What Cold Cases are Really Solvable?

[Errata]

BTW, does anyone think the JonBenet Ramsay case is solvable by anything other than a confession? I know the police have unidentified DNA from her underwear, but I've never been clear whether that's actually semen, and from what I understand, the body wasn't violated. The DNA could be from someone on the totally mismanaged investigative team, or transfer from one of the people in the household-- they had maids-- Patsy Ramsay probably didn't do the laundry. Yes, I realize it's male DNA, but a maid could bring secondary transfer.

I think the DNA was from a mixed blood sample, which rules out transfer. In theory an investigator totally ignoring basic safety precautions and not wearing gloves who had blood on his hands could have mixed his blood with hers on her underwear. But he would have had to have been bleeding, not wearing gloves, and handling her underwear while her blood was still wet, and that seems so unlikely as to be impossible. Especially since a coroner or medical examiner examines bodies for rape and sexual assault, and there is no reason whatsoever for a crime scene tech to be looking in her underwear.

Anyway all crime scene techs, lab techs, coroners and cops have their DNA on file for just such issues. Its the first comparisons they make for exclusion. It's possible that Boulder didn't have that database at the exact time of her murder, but they would have within a year. And since they do run the DNA occasionally, if it was a tech it would have popped up by now. As for the killer, he either died, got a lot more careful making sure he leaves no DNA at scenes anymore, or more likely is getting rid of the bodies in such a way as to get rid of all evidence and any sign of it being the same killer. Or some teenager who never meant to kill her, got scared, and never tried it again until he learned that there were prostitutes out there who specialize in such things without accidentally dying.

[Abby Normal]

I've read both books, and Graysmith may have gone off on some wild tangents but unless he is blatantly lying about certain facts and even falsifying documents, not all police cleared Allen. One of the main detectives on the case, Dave Toschi, apparently maintains his belief that he had his man with Allen. And Graysmith reproduces "The Bawart Report" by Vallejo detective George Bawart, a 30-point essay detailing a mountain of circumstancial evidence pointing to Allen as the Zodiac. If nothing else, if Allen was truly innocent it is certainly a prime example of how such evidence can seem to implicate someone falsely as has been done with many Jack the Ripper suspects over the years, but it seems to go much farther. If innocent, there were definitely many, many things Allen should have avoided doing/saying/owning if he didn't want to be thought of as the Zodiac.

Totally agree. He's the best suspect by far.
The DNA is a problem though. Although they apparently didn't try and match Allen's DNA until many years after they had the letters as evidence. It makes me wonder if one of the police, lab workers etc, someone who handles the letters might have gotten their DNA on them.

[RivkahChaya]

BTW, does anyone think the JonBenet Ramsay case is solvable by anything other than a confession? I know the police have unidentified DNA from her underwear, but I've never been clear whether that's actually semen, and from what I understand, the body wasn't violated. The DNA could be from someone on the totally mismanaged investigative team, or transfer from one of the people in the household-- they had maids-- Patsy Ramsay probably didn't do the laundry. Yes, I realize it's male DNA, but a maid could bring secondary transfer.

Anyway, that DNA could pop up a match, or familial match, once the US has completed it's total database of all incarcerated or otherwise convicted people, military personnel, and decides to start putting other people in the database, like police officers and crime scene investigators, whose DNA is collected for cross-contamination elimination, but not entered into national databases for privacy reasons, but I'll bet at some point it will, once we take the leap of collecting DNA from everyone who is currently fingerprinted for work.

[RivkahChaya]

I have never seen an interview with Toschi. The only source I've ever seen for Toschi believing that is Graysmith, and that source is before the DNA analysis. Do you have a source other than Graysmith that Toschi continued to believe in Allen's guilt after the DNA, please share, because one of my problems with this case is that 80% of the info out there goes back to Graysmith, and 10% goes back to people who are conspiracy theorists who insist on massive police cover-ups, and name impossible suspects who might as well be Prince Eddy.

[kensei]

The police cleared him before DNA cleared him. The main reason he remains a suspect is that Robert Graysmith has continued to champion him as one. I personally don't have much faith in Graysmith. His first book was a good summation of the case, but his second book was dreadful, and all his writing about Allen is clearly an attempt to pad a very feeble case with gossip and pop psychology-- he insinuates with no evidence that Allen was gay, then uses outdated Freudian theory to suggest that the Zodiac was probably gay, and that made him hostile to the heterosexual couples he attacked, forgetting that several chapters ago, he suggested that Allen was stalking Darlene Ferrin.

