How to Open a Cold Case

A cold case is one that was not solved during the initial investigation. Usually, the case is several years old, sometimes as many as 50 years old. Often times, there were not enough detectives to investigate the case properly. A common reason for the existence of cold cases is simply because the technology was not advanced enough to process fluids and other DNA evidence. The process of a cold case investigation is assigning detectives to re-examine the case. Depending on the police department, they might even create a cold case squad to handle these cases.Difficulty: ChallengingInstructionsThings You'll Need:Camera1Check with the supervisor or employee that works in the evidence and property room to see if the physical evidence is available. If the cold case is quite old, this may take time to locate. Once you have the evidence, inspect and photograph all evidence.2Review the case information. This is extremely time-consuming. Look at all information associated with the case, including photographs, witness lists, suspect information, patrol notes and laboratory documents. Also, find out if the suspects and witnesses are still alive.3Create a strategy for working the case. Once you have reviewed the case file information, it's time to create a to-do list and an outline of how to begin the case and the priorities of the investigation.4Re-interview suspects, witnesses and victims or families. Even if they were interviewed initially, there may be things that were missed. It's always helpful to interview them again. Sometimes, cold cases are solved that way.5Meet with laboratory personnel. You will need to determine the type of testing that can be done on items in evidence. Re-testing is important as technology has advanced since the the first investigation.