Cold case
A cold case is a crime, or suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a recent criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or retained material evidence, as well as fresh activities of the suspect. New technical methods developed after the case can be used on the surviving evidence to analyse the causes, often with conclusive results.
Characteristics
Violent or major crime
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 disappearances can also be considered cold cases if the victim has not been seen or heard from for some time, such as the case of Natalee Holloway or the Beaumont Children.
About 35% of those cases are not cold cases at all. Some cases become instantly cold when a seeming closed case is re-opened due to the discovery of new evidence pointing away from the original suspect. Other cases are cold when the crime is discovered well after the fact—for example, by the discovery of human remains. Some cases become classified cold cases when a case that had been originally ruled an accident or suicide is re-designated as murder when new evidence emerges.
The John Christie murders is a notable case when Timothy Evans was wrongly executed for the alleged murders of his wife and child. Many other bodies were later found in the house where they lived with Christie, and he was then executed for the crimes. The case helped a campaign against capital punishment in Britain.
Identifying a suspect
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.In some cases, a suspect, often called a "person of interest" or "subject" is identified early on but no evidence definitively linking the subject to the crime is found at that time and more often than not the subject is not forthcoming with a confession. This often happens in cases where the subject has an alibi, alibi witnesses, or lack of forensic evidence. Eventually, the alibi is disproved, the witnesses recanted their statements or advances in forensics helped bring the subjects to justice.
Sometimes a case is not solved but forensic evidence helps to determine that the crimes are serial crimes. The BTK case and Original Night Stalker cases are such examples. The Texas Rangers have established a website in the hopes that it shall elicit new information and investigative leads.
Tunnel vision
Sometimes, a viable suspect has been overlooked or simply ignored due to then-flimsy circumstantial evidence, the presence of a likelier suspect, or a tendency of investigators to zero in on someone else to the exclusion of other possibilities —known as "tunnel vision".Improvements in forensics
With the advent of and improvements to 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. DNA evidence helps in such cases but as in the case of fingerprints, it is of no value unless there is evidence on file to compare it to.Famous criminal examples
The identity of Jack the Ripper is a notorious example of an outstanding cold case, with numerous suggestions as to the identity of the serial killer. Similarly, the Zodiac Killer has been studied extensively for almost 50 years, with numerous suspects discussed and debated. The perpetrators of the Wall Street bombing of 1920 have never been positively identified, though the Galleanists, a group of Italian anarchists, are widely believed to have planned the explosion. The burning of the Reichstag building in 1933 remains controversial and although Marinus van der Lubbe was tried, convicted and executed for arson, it is possible that the Reichstag fire was perpetrated by the Nazis to enhance their power and destroy democracy in Germany.Examples of criminal cold cases that ended in conviction
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
| Victim | Convicted | Location | Crime date | Conviction date | Description |
| Linda Yalem | Altemio Sanchez | Amherst, New York, USA | September 29, 1990 | August 15, 2007 | A college student who was raped and killed while training for the New York City Marathon. Sanchez was identified as the perpetrator during the revision of the case against Anthony Capozzi, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 21 years for two rapes committed with the same modus operandi. |
| Dolores E. Davis | Dennis Rader | Wichita, Kansas, USA | January 19, 1991 | August 18, 2005 | See above. |
| Jessica Keen | Marvin Lee Smith, Jr. | West Jefferson, Ohio, USA | March 16, 1991 | March 2009 | A 15-year-old girl from Columbus who was abducted from a home for troubled teens and raped. At one point, Keen escaped and tried to hide in Foster Chapel Cemetery, but her abductor found her and beat her to death with a headstone. Police suspected of her 18-year-old boyfriend, but he was ruled out by DNA. The same evidence later led them to Smith, who confessed and pleaded guilty in exchange for not facing the death penalty. |
| Timothy Wiltsey | Michelle Lodzinski | South Amboy, New Jersey, USA | May 25, 1991 | May 18, 2016 | A five-year-old boy reported missing by his mother, Lodzinski, at a carnival on National Missing Children's Day. Lodzinski became a suspect when she told contradictory versions about how her son went missing, and she was arrested after Wiltsey's babysitters recognized the blanket found wrapped around Wiltsey's body as coming from Lodzinski's house. |
