Cold Case Reviews

Abstract

Investigating Cold Cases: DNA, Detective Work, and Unsolved Major Crimes, analyses how long-term unsolved murders and unsolved stranger rapes are investigated years after the crimes were committed. The book examines how and why cold case investigations have become an established component of police investigative practice, the role of specialist expertise used, in particular DNA profiling techniques and technologies, and the investigative skills required to finally detect cold cases. The book is based on original fieldwork with one major crime review team as they investigated cold case murders and cold case stranger rapes, interviews with a variety of experts involved in cold case investigations, and analysis of police case files. Above all else, the book will examine the reliance on advances in DNA profiling techniques, to identify previously unknown offenders and suggests that alongside these technological advances it is traditional detective skills that are also necessary to finally detect these crimes.

Finding the missing and unknown: Novel educational approaches to warming up cold cases

“…Across the world, particularly in Germany, Australia, the UK and USA, cold case units have begun operating within universities, giving students the opportunity to work alongside staff and subject experts on unsolved murders, missing person cases and unidentified found remains. While there is no universally accepted definition of a cold case it is largely accepted that a case becomes cold when all reasonable lines of enquiry have been explored and it is considered that there is nothing further that can be done to progress the investigation at that time [7,33]. This then gives students an opportunity to review these cases to see if new lines of enquiry can be established.…”