Grad Students Investigate Cold Case Homicide

Published May 12, 2010 at 2:43 a.m.

(Birmingham, AL) WIAT- Three graduate students, one professor, and 900 pages of case files from an unsolved homicide formed the basis for the Cold Case Project at UAB's Department of Justice Sciences.
 
For ten months they gathered, organized, and analyzed every document and recording from the 1998 shooting death with fresh eyes and new technology, in a secure room on campus. UAB Associate Professor of Forensic Science Beth Gardner, Ph.D. supervised the project. Gardner says time works against investigators when a case is fresh, but with a cold case time can be an ally.

"The things that will help you most are changes in technology. As late as 1992 DNA analysis was changing," said Gardner. "The other major factor that you look for are changes in people. As time goes on people change there might be a witness that was afraid to come forward then that's willing to come forward now people who wouldn't have come forward when the case was hot, may now have jobs families be a completely different person. So those are the primary things that you look for- changes in technology and changes in relationship."

 
Lindsay Duty is Doctoral candidate for the UAB Department of Pyschology and one of the students who worked on the Cold Case Project.

"My first thought was...900 pages? The answer's in here somewhere. It's got to be in here somewhere. I absolutely think it was once in a lifetime. This is an experience that most graduate students will never have. To have the opportunity to work with a local department on a real case involving real people and a real crime. Very different from what you see on tv. The police department of Homewood really offered us...a very unique experience," said Duty.

They recently turned their results over to the Homewood Police Department. Now the researchers can finally breath a sigh of relief.
"We met weekly on any given week depending on class schedules and exams we could have spent ten to forty hours," said Duty. "It was very difficult because with your loved one s with your family you're spending so much time working on something and you can't discuss it."

 "The students really did a great job," said Sgt. Doug Finch, Homewood Police Department.  "An unsolved homicide investigation is not closed it's more or less inactive unless new information came in. I don't want to say that it's reopened, but there are a couple of areas that they brought to our attention in the proposal that we will take into account and look at."

 Lindsay Duty, Kathrine Simmons of Selma; and Shannon Crock all worked on the project under Professor Gardner. This evening they received a special commendation from the Homewood Police Department at the annual Homewood Police Awards Ceremony.

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