| Jaycee Dugard | Phillip and Nancy Garrido | South Lake Tahoe, California, USA | June 10, 1991 | June 2, 2011 | An 11-year-old girl abducted from the street and kept in captivity for two decades, during which she was raped and had two daughters with her captor. The Garridos were arrested after Phillip took the daughters to a Berkeley campus and arouse suspicions because, as a convicted sex offender, he was not allowed to be near children. |
| Shauna Howe | James and Timothy O'Brien, Elfred "Ted" Walker | Oil City, Pennsylvania, USA | October 1992 | October 2006 | An 11-year-old girl abducted while coming home from a Girl Scouts Halloween party, raped, and subsequently killed when she was thrown from a railroad bridge. The perpetrators were identified after a DNA match was made to O'Brien, who was serving a prison sentence for another attempted kidnapping in 1995. |
| Majane Mazur | Altemio Sanchez | Buffalo, New York, USA | November 1992 | August 15, 2007 | A prostitute victim of Sanchez. See above. |
| Beverly Bonner | John Edward Robinson | Raymore, Missouri, USA | 1993 | October 2003 | The 49-year-old prison librarian at Western Missouri Correctional Facility, where Robinson was imprisoned for fraud between 1987 and 1993. Upon his release, Bonner left her husband for Robinson and promptly disappeared, while Robinson continued to cash in her alimony checks. In 2000, her body was discovered in a metal drum stored in a garage rented by Robinson. |
| Richard and Lynn Ehlenfeldt, Guadalupe Maldonado, Michael C. Castro, Rico L. Solis, Thomas Mennes, Marcus Nellsen | Juan Luna | Palatine, Illinois, USA | January 8, 1993 | May 10, 2007 | The two owners and five employees of a Brown's Chicken & Pasta, all killed during a robbery and stashed in the walk-in freezer. Luna, a former employee, and Degorski, whom he had met in high school, became suspects when Degorski's girlfriend denounced them in March 2002. Luna confessed after he was matched to DNA recovered from a half-eaten chicken in the freezer. |
| Richard and Lynn Ehlenfeldt, Guadalupe Maldonado, Michael C. Castro, Rico L. Solis, Thomas Mennes, Marcus Nellsen | James Degorski | Palatine, Illinois, USA | January 8, 1993 | September 29, 2009 | The two owners and five employees of a Brown's Chicken & Pasta, all killed during a robbery and stashed in the walk-in freezer. Luna, a former employee, and Degorski, whom he had met in high school, became suspects when Degorski's girlfriend denounced them in March 2002. Luna confessed after he was matched to DNA recovered from a half-eaten chicken in the freezer. |
| Charlie Keever, Jonathan Sellers | Scott Erskine | San Diego County, California | March 27, 1993 | September 1, 2004 | Two boys, one 13 and another 9 years-old, who disappeared during a bike ride and were later found murdered. Sellers, who was African-American, was hanged on a tree, while Keever was raped and sexually mutilated. In March 2001, DNA retrieved from Keever's mouth was matched to Erskine, who was imprisoned for a rape committed six months after the murders. |
| Ángel Ibáñez, Sara Dotor | Gustavo Romero Tercero | Valdepeñas, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain | June 18, 1993 | April 22, 2005 | A young couple abducted from a public park, robbed and murdered. Romero, who fled to the Canary Islands shortly after the murder, was identified as the culprit when he was arrested for domestic violence in 2003 and his DNA was matched to that found at the scene. He confessed and led investigators to the place where he had thrown the murder weapon. |
| Mia Zapata | Jesús Mezquía | Seattle, Washington, United States | July 7, 1993 | 2004 | Lead singer of the punk band The Gits, who was raped and murdered while coming home from a music venue. A DNA match was made to Mezquía after he was arrested for burglary and domestic violence in Florida in 2002. Mezquía had been reported for indecent exposure in Seattle within two weeks of Zapata's murder. |
| Chekannur Maulavi | V. V. Hamsa | Edappal, Kerala, India | July 29, 1993 | September 30, 2010 | Progressive Islamic cleric abducted from his home by members of A.P. Aboobacker Musalyar's ultraorthodox Muslim sect. Hamsa was the only convicted of ten people charged. |
| Rita Tangredi | John Bittrolff | Suffolk County, New York, USA | November 2, 1993 | September 12, 2017 | Two prostitutes killed while working. Bittrolff became a suspect when his brother Timothy was arrested for an unrelated charge and he was partially matched to DNA found on the victims. Subsequently, Bittrolff provided a full match. Bittrolff is also a suspect in the murder of a third woman, Sandra Costilla, who was found dead in North Sea, New York on November 20, 1993, and in at least one of the murders attributed to the unidentified Long Island Serial Killer. |
| Colleen McNamee | John Bittrolff | Suffolk County, New York, USA | January 30, 1994 | September 12, 2017 | Two prostitutes killed while working. Bittrolff became a suspect when his brother Timothy was arrested for an unrelated charge and he was partially matched to DNA found on the victims. Subsequently, Bittrolff provided a full match. Bittrolff is also a suspect in the murder of a third woman, Sandra Costilla, who was found dead in North Sea, New York on November 20, 1993, and in at least one of the murders attributed to the unidentified Long Island Serial Killer. |
| Sheila and Debbie Faith | John Edward Robinson | Raymore, Missouri, USA | 1994 | October 2003 | A 45-year-old woman and her 15-year-old daughter, who used a wheelchair due to spina bifida, from Fullerton, California. The Faiths moved to the Kansas City area after Sheila met Robinson through the internet and he offered her a job and to pay for Debbie's medical expenses. Afterward, Robinson cashed in Debbie's pension checks for seven years. Their remains were found at the same garage as Bonner's, also in metal drums. |
