By Scott Reinbolt, J.D.
A whole lot of murders end up in the “cold case” drawer. It’s not for lack of concern, because most cops take murder very seriously. And, for the most part, it’s not because cops don’t have the necessary skills. So why does it happen? I think the reason is simple: In most American jurisdictions, investigators have a limited amount of time to work an assigned homicide before they have to move on to other cases. What if there were a way for departments, even smaller ones, to dedicate experienced and talented major crimes investigators exclusively to homicide cases that go cold?
Murders happen everywhere, even in mid-sized American cities. Nationwide, we solve about 60% of reported homicides. That means that even departments large enough to have a dedicated detective bureau or investigative unit leave a substantial number of their homicide cases unsolved. What is your department doing about the 40% that remain unsolved? Be honest.
If you happen to be in upper management or serve as a public information officer, you’re about to tell me that “we never close an unsolved homicide.” Boy, does that sound warm and fuzzy! My follow-up questions are: Who is the detective assigned to each cold case, and how many hours did that detective spend working on the case in the past 12 months? While most departments will be able to name an assigned detective, most would have to admit that fewer than five hours were spent on the case in the past 12 months.
“Oh, boy, here we go: another cop basher!” No, not at all. I spent half of my 25-year law enforcement career working in an investigative role for three different district attorneys in small- to mid-sized Midwestern jurisdictions. Working for the D.A.s gave me the opportunity to work with detectives from both smaller agencies and the nation’s largest cities, places like Miami and Houston. It was my experience that there are a great many talented detectives in smaller agencies, so good that their skill sets match those of detectives in big-city America.
Why cold cases remain unsolved
Working for the D.A.s also gave me a unique glimpse into the operations of scores of police agencies. What I saw was that many agencies saddle their detectives with unworkable caseloads, as many as 100 cases at a time! Everyone knows that no one person can effectively work 100 cases at a time. The unspoken truth is that most detectives spend their limited work hours on the cases most likely to be solved. They also work on a hamster wheel: New cases keep coming in as they continue to clear cases previously assigned. The flow never stops.
The largest jurisdiction I worked in averaged 12 homicides a year. The agencies in the county were great about flooding manpower into those investigations for the first few days or a week. If a case wasn’t solved by then, it became part of the overwhelming caseload for one assigned detective and, therefore, had a very low chance of being solved absent some promising new tip. And so cold case homicides sit, not because the assigned investigator is lazy, inept or obtuse. They sit because nobody has the time to work the case. It’s as simple as that.
Sometimes bad things happen that bring great opportunity. The “Defund the Police” movement caused a mass exodus of experienced cops from the profession, including great investigators. A whole lot of us decided that “new policing” wasn’t for us and pulled the pin on retirement. This situation is a tragedy for policing as a whole: A few loud and misinformed individuals have driven good cops away while, ironically, demanding improvements in policing.
Not only does this situation affect current policing, but the impact will be felt for decades to come. Why? Because I’m convinced that criminal investigation is an art, and like a good painter, a good investigator is formed through years of experience and mentoring from older, more seasoned professionals. Those would-be mentors are now either sitting at home, fishing, employed in security or working at Lowe’s. What a waste!
What if we could find a low-cost way to dedicate grade-A investigative talent to your cold case homicides while, at the same time, bringing investigative mentors back into your building?
My suggestion is to make use of talented and experienced retired investigators to help agencies like yours address any cold case homicides that might be on your books, and to do so economically. Hire them on a part-time, hourly basis and let them work. They’ll be happy to do it, and their very presence might help mentor your younger staff. I think you’ll be impressed with the results. I know because I’ve done it.
Building a cold case unit on a limited budget
In the late 1990s, I found myself working for a D.A. who had built a reputation by reopening cold case homicides and assigning his own investigators to work them, but only when they weren’t occupied with other cases. I was shocked to learn that there were 15 such cases in the county stretching back decades. Working these cases properly would require hours and hours of legwork and research. I knew that we needed help.
One afternoon, I was talking to Neal Grafton, a particularly talented detective from a local agency, when he mentioned that he had worked a traffic detail during his off-duty hours for extra income. I thought what a waste it was for a talented detective like Neal to spend his off-hours directing traffic when he could be putting his skills to use helping solve cold homicides.
I gave the subject some thought, did some research, and in 2000, the D.A. and I went to the county commission seeking $25,000 to form a dedicated group of part-time investigators within the D.A.’s office to work cold case homicides from across the county and across decades. The idea was to bring the cream of the crop in local investigative talent onto his staff to work cold cases instead of directing traffic for extra income.
For working space, the plan was to use an existing, empty office suite in the D.A.’s office. Surplus office furniture could be found in the courthouse basement. Transportation would involve use of the D.A.’s existing motor pool.
Before we go any further, I realize I have just violated one of the major tenets of modern police management, specifically that everything has to be done BIG. Big task forces. Federal and state involvement. Fleets of cars. Rooms of equipment. Big salaries. Layers of managerial staff. Well, call me a heretic, but I think BIG thinking is the reason so many police undertakings falter. Small, focused efforts that are locally directed and controlled can bring big results.
The commissioners readily signed off on our proposal, and the local media ate it up. We soon secured another $10,000 in federal Local Law Enforcement Block Grant funding. I know I just said to keep things simple. For clarification, Local Law Enforcement Block Grant funding was the only grant funding we used because it was locally controlled and had few administrative strings attached.
The “Unsolved Homicide Unit” (later nicknamed by some local cops as “Murder Inc.”) was formed, and the D.A. handed it to me to run. Then reality hit.
Overcoming resistance and getting agencies on board
We had agreed to keep our plans under wraps until the program was funded for three reasons: territoriality, jealousy and politics.
