The Restless Sleep:

Going Back to Old Crime Scenes

Cold Case Squad detectives love going back to the crime scene, even when there’s nothing left. ADA’s are baffled by the practice, and there hasn’t been a time in anyone’s memory where detectives have recovered any valuable evidence, but this is one of the ways they psych themselves up to begin. They are mustering with the past before resuming the battle.

Besides, if there’s even the remotest possibility that something remains, the detectives have to try. If it’s still there, with the right tools they can recover it, and use it as one piece of physical, irrefutable evidence, bringing at least some measure of peace to a family that has been waiting so long for resolution.

The pictures here were taken at a dig. The Cold Case Squad was following up on a lead about someone who was murdered elsewhere, but dumped here. That's a cadaver dog in the first shot (cadaver dogs were explained thoroughly in an earlier post).

Depending on what the detectives are trying to find, they might bring teams of personnel and equipment, like a device called a surface penetrating radar, pictured above. “We’re looking for shadows,” one guy said, describing how it works. They're so poetic sometimes.

How Many Unsolved Murders?

When my book went to press there were 8,894 unsolved murders in New York since 1985.

Los Angeles, the next largest city in America, had 8,000 going back to 1960.

Fairfax, VA, had 75 going back to 1964.

If you want to try to figure out how many cold cases are in your city, go to the FBI's website and download the Uniform Crime Reports, aka Crime in the United States. Right now they have reports going back to 1995. You can also go to the library or local college if they offer a criminal justice degree, and find reports going back to 1930.

In each report, you can look up the national clearance rate for murder that year and from that estimate how many murder cases in your city likely went cold. It's generally around a third.

The Property Clerk Division

As an amateur historian, I was fascinated with the NYPD's Property Clerk Division. I wanted to see what they had saved. What I learned was: not much. Before I go any further, as far as I can tell they have their act together now, which I detail in the book. They got serious about storage when they starting using DNA forensically.

Prior to that, things were thrown out or lost in various ways. For almost 100 years, weapons were taken out to sea and sunk. In 1933, 3,816 guns, knives and swords were dumped into the sea at the Scotland Lightship station off the New Jersey coast. A couple of years later 1,575 phony token slugs were dumped into the Long Island Sound at Eaton’s Neck in Huntington Bay, along with 500 slot machines and 4,000 weapons. Two years after that the Property Clerk poured 10,000 gallons of wine, whiskey and beer into the Lower Bay. As of the 70’s they were still throwing what they could into the various bodies of water in New York, but in the 80’s they began melting handguns down in a foundry in Pennsylvania. Rifles and knives were put in a metal shredder.

One day, while going through photographs at One Police Plaza, I found a shot of them destroying the slot machines they would shortly throw into the water at Eaton's Neck (not far from where I grew up, coincidentally).

DNA - Not So Much

DNA was used in less than 2% of the cases the Cold Case Squad cleared. At the time The Restless Sleep went to press, the total forensic DNA hits in New York was 1,529. 7% were for murder cases, 72% were for sex crimes.

“In most state or federal systems, for every crime solved with DNA, we solve 26 with fingerprints,” according to Ed German, a recently retired Chief of Intelligence for the Army Criminal Investigation Command.

Why Cold Case Squads Matter

Everywhere, all over America, the percentage of unsolved murders has been slowly creeping up. Right now, more than a third of all murder cases go cold. And yet, as fewer and fewer murders are solved, and the number of cold cases increases, all around the country police departments are allowing their Cold Case Squads to also slowly disintegrate.

But not everywhere. For the past year I have been putting together a list of Cold Case Squads.

Two years ago, Major John Newsom and the detectives of the Warren County Sheriff's Office Cold Case Squad began re-investigating the 1999 murder of Troy Temar. On Tuesday they arrested a brother and sister for the murder.

From yesterday's Cincinnati Enquirer. "When Donna Temar received a detective's call that her son's 6-year-old homicide may have been solved, she felt like a "1,000-pound weight" had been lifted from her heart."

Donna Temar's son Troy.

Good work, Warren County.

Mugshots

The NYPD says this is their first mugshot. I found an 1857 New York Times article announcing a Daguerreotype Gallery of Criminals at the Detective Police Office, though. I wish the police department were hoarders. What a treasure that collection would have been if only they had saved it.

Finding People in Prison

"I know that we actually made a difference and we really did put evil people away. I take great satisfaction from that. Not everyone can say they brought evil men to justice, but we did. I still go on line to the NY Department of Corrections web site and check where all my bad guys are." - Vinnie Nitti, retired Cold Case Squad detective.

He's talking about Inmate Lookup. I used that a lot while researching the 1951 case I wrote about in this book. I was sure that some of the people the police questioned back then would one day end up in prison.

Click here to look up Federal inmates.

Click here to look up New York State inmates.

I can't post them all, but if you want to find prisoners in your state, go to Google and, depending on where you live, type: California inmate lookup, etc.

Thank You

On the evening of 9/11 I walked downtown along the Hudson River, thinking I would sneak into ground zero and somehow help. I was stopped at Pier 40, at Houston Street. Only recovery workers could go below Houston.

Pier 40 was one of the command posts where rescue workers came to rest before going back in. I ended up staying there most of the night. Every few minutes someone like myself would come up to see if they could help (or if they could go home). Everyone was turned away, but before heading back up the highway they’d shake a rescue workers hand and say "thank you."

