How to Solve a Cold Case

How to Solve a Cold Case
Author: Michael Arntfield
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2022-04-19
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1443459380

Shortlisted for The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book, Crime Writers of Canada Awards Get inside the mind of an elite cold case investigator and learn how to solve a murder. Despite advances in DNA evidence and forensic analysis, almost half of murder cases in Canada and the US remain unsolved. By 2016, the solved rate had dropped so significantly in the United States that it was the lowest in recorded history, with one in two killers never even identified, much less arrested and successfully prosecuted. And the statistics are just as bad in Canada. As a sought-after global expert and former detective, Arntfield has devoted his career to helping solve cold cases and serial murders, including the creation of the Western University Cold Case Society, which pairs students with police detectives to help solve crimes. In How to Solve a Cold Case, Arntfield outlines the history of cold case squads in Canada and the US, and lays out the steps to understanding and solving crime. Arntfield shows you what to look for, how to avoid common mistakes, recognize patterns and discover what others have missed. Weaving in case studies of cold crimes from across Canada and the US, as well as a chapter on how armchair detectives can get involved, How to Solve a Cold Case is a must-read for mystery fans and true crime buffs everywhere.

Cold Case Homicides

Cold Case Homicides
Author: R. H. Walton
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 1129
Release: 2017-07-06
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1351855573

This book, now in its second edition, is the first and most exhaustive text covering the still growing popularity of cold case investigations which locate perpetrators and free the innocent. The new edition adds approximately 80 pages of content, including material on clandestine graves and investigating cold gang cases. The book merges theory with practice through the use of case histories, photographs, illustrations and checklists that convey essential, fundamental concepts while providing a strong, practical basis for the investigative process.

Cold Case Research Resources for Unidentified, Missing, and Cold Homicide Cases

Cold Case Research Resources for Unidentified, Missing, and Cold Homicide Cases
Author: Silvia Pettem
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2012-07-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1439861692

Cases in which all investigative leads appear to be exhausted are frustrating for both investigators and victims’ families. Cold cases can range from those only a few months old to others that go back for decades. Presenting profiles and actual case histories, Cold Case Research: Resources for Unidentified, Missing and Cold Homicide Cases illustrates how investigators can successfully apply resources that will enable them to reopen and solve cases gathering dust in the file room. Today’s investigators have found that, to solve cold cases, they need to be internet savvy and make the best use of the rapidly changing methodologies of the twenty-first century, but they also have to be time travelers and open the door to the past. This volume weaves together the nearly forgotten skill sets of traditional historical researchers with the latest online tools, including TLO, a premier investigative system; and NamUs, the revolutionary database for missing persons and unidentified remains. Along with practical applications, Cold Case Research gives investigators the tools they need to save time and money and to jump-start their cold cases, while keeping others from going cold in the future. Topics discussed include: Implementing cold case units People searches and working with databases Overlooked DNA in PKU cards The plight of the missing and unknown Applying historical and geographical context Online and off-line newspaper research Public and published records The use of volunteers Contact with co-victims Cold-case review teams and information-sharing resources Taking advantage of the media Using a thinking-outside-the-box approach, this volume helps fill major gaps in traditional cold case investigation training and techniques, enabling investigators to confidently reopen and crack the mystery of cases long thought unsolvable. Silvia Pettem was quoted in a January 29, 2012 article on missing persons in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Solving Cold Cases

Solving Cold Cases
Author: Joe D. Kennedy
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2023-03-24
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 147668765X

Solving a cold case is extremely difficult and many are left unresolved. In this book, retired NCIS Special Agent Joe Kennedy details the methodology he created to solve cold case murders. He offers an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look into why cases go cold, how they are investigated and what is needed to successfully resolve them. Author Kennedy shares his motivations and the lessons he has learned while solving these challenging cases. Also examined are cold cases where other detectives have successfully implemented Kennedy's methodology. Many books delve into the perspectives of criminals who commit murder, but this text takes a fascinating gumshoe journey into the mind of a cold case detective and his passionate search for the truth. Helping law enforcement solve cold cases brings justice and resolution for the victims and their families, and this book provides detectives and true crime enthusiasts the tools to investigate cold cases in their own communities.

