that site profiled this 1975 unsolved homicide from Canada.
Sharron (16) disappeared on March 29, 1975 after leaving from her home around 715pm. She was going to meet some friends (including a boyfriend) at Marina’s Pizzeria.

The restaurant is about five minutes by foot from her home. She never arrived. Sharron was found dead on April 1st, 1975.

I think it's commendable that people would volunteer their time to publicize these cases. To read more, hit the link.

Additionally, the FBI Violent Criminal Apprehension Program or ViCAP provides law enforcement agencies with a searchable database of violent crimes. Previously, law enforcement agencies had to submit their cases to the FBI for entry into ViCAP. Now, agencies can sign up to get access to ViCAP directly and enter their own cases into the system. We just signed up and got access at my agency recently and are going to start entering our cold cases into the system.

On a similar note, the US Department of Justice operates the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System or NAMUS website with information on missing persons and unidentified persons.

Both ViCAP and NAMUS are good resources to use in dealing with these kinds of cases.