Some agencies in the county had resented the D.A.’s efforts regarding unsolved homicides over the years on grounds of territoriality (this case is ours, and no one else is allowed to touch it), jealousy (God forbid someone other than us solve the case) and disagreements over some of the investigative tactics used by the D.A.’s investigators in prior years (a claim that, in retrospect, had some validity).
The D.A. also wasn’t particularly popular with the local media, who, at the time, carried a great deal of clout. We knew that a public attack on the idea would kill the project before it got started.
Keeping the program under wraps caused a backlash from the two largest police agencies in the county, the ones with the most talented investigators. The word went out far and wide in the law enforcement community: No one was to go to work for the unit. Overnight, I became an outcast. Cops I had worked with for years suddenly wouldn’t speak to me. Many still don’t.
In hindsight, we may have been better served by identifying a few persuadable stakeholders in other agencies to get buy-in before forming the unit. However, based on the politics and personalities in play at the time, I truly believe that if we had handled things differently, the unit would never have made it off the drawing board.
My advice is to try to find a way to get early buy-in from trusted stakeholders, including the union leadership in your department. If the union insists on renegotiating your contract to include these new employees, consider hiring them as independent contractors instead of employees until that can be accomplished. Get your local D.A. on board early as well. His support, or lack thereof, will be consequential.
We found one local retired and very talented detective, Jim Gadd, who was willing to come work for us. We weathered the storm by hiring “B-list” investigators from agencies both inside and outside the county. We also found that the D.A.’s junior staff was in a unique position to identify patrol officers who had investigative talent, and we were able to get a few of those officers to come on board.
The results were not optimal, but we forged ahead. As time passed, it became clear the unit was there to stay, and we were able to start hiring local “A-list” detectives. In 2006, I left the D.A.’s office to take a job as a small-town police chief, but by that time, we had solved three homicides and uncovered an infant death that had been classified as “natural” when it was, in fact, a homicide.
Lessons for agencies considering a part-time investigative unit
Working in a D.A.’s office has advantages, such as legal advice on demand. Before we even pitched the idea publicly, we discussed in detail how the unit would operate, making sure we were on solid legal footing.
Good legal advice is important, but remember, if you go to your city or county lawyer to discuss forming a part-time unit, make sure they know you’re informing them and asking for their legal advice, not asking their permission to undertake this initiative.
Lawyers are managers, not builders, and most are scared to death by innovative proposals. When we were developing the proposal for our unit, there were lawyers on the D.A.’s own staff who tried to scuttle the project. Luckily, the D.A. had a “get it done” attitude and wasn’t put off by those efforts. You might not be so lucky, so be vigilant.
We appointed each part-time investigator as a law enforcement officer under the auspices of the D.A.’s office. This may sound like a minor thing, but it made it clear that these investigators answered to the D.A. when working for him, not their former or current police employer.
This eliminated any confusion regarding chain of command, especially for those men and women we hired who were still actively working full-time at a police agency. This move also made it clear that the D.A. was liable should any of these investigators engage in misconduct, but we felt the benefits outweighed this risk.
Managing personnel can be a challenge. It is especially so when forming a part-time operation. We set several rules before we started recruiting that served us well:
- Regarding retirees, don’t hire those who want to be retired. Hire those who want to work.
- Pay a competitive wage to keep the job attractive in comparison to other “special detail” work that might be competing for the same talent.
- Never have any volunteer help. Having volunteers creates questions of liability, confidentiality, responsibility and chain of command that we didn’t want to have to deal with. We also believed that accepting volunteers would attract a dubious sort of applicant.
- Good talent knows no borders. We agreed we would hire the best people we could find, regardless of what city or county they came from.
One last piece of advice regarding personnel: People coming to you from outside your agency will bring the culture and work habits from that agency with them. Don’t expect them to change once they walk in your door; it simply won’t happen.
Bad habits and toxic culture will infect your staff long before you are able to identify the carrier. This is of particular importance because one of the benefits of bringing on retired staff is that they will become, to some extent, mentors for less experienced people in your department. You don’t want that mentoring to be haphazard or misguided.
I wish social media had been available when we formed the unit, but be careful in its use. If I were running the unit now, I would profile each of our unsolved cases on social media in the hope that tips might be forthcoming.
However, go softly on the request for tips. If you have a small staff and push hard for tips using incentives like cash rewards, you will quickly find yourself buried in crank tips that require hours and hours to run to ground, hours that you can’t spare.
At this point, local media have largely been replaced by social media. Regardless of what means you use to get information out, be open and honest with your local media and the public. They will be happy to learn that somebody is spending at least some time looking at these old cases, but be careful not to give them unreasonable expectations. And by all means, don’t identify which cases are being actively worked unless there is some specific benefit to doing so.
Lastly, make sure the men and women on your patrol staff are aware of your mission and, in summary form, the basic facts of the cases you are working. Patrol cops have sources of information that detectives don’t. Make sure they know how much you would appreciate hearing anything they hear on the street. The benefits can be enormous.
A few thousand dollars spread over a year is an amount nearly every police chief can find in his budget if he tries hard enough. That money, spent on talented and experienced retired cops, could bring your agency positive publicity, much-needed mentors and maybe, just maybe, an unsolved homicide or two.
About the author
Scott Reinbolt, J.D., is a retired Ohio police chief, criminal investigator, professor and author with 25 years of law enforcement experience. He served as chief of the Blanchester Police Department and helped establish and lead an unsolved homicide unit in the Richland County Prosecutor’s Office. He is the author of “Adrift: A Citizen’s Guide to American Policing.”