The Sorority Murder

The Sorority Murder
Author: Allison Brennan
Publisher: MIRA
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2021-12-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 036970651X

“The 10 Best New Mystery and Thriller Books of December are Giving Us Literal Chills”—E! Online “10 Books to Cozy Up With This December”—PopSugar A popular sorority girl. An unsolved murder. A campus podcast with chilling repercussions. Lucas Vega is obsessed with the death of Candace Swain, who left a sorority party one night and never came back. Her body was found after two weeks, but the case has grown cold. Three years later while interning at the medical examiner's, Lucas discovers new information, but the police are not interested. Lucas knows he has several credible pieces of the puzzle. He just isn't sure how they fit together. So he creates a podcast to revisit Candace's last hours. Then he encourages listeners to crowdsource what they remember and invites guest lecturer Regan Merritt, a former US marshal, to come on and share her expertise. New tips come in that convince Lucas and Regan they are onto something. Then shockingly one of the podcast callers turns up dead. Another hints at Candace's secret life, a much darker picture than Lucas imagined—and one that implicates other sorority sisters. Regan uses her own resources to bolster their theory and learns that Lucas is hiding his own secret. The pressure is on to solve the murder, but first Lucas must come clean about his real motives in pursuing this podcast—before the killer silences him forever. "Fans of Jeff Abbott and Karin Slaughter will find this crime novel hard to put down." —Publishers Weekly on The Third to Die "Downright spectacular… [A] riveting page turner as prescient as it is purposeful." —Providence Journal on Tell No Lies

Decision Making in Police Enquiries and Critical Incidents

Decision Making in Police Enquiries and Critical Incidents
Author: Mark Roycroft
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2019-01-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1349958476

This book examines how the police make decisions in real life situations, particularly in major enquiries. The two key themes explored are real-time decision making along with what “works” in such circumstances. It aims to set out how successful decisions are arrived at in a variety of difficult and time-constrained situations and discusses the lessons that can be learnt from this. Written by practitioners and academics, the book explores a range of topics, from the decision making process involved operational matters and in difficult-so-solve murder enquiries. It not only examines decision making but also how experienced decision makers function. It looks at the psychology of police decision making, decision making involved in cold case investigations, and discusses the need for “grip” during major investigations. The contributors are experienced and respected practitioners and academics This book will appeal particularly to those studying Policing and Criminology and also to Investigating Officers and those involved in professionalising investigative practice.

The Restless Sleep

The Restless Sleep
Author: Stacy Horn
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2006-07-25
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1440649243

Between 1985 and 2004 a staggering 8,894 unsolved homicides were committed in New York City. Here is the first ever inside look at the elite NYPD squad that cracks these “unsolvable” cases. In this fascinating, in-depth narrative, Stacy Horn uses her unprecedented access to the NYPD Cold Case Squad to immerse herself into four unsolved murder cases—cases going back as far as 1951—investigated by three indefatigable Cold Case detectives. Each detective uses his own contacts, informants, and resources and sifts through decades-old evidence, searching for new leads, looking for what others missed, and uncovering any possible connections. These Cold Case detectives are on a constant hunt for the needle in the haystack, and Stacy Horn puts you there every step of the way. From the grisly circumstances and desperate reconstructions of the crimes, through the endless legwork, the scientific advances that don’t always yield hoped-for answers, and the harrowing politics and tangled history of the storied NYPD, Horn depicts the drama of each case, and lays out the puzzle as seen through the eyes of the detectives. At once contemplative and energetic, The Restless Sleep is a completely addictive, fly-on-the-wall story of a subculture of crime solving, and of the people who must beat the odds to offer a final resolution for the unavenged.

