Karen Beaudin knows the sorrow of losing a loved one to homicide and the anguish of seeing the crime go unsolved. Her 13-year-old sister was raped and murdered in 1971.
Charlie Reader knows the hunger to solve a murder and the reality of a caseload that pulls his attention to other matters. He’s an investigator for the Pike County Prosecutor’s Office.
Roger Davis and Ben Suver understand the frustrations of both Beaudin and Reader. They are with the Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation and work unsolved homicide cases.
1) Symposiums tap into brain trust
Beaudin, Reader, Davis, and Suver were among about three dozen investigators and presenters at a recent two-day Ohio Unsolved Homicide Symposium, the second of four BCI is hosting this year. The symposiums highlight the services BCI can provide in unsolved homicide cases and allow investigators to brainstorm and exchange information.
“You have a room of people with vast experience in investigations. Everyone is contributing to the conversation,” Reader said. “I really appreciated being there with all that experience. Success teaches great lessons to people who haven’t faced that particular situation before.”
Day 1 of the symposium covers techniques proven successful in unsolved homicides and the services available through the Attorney General’s Office. Day 2 features case presentations, discussions, and a review of BCI resources.
“The responses have been extremely positive,” said Roger Davis, a BCI special agent who has been involved in Ohio’s initiative from the start. “There are ideas and investigative strategies exchanged that officers can take back and use in their cases.”
2) BCI tailors services to agency needs
BCI offers many services valuable in unsolved homicide cases, and local agencies can take advantage of as many or as few as make sense for their investigations.
“At a minimum, we recommend a case review,” said Suver, a special agent supervisor who coordinates the AG’s Ohio Unsolved Homicides Initiative. That process reveals what other steps might be in order, such as digitization of the case file for preservation, evidence review, electronic media analysis, interviews and interrogations, blood spatter interpretations, exhumations, or other options.
In one case, BCI’s involvement led to more than 30 sets of fingerprints that could be entered into AFIS or used for comparison. Initially, the agency had only seven sets of prints from evidence in the case.
With manpower an issue for most agencies, BCI’s assistance can help keep an investigation active.
“One of the biggest attributes they can bring is time,” said Reader, who worked as a police officer and sheriff’s deputy before joining the Pike County Prosecutor’s Office. “When you start an investigation and leads get colder, every day more cases are building up as you’re working on that one.”
3) Website provides best visibility
The simplest step local agencies can take in unsolved homicide cases — and one with a huge potential payoff — is to submit their cases for inclusion in the Attorney General’s unsolved homicide database. Located at
www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/OhioUnsolvedHomicides, the database has grown dramatically in recent months.
It contained just 166 cases last fall, when Attorney General Mike DeWine announced a plan to focus more attention on unsolved homicides, compared to 1,343 at the end of June. Yet, the FBI estimates Ohio has more than 5,000 unsolved homicide cases.
“We truly want all of those cases on the website,” Suver said. “The more cases, the more traffic we’ll get from people who might have valuable information.” Eighty-six tips and 177 inquiries have resulted since the site was developed three years ago.
To submit cases: Law enforcement can call 855-BCI-OHIO (224-6446) or email
OhioUnsolvedHomicides@OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov for information on submitting cases for the site. BCI can help input large volumes.
BCI’s Project LINK can help resolve missing persons, unidentified remains cases
Like unsolved homicides, missing persons cases can keep family members in agony for years. Through Project LINK, more Ohio families are finding closure.
Project LINK compares the DNA of unidentified human remains and samples from relatives of long-term missing individuals. The comparison sometimes leads to DNA results that allow law enforcement and coroners to identify remains and solve missing persons cases.
In a case resolved in March, the remains of an Ohio woman missing since 1988 were identified. Earlier this year, Michigan authorities submitted DNA from an unidentified remains case to the national CODIS database, and it hit to DNA from the woman’s relatives that BCI had entered in 2001. BCI documented six hits last year and four so far this year through Project LINK, a program it started in 1999.
For information: Find out more about using Project LINK from BCI’s Criminal Intelligence Unit at 855-BCI-OHIO (224-6446) or
Intel@OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov.