Cold cases rarely remain unsolved because investigators lack commitment. More often, the challenge is time.
A homicide file may contain hundreds of pages of reports, dozens of interviews, evidence logs, photographs, recordings and years of supplemental material. Before investigators can pursue a new lead, they must first understand what previous detectives collected, what follow-up was completed and what questions remain unanswered.
That review can take months. Meanwhile, active cases continue to arrive, witnesses become harder to locate, and evidence may degrade or disappear.
Originally designed to facilitate audits and compliance by automatically highlighting policy deviations and intelligence gaps, Veritone Assess also helps investigators accelerate initial case review by using artificial intelligence to analyze case materials, organize information and identify areas that may warrant closer attention. Rather than replacing investigators’ judgment, the platform helps them work as reviewers and decision-makers instead of spending much of their time manually reconstructing a case from the beginning.
“Being able to go through and have the legwork done for you means you’re acting as the reviewer instead of a report writer generating that checklist or answering those questions,” said Kelly Inabnett, senior solutions architect for Veritone. “If I can get those questions answered quickly, it decreases the time it takes to get that case closure.”
The challenge of starting over
Investigations — especially cold case investigations — often change hands repeatedly. A new homicide detective may inherit several unresolved cases on the first day in the unit, each with its own history, investigative decisions and accumulated documentation.
The incoming investigator must determine who was interviewed, which evidence was tested, what inconsistencies were identified and which leads were exhausted. In many instances, that means starting from square one, even if previous investigators already completed significant work.
As personnel retire, transfer or move into new assignments, knowledge can be lost unless it is clearly documented and accessible. The next investigator may repeat earlier reviews simply to understand where the case stands.
Assess creates summaries and structures timelines from the case materials, helping a new investigator become quickly familiar with the case without rebuilding the entire analysis. Once information has been analyzed and organized, it remains available for the next person assigned to the case.
“It’s not 10 steps forward and then 10 steps back,” Inabnett said. “The next investigator can come up to date on everything and find those next steps.”
Turning case records into investigative questions
Assess can review multiple types of information, including reports, interview transcripts, text messages, bank records and some cell phone data. Investigators can also bring in the standards against which they want the case reviewed, such as agency policies, investigative checklists, criminal statutes or jury instructions.
The AI-powered tool can then compare the evidence with those materials and highlight potential gaps, inconsistencies or deviations for the investigator to verify.
The analysis may show that a witness identified in one report was never interviewed again, evidence described by an officer does not appear in the evidence log or several witnesses gave conflicting descriptions of an important detail.
While those issues could also be found through a traditional review, recognizing and remembering them across hundreds of pages and dozens of individual reports can be challenging. Assess brings the discrepancy forward so the investigator can examine it directly.
Specialized analysis based on the needs of the case
A distinguishing feature of Assess is the custom AI chatbot. The user can define user personas — such as “homicide detective,” “investigator,” “analyst” or “coroner” — and Assess will build out the report from the persona’s point of view and using standards pertinent to the persona.
“It turns an investigator or an analyst into a specialist,” said Philip Isles, director of customer operations for Veritone’s public sector business unit. “Assess is not only a means by which you can have multiple analysts helping you, but multiple specialists who specialize in a specific type of analysis.”
That capability can be especially useful when reviewing large quantities of recorded material, like jail calls where 500 calls might yield only 30 seconds of pertinent material. The user can ask the chatbot questions conversationally, like, “Did they talk about any type of crime that I’m investigating based on these reports?” to narrow the results and identify the small number of calls that warrant closer review.
The approach does not eliminate the need to listen to the relevant recordings, but it narrows the field to the most relevant so investigators find where to listen.
Supporting the Cold Case Foundation
Veritone is working with the Cold Case Foundation, a volunteer organization whose investigators and analysts help agencies review unresolved cases. The relationship began after a foundation analyst researching AI contacted Veritone and participated in a demonstration of the technology.
The partnership has since helped expand the ways Assess can be applied. Early work focused primarily on reports, but the foundation’s investigators identified opportunities to compare larger collections of interview transcripts and other evidence sources.
That collaboration reflects a larger shift in how AI tools may develop within public safety. Investigators understand the practical demands of casework, while technology providers can adapt the platform around the questions investigators need answered.
Cold cases are particularly suited to this type of assistance because limited staffing is one of the greatest obstacles to reviewing them. Investigators may be committed to finding answers for victims’ families, but active cases must usually take priority. Without more efficient review methods, the cold case workload continues to grow.
The challenge is also becoming more complex as technology advances. Older cases may consist largely of paper reports and physical evidence. Cases today likely include digital evidence from a suspect’s devices, as well as digital evidence obtained from law enforcement sources, like license plate readers and security video. AI-powered analysis reduces the mountain of digital evidence into a molehill of relevant details investigators can then narrow their focus on.
Keeping the investigator in control
AI-generated findings are not conclusions and Assess is not intended to determine who committed a crime. Its role is to point investigators toward information that may deserve additional review.
“The biggest safeguard is the detective utilizing it,” Inabnett said. “Everything that gets put out needs to be and should be verified by a human.”
An investigator who receives a potentially important result must return to the source material, confirm the information and decide what action is appropriate. The investigator remains responsible for gathering evidence, conducting interviews, documenting findings and testifying about the case.
Assess operates within a CJIS-compliant government cloud environment and searches the information provided by the agency rather than drawing answers from unrelated public material, according to Inabnett. This keeps the analysis focused on the evidence and reference materials associated with the investigation.
Creating more opportunities to advance a case
Any kind of case — not just cold cases and homicide investigations — can benefit from Assess.
Finding an untested piece of evidence, an overlooked witness, a contradiction or a missing investigative step can give detectives a new place to begin. Creating a clear timeline can help investigators understand the sequence of events. Preserving the analysis can prevent the next detective from repeating months of work. Surfacing missed steps can give detectives a chance to obtain a sexual assault rape kit before a deadline expires or interview witnesses before their memories fade.
By reducing the time required to understand a case and bringing possible gaps into view, Assess can help investigators spend less time reconstructing the past and more time determining what to do next.
To learn more about Veritone’s partnership with the Cold Case Foundation, register for Police1’s upcoming webinar, “Solving yesterday’s cases with today’s AI: How artificial intelligence is transforming cold case investigations.”