Unmasked

Unmasked
Author: PAUL. HOLES
Publisher: Wildfire
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2022-04-26
Genre:
ISBN: 9781472270382

From the detective who helped catch the Golden State Killer, a memoir about investigating America's toughest cold cases, and the rewards - and toll - of a life spent solving crime.For a decade, from 1973, The Golden State Killer stalked and murdered Californians in the dead of night, leaving entire communities afraid to turn off the lights. Then he vanished, and the case remained unsolved.In 1994, when cold-case investigator Paul Holes came across the old file, he swore he would unmask GSK and finally give these families closure. Twenty-four years later, Holes fulfilled that promise, identifying 73-year-old Joseph J. DeAngelo. Headlines blasted around the world: one of America's most prolific serial killers had been caught.That case launched Paul's career into the stratosphere, turning him into an icon in the true-crime world. But while many know the story of the capture of GSK, until now, no one has truly known the man behind it all.In UNMASKED, Paul takes us through his memories of a storied career and provides an insider account of some of the most notorious cases in contemporary American history, including Laci Peterson's murder and Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping. But this is also a revelatory profile of a complex man and what makes him tick: the drive to find closure for victims and their loved ones; the inability to walk away from a challenge - even at the expense of his own happiness. This is a story about the gritty truth of crime solving when there are no 'case closed' headlines. It is the story of a man and his commitment to his cases, and to the people who might have otherwise been forgotten.

Cold Case Murder

Cold Case Murder
Author: Shirlee McCoy
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2014-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1488748586

Her hometown of Loomis, Louisiana, holds no charm for Jodie Gilmore. Why be reminded of her mother's abandonment? Then the novice FBI agent is assigned to a missing person's case, and refusal isn't an option. Her coworkers are counting on her. Surely the tight–lipped locals will talk to one of their own. Or will they? A decades–old double homicide is discovered, and Harrison Cahill, the handsome forensic anthropologist on the case, thinks Jodie knows more than she's saying. But speaking freely can be deadly in Loomis....

Cold Cases

Cold Cases
Author: James M. Adcock
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2017-05-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1439826919

Nearly 185,000 homicides since 1980 remain unsolved, yet with limited staff and resources, it is no surprise that law enforcement units place the bulk of their efforts on current cases where victims’ family members and the media demand answers. Cold Cases: An Evaluation Model with Follow-up Strategies for Investigators provides a comprehensive roadmap for digging those cold cases out of the file room and getting them resolved. Practical and concise, the book is an invaluable tool for police officers and detectives attempting to solve crimes that would otherwise be forgotten. Evaluating the Case Divided into three sections, the book begins with a historical perspective on how cases get to the point where it appears all investigative leads have been exhausted. It includes a chapter on understanding the process of homicide and those who kill — critical information for the homicide investigator. Next, the authors explain the evaluation model. They demonstrate the key elements of organization, thoroughness, and the value of the scientific method. This section validates theories of the crime, raises evidentiary issues and concerns, addresses the informational and behavioral aspects relative to the crime and the participants in the crime, and documents investigative strategies for future efforts on the case. Investigating and Solving the Crime The third section discusses the investigation that follows the evaluation. The book considers questions investigators must ask, including what should be looked at beyond the case file itself, and how the growth in technology since the date of the incident might provide new opportunities to uncover clues. This section also explores the choice of interview/interrogation techniques based on the behavioral aspects involved. Finally, the authors suggest how investigators can maximize their efforts and obtain not just an arrest, but a conviction. Useful appendices include sample standard operating procedures from three different agencies to use as a guide for setting up a cold case unit and a list of additional resources a department may look to for assistance. By following the cold cases evaluation model in this volume, those charged with resolving long-forgotten crimes can increase their chance of an accurate resolution, or at least be able to say that everything that can be done has been done.