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La Voz Nueva
Addressing Colorado’s cold cases
Don Bain
They call themselves Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons (FOHVAMP) and their mission is in part to console and soothe those who have lost loved ones to violence. In a larger sense, they exist to help people pursue justice for these unsolved and sometimes forgotten crimes.
Last weekend the group held a convocation bringing many of their members from across the country to Denver for workshops and panel discussions featuring representatives from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and many metro area police departments. Among these were workshops covering how to manage your cold case, options in civil justice, how crime labs work and victim assistance.
In addition to those participating in the panel discussions, numerous area detectives and law enforcement personnel were also in attendance in a show of support to the victims of unsolved homicides and missing persons.
There are nearly 1,300 cold cases in Colorado, created when the detective assigned to the case moves on to another job, retires or passes away. Murder and suspicious disappearances remain open cases until solved, but most resources are focused on the immediate threats to the community – more recent crimes. Still, the perpetrators of these unsolved homicides live among us even today.
“Seven of ten murders are solved,” Howard Morton, the organization’s founder said. “We are concerned with the other three.”
The members in attendance asked questions of the enforcement agencies during a seminar titled Cold Case Investigations. The session covered investigative techniques, forensic processes and the status of particular cases. One woman asked about the unsolved murder of Jessica Bajarano, shot while driving down the street on April 7, 2007. An agent familiar with case said it was still under investigation, but could reveal nothing more.
One quickly emerging theme was simply the imbalance between the number of cases needing follow up versus the funds allocated to the process. Funds for investigation, prosecution and lab tests are being cut back due to the current economic downturn and forensic labs simply can’t keep up with the case load of requested DNA sampling and other tests.
The state needs more crime labs, such as one proposed in Larimer County, under discussion among northern regional police jurisdictions and the various universities in the area. So far no one has come forward with the $40 million the project will require. Colorado Springs is just now opening a new lab and is concerned with not overloading the lab from the start. The caseload simply exceeds the current capacity.
Some attendees wore buttons picturing their loved ones or wore photos on their lanyards. These individuals may be gone, but they are certainly not forgotten. One man, his daughter missing since 2003, asked if university training programs and criminology schools couldn’t take on some of the work adding DNA results to the national database as part of their classes. He was afraid his daughter might be languishing unidentified in a morgue somewhere.
DNA sampling is an expensive process and the FBI has a 2-year backlog of cases to process. Coroners are the front line in identifying bodies and entering them into the CCIC and NCIC databases. If the database is correctly updated and the programming works as it should, the system automatically matches up bodies with missing persons. However, the CBI is working with a lab backlog of 90 to 100 days.
“Our mission is to find solace and justice for the families of murder victims,” Morton concluded. “We can trade vengeance for justice.”
This statement refers to the FOHVAMP proposal to take the $3 million spent annually to keep the death penalty in Colorado and instead use those monies to fund a Cold Case unit in the CBI. For more information visit unresolvedhomicides.com.
Editor’s note: Over the coming weeks, LA VOZ will share some of Colorado’s Cold Case Files with you in the pursuit of “…justice for all.”
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