Long-Term Missing Cold Case Programs

Rhode Island does not have a Long Term Missing and/or Cold Case Unit.
I would also be interested in any information/details you obtain for future reference.

Alaska does not currently have a cold case unit that deals with unsolved homicides and generally does not have anything to do with missing persons cases.

We do not have a program at our agency. We do work some cold case cases but do not have an actual program. I talked to our XO. He said as far as he knows only Unified PD and Salt Lake City PD have actual programs.

Hi Cindy. PA State Police has a Criminal Investigation Assessment Unit (CIA) which handles both homicide and missing person cases (thought to be suspicious or criminal in nature), many of them cold cases. This unit was developed in 1988 under the model of the FBI’s Behavioral Assessment Unit. There is one full-time and at least one part-time unit member in each of our Troops across the state who investigate these case, as well as three full time administrative unit members who are based in PSP headquarters (two enlisted and one civilian behavior analyst) The administrative unit members are tasked with the AMBER Alert program, Missing Endangered Person Alert program, as well as the State Missing Person Clearinghouse duties, in addition to overseeing the CIA field members and assisting in those cases. Our department has found that having the behavioral analysis component of our unit involved in the child abduction investigations and long term missing cases is extremely helpful. I would be happy to discuss our unit’s model and activities in further detail if you would like. My email address is [email protected].

Hi Cindy. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Missing Endangered Person Information Clearinghouse (MEPIC) conducts long-term missing (LTM) case reviews. The LTM case is any case where the person is missing for an extended amount of time and all leads have been exhausted. Most of these cases are opened at the request of the law enforcement agency of jurisdiction. Our analysts conduct database checks on these LTM cases on a regular basis throughout the year. If further investigative needs are required, many of our inspectors or agents will assist with those cases.

The other part of our program involves the Unidentified Deceased Initiative, which I am a part of. We partner with our Florida Medical Examiners and law enforcement partners to identify the unidentified deceased. We have over 840 unidentified deceased in Florida. We look at all unidentified cases to include homicides, suicides, accidental deaths and natural deaths. As part of the program, we review unidentified cases and identify areas/gaps where these cases could benefit from forensic resources, such as exhumations, DNA analysis, forensic odontology, fingerprint submissions to state and federal fingerprint databases and facial reconstruction and composites. We also provide analytical resources, such as running potential names and aliases, conducting searches for tattoos, searching against various missing persons databases and running any other investigative leads available. While this program has been in existence for a while, we did not focus much of our efforts until November 2016 when we allotted two full-time positions to the program, a sworn inspector and an analyst. To date, we have identified 13 individuals through this program. While many of these individuals have been missing for years, a large majority of them were never documented as missing. We also assist with locating information on next of kin and assisting with obtaining DNA reference samples, if necessary. Once an identification is made, further assistance can be provided by our regional offices on the cold case homicides, if requested by the law enforcement agency. If you have any questions about how we run our program, please feel free to contact me: [email protected]

North Dakota does not have a long term missing person program. North Dakota BCI would get the case and review it periodically.