| Kiyoshi Kariya | Makoto Hirata | Tokyo, Kantō, Japan | February 1995 | March 7, 2014 | A 68-year-old lawyer who was kidnapped, fatally tortured and subsequently incinerated by Aum Shinrikyo, who wanted to learn the whereabouts of Kariya's sister after she defected from the cult. Hirata surrendered to authorities in 2011 and confessed to the abduction, but not to the murder which remains unsolved. |
| Hiromi Shimada | Makoto Hirata | Tokyo, Kantō, Japan | March 19, 1995 | March 7, 2014 | A college professor who was the target of a false flag bombing by Aum, but he was unharmed. Hirata was convicted for the bombing despite denying any role in it. |
| Kiplyn Davis | Timmy Brent Olsen | Spanish Fork, Utah, USA | May 2, 1995 | February 11, 2011 | A 15-year-old girl who was last seen at high school. Olsen pleaded guilty to her manslaughter, although he claims he only helped the real killer bury the body, and refuses to name the killer or the place of burial. |
| Tanya Nicole Kach | Thomas Hose | McKeesport, Pennsylvania, USA | February 1996 | 2007 | A 16-year-old runaway who was held in captivity by a security guard who worked at her school, until she escaped. |
| Robert Wykel | Myron Wynn | Yelm, Washington, USA | February 26, 1996 | 2010 | A 65-year-old man who disappeared after accompanying Wynn to buy a car. The main break in the case came years later when Wynn, a career con man with no known job, sold a pendant with a large diamond to his aunt that was identical to one that Wykel always wore on a ring, even when he restored cars. Microscopic examination of the diamond found marks consistent with the activity of Wykel, which together with its identical size and cut constituted proof that it was indeed the same diamond. |
| Janet Levine March | Perry and Arthur March | Forest Hills, Tennessee, USA | August 15, 1996 | 2006 | A 33-year-old woman who supposedly abandoned her family after she had an argument with her husband, Perry March. Her car, with all the items she took and her hairs in the trunk, was found in a parking lot with signs of not having been moved in several days. After a long legal battle with Janet's parents during which March was found liable for her wrongful death, had that conviction overturned, and fled with the children briefly to Mexico, Perry's father, Arthur, confessed that he had dug up and burned her remains, years after his son murdered her. |
| Delimar Vera | Carolyn Correa | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA | December 15, 1997 | 2005 | An infant girl who disappeared during a house fire. The fire was ruled accidental and the body was assumed to have been completely destroyed by fire, although her mother, Luz Cuevas, was convinced that she had been abducted. Six years later, Cuevas met Vera at a birthday party and immediately suspected due to the strong resemblance between her and the girl. A DNA test proved that she was indeed her daughter. The abductor and arsonist was a friend of a distant relative of Vera's father. |
| Rui Pedro Teixeira Mendonça | Afonso Dias | Lousada, Norte Region, Portugal | March 4, 1998 | October 3, 2014 | An 11-year-old boy who disappeared after his mother forbid him from seeing his 22-year-old friend, Afonso Dias. Dias was thoroughly investigated as a suspect but he could only be convicted of corruption of a minor after a prostitute testified in 2011 that he had attempted to hire her to have sex with Teixeira, against Teixeira's will, in the day he disappeared. |
| Rosana Maroto | Gustavo Romero Tercero | Valdepeñas, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain | June 25, 1998 | April 22, 2005 | A 21-year-old woman who disappeared while cycling on a rural road; only her backpack, smeared with her vomit and a man's blood, was found in the area, while her bicycle was found in a well two years later. When DNA identified Romero as the source of the blood, he confessed to the murder and led investigators to an empty well where he had thrown the body. |
2000s
Examples without conviction, but considered solved or likely solved
1910s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Examples of unsolved criminal cold cases
In popular culture
Film
The phrase "Cold Case" is found in a number of story and book titles. Examples include:- L.L. Bartlett. "Cold Case". A Jeff Resnick Mystery. ASIN B003I84LYW. Polaris Press. This short story inspired the fourth Jeff Resnick book, Bound by Suggestion.
- True crime.
- A children's book/mystery.
- An urban novel.
- An education and reference book.
Music
- Cold Case Files and Cold Case Files Vol. 2 are compilation albums by the rap group Onyx
- "Cold Case Love" is a song on Rihanna's Rated R album, released November 23, 2009 on the Def Jam label
- "Stella: The Cold Case" is an EP by
Television
- The Canadian television series Cold Squad, the British television series Waking the Dead and the US television series Cold Case all follow groups of fictional homicide detectives who investigate cold cases. They are set in Vancouver, London and Philadelphia, respectively.
- Cold Case Files is a documentary-style television series recounting actual solved cold cases.
- New Tricks is a BBC series revolving around retired CID officers acting as consultants to serving officers and investigating unsolved cold cases.