I've read both books, and Graysmith may have gone off on some wild tangents but unless he is blatantly lying about certain facts and even falsifying documents, not all police cleared Allen. One of the main detectives on the case, Dave Toschi, apparently maintains his belief that he had his man with Allen. And Graysmith reproduces "The Bawart Report" by Vallejo detective George Bawart, a 30-point essay detailing a mountain of circumstancial evidence pointing to Allen as the Zodiac. If nothing else, if Allen was truly innocent it is certainly a prime example of how such evidence can seem to implicate someone falsely as has been done with many Jack the Ripper suspects over the years, but it seems to go much farther. If innocent, there were definitely many, many things Allen should have avoided doing/saying/owning if he didn't want to be thought of as the Zodiac.

[RivkahChaya]

D.B. Cooper seems solvable- I think the investigation into suspect William "Wolfgang" Gosett is fascinating and intriguing. And I think the Zodiac was the late Arthur Leigh Allen, though I know a lot of people disagree and will insist that he's been cleared.

The police cleared him before DNA cleared him. The main reason he remains a suspect is that Robert Graysmith has continued to champion him as one. I personally don't have much faith in Graysmith. His first book was a good summation of the case, but his second book was dreadful, and all his writing about Allen is clearly an attempt to pad a very feeble case with gossip and pop psychology-- he insinuates with no evidence that Allen was gay, then uses outdated Freudian theory to suggest that the Zodiac was probably gay, and that made him hostile to the heterosexual couples he attacked, forgetting that several chapters ago, he suggested that Allen was stalking Darlene Ferrin.

They have apparently already approached the Crown regarding doing DNA tests on the Princes In The Tower and the Crown has politely but firmly refused to cooperate with any DNA testing.

I don't remember exactly what the justification was but I believe it was along the lines of respecting the dead etc. Personally, I think it would be a great idea to find out if those skeletons were really the Princes (I don't think they are) and if they aren't to continue searching for the real ones. Perhaps it is my background in anthropology but I don't think that a respectful examination of the bones would in anyway violate their dignity anymore than being unceremoniously buried under a staircase did. If we can give them back their identity, surely THAT would be the ultimate way of showing respect.

If the skeletons are the princes, or even if some of the bones are royalty, then they probably are from the princes, anyway, the possibility of dating them is very exciting. telling 10 from 12, and 12 from 14, as I understand it, is not hard, so we could find out whether they died at the beginning of Richard's reign, of the end of Richard's/beginning of Henry's.

I've always been in the "Richard didn't do it" camp, mainly because forensic autopsy didn't exist them. If Richard had had them murdered to prevent an uprising in their favor (yes, I realize they were barred by titulus regius, but bear with me), he would have exhibited the bodies for public mourning, and given them state funerals. Richard had nothing whatsoever to gain from them secretly disappearing, and a lot to lose, since as fat as he knew, in 1483, he could have reigned for 40 years.

[Penhalion]

They have apparently already approached the Crown regarding doing DNA tests on the Princes In The Tower and the Crown has politely but firmly refused to cooperate with any DNA testing.

I don't remember exactly what the justification was but I believe it was along the lines of respecting the dead etc. Personally, I think it would be a great idea to find out if those skeletons were really the Princes (I don't think they are) and if they aren't to continue searching for the real ones. Perhaps it is my background in anthropology but I don't think that a respectful examination of the bones would in anyway violate their dignity anymore than being unceremoniously buried under a staircase did. If we can give them back their identity, surely THAT would be the ultimate way of showing respect.

[kensei]

D.B. Cooper seems solvable- I think the investigation into suspect William "Wolfgang" Gosett is fascinating and intriguing. And I think the Zodiac was the late Arthur Leigh Allen, though I know a lot of people disagree and will insist that he's been cleared.

[sdreid]

Yes, there is DNA with ONS, that is how they connected him to the East Area Rapist. (Like Abby said)

[Abby Normal]

I've always considered a classic cold case to be over 20 years old but I know a case can be considerably more recent and be considered a cold case