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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia\'s quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (February 2008) |
For other uses, see Cold case (disambiguation).
Cold case refers to a crime or accident that has not been solved and is not the subject of current criminal investigation, but for which new information could plausibly arise. New technical methods developed since the case can be used on the surviving evidence to re-analyse the causes, often with conclusive results.
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Typically, cold cases are violent or other major felony crimes, such as murder or rape which unlike unsolved minor crimes are generally not subject to a statute of limitations.
Sometimes disapperances can also be considered cold cases if the victim has been not seen or heard from for some time.
Other cases are cold when the crime, usually through discovery of human remains, is discovered well after the fact.
A case is considered unsolved until a suspect has been identified, charged, and tried for the crime. A case that goes to trial and does not result in a conviction can also be kept on the books pending new evidence. Many times, those investigating the case have a suspect in mind but have not been able to find evidence sufficient to charge the suspect with the crime -- especially since most suspects are not forthcoming with a confession.
Other times a viable suspect has been overlooked or simply ignored due to then-flimsy circumstantial evidence, the presence of a likelier suspect (who is later proven to be innocent), or a tendency of investigators to zero in on someone else to the exclusion of other others -- known as "tunnel vision".
Even in other cases a suspect never even considered before or even unknown emerges mainly through forensic or DNA evidence. This is usually the case in brutally violent homicides, such as rape or sexual assault.
With the advent and improving DNA testing and other forensics technology, many cold cases are being re-opened and prosecuted. Police departments are opening cold case units whose job is to re-examine cold case files.
Cold cases are given new looks through several factors: new forensic evidence (mentioned above), new circumstantial evidence, and a fresh look at old evidence.
Other factors include new witnesses coming forward with what they know, new suspects previously overlooked, or even alibi witnesses affirming or recanting their original stories.
A well-known cold case [1] is the case of Judge Joseph Crater, a judge who stepped into a cab in 1930, and subsequently became the "missingest man in New York". In April, 2005, police revealed that they had found some evidence in the 1950s which was related to the case: a handwritten note by Stella Ferrucci-Good, in an envelope reading "Do not open until my death", claimed to give the location of Crater\'s body.[2] Human remains were found at the location, but lacking technology such as Genetic Fingerprinting police were unable to confirm the identity of the remains, which were later reburied in a mass grave.
Another cold case is the unofficially unsolved murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor who was found murdered in his home in 1922. In spite of several suspects and even a deathbed confession it is still considered unsolved.
Recent well-known cold cases include the still-unsolved murders of rap artists Tupac Shakur in 1996 and the Notorious B.I.G. in 1997. The Natalee Holloway case was recently declared a cold case by the Aruban authorities.
Some people consider the John F. Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963 as the ultimate cold case.
Look up Cold case in
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