Now it was mostly cops at Pier 40, and there has always been an adversarial relationship between the public and police here in New York. So the cops just stood there completely dumbfounded. They didn’t know what to make of it. "No one's ever thanked us before," they’d say. But they were beyond belief pleased, embarrassed and touched, and at the same time they were trying very hard not to show it. It had always been “us vs them” and now here was “them” making these macho guys choke back tears.

The next day I came back and there were about a half a dozen people on the highway, holding up handwritten signs that said “thank you” to every rescue worker coming in and out the the site. Remembering the reaction I saw the night before I joined them. So did hundreds, sometimes thousands of others. The cheers and the clapping became a roar. I went back to the highway and held up thank you signs every day or night for the next couple of months.

It was intense. You could smell the fire on the guys who passed by on foot. No one was bothering to hold back tears anymore. They’d take one look at the signs, burst into tears, and say, "You're welcome.” I will never forget one cop driving by slowly -- traffic often moved slowly because there were so many people heading in to help -- and she was just sobbing, all the way down into what was then called the pile (later it became the hole).

But usually, if they were in trucks or some sort of emergency vehicle, they’d make the most noise they could. Convoys of dumptrucks and cranes, blaring their horns, miles of ambulances and emergency vehicles from all over the country, sirens going, us screaming, "Thank you Sanitation," (Dept. of Sanitation) or "Thank you NYPD," depending on who was going by, and everyone giving everyone else the thumbs up sign. We were saying to each other, “We’re going to get through this.”

9/11/05. Every year, on the corner of Christopher Street and the highway, people come back and hold up thank you signs.

Old Police Technology

This picture of a cop using an old police radio is from the group I got from One Police Plaza, and is undated. Now they can dial into various databases from their cars, and communicate to each other online (although, like people everywhere online, what they're frequently doing is bickering).

I wonder where he is. It looks like he's under a bridge somewhere, but it also looks like a bomb just went off or something. The photograph didn't have a caption, alas.

NAPO Relief Fund for New Orleans Police

I just got this from the Detectives' Endowment Association.

NYC DETECTIVES’ UNION SAYS “FOLLOW OUR LEAD:”
NAPO RELIEF FUND IS THE PLACE TO SEND
NEW ORLEANS POLICE DONATIONS

The union representing New York City’s police detectives has made a $50,000 donation to aid police in New Orleans and says the NAPO Relief Fund, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, is the most appropriate place to send donations to New Orleans’ beleaguered police officers and their families. Michael J. Palladino, President of the Detectives’ Endowment Association of New York City and Vice President of NAPO (the National Association of Police Organizations) says this fund was set up years ago to aid in such emergencies. “Our brother and sister police officers in New Orleans are currently carrying a double burden: the job of trying to maintain law and order in a devastated major American city, all the while trying to cope with their own pain and loss – of their homes, families, friends, and their town. This is the worst imaginable scenario police officers can face.

“As the Vice President of NAPO, I urge caring New Yorkers to consider the special needs of New Orleans’ police at this time. There may be many organizations that claim to assist the police, but if you donate, you should do so with confidence. The Police Association of New Orleans, the organization representing New Orleans’ police force, is working with NAPO’s Relief Fund to ensure that your donations will go directly to their members in need.”

The National Association of Police Organizations is a Washington, DC based coalition of police unions and associations from across the United States. NAPO serves to advance the interests of America’s law enforcement officers through legislative and legal advocacy, political action and education. Both the NYC Detectives’ Endowment Association (DEA) and the Police Association of New Orleans (PANO) were founding members of NAPO when the organization first formed in 1978. Donations can be made by check or credit card. Donation forms can be downloaded from www.napo.org or donations can be sent directly to the NAPO Relief Fund, c/o NAPO, 750 First Street, NE, Suite 920, Washington, DC 20002-4241. Donations to the NAPO Relief Fund are tax deductible.

For More Information Contact:
Michael J. Palladino, President (212) 587-1000
Sam Katz (212) 587-1000
26 Thomas Street New York, NY 10007
Phone (212) 587-1000 FAX (212) 732- 4863

The Sheik - A 1936 Cold Case

In 1936, a young Syrian boxer named George Abdinoor (aka The Sheik) was murdered in Brooklyn, then buried in a basement in Lawrence, MA.

He was unearthed 18 months later, and buried in the United Syrian Cemetery in Lawrence, MA. His case was never solved. 145 of the 365 homicide cases that year went cold.

The year with the largest number of unsolved homicides in New York was, not surprisingly, the year with the most murders. In 1990, 791 of the 2,245 murders that year are still unsolved. That's 35%, and that's typical. The most recent figures I have are for 2003. As of 2004, 294 of the 596 murders that year were not yet solved. That's almost 50%. However, I did discover that a cold case has up to a 5% to 10% chance of being cleared within one year after it went cold. After two years it's less than 1%. That means the percentage of unsolved murders in New York is around 40%.

When is a Case Too Cold? Part 2

Recap: Someone asked, "How far back in time can a cold case be sent in? How many years back can a case be re-opened?"

I answered that there is no statute of limitations on murder. If a murder hasn't been solved, the case is still open even if no one has looked at it for years or decades. Then I asked others to weigh in.

From Det. Wendell Stradford: Yes that is correct, there is no statute of limitation on murder. And if a "very old" case has a chance to be brought to a meaningful conclusion, even if no one is ever arrested, we would give it a go. The bottom line is the family of the victim gets answers.

From retired Deputy Inspector Vito Spano: There is never a time limit. The key element is solvability. If there is new evidence, information or technology that may lead to solving a case, then the case will be assigned to a detective. Can it be developed? That is the main criteria for opening up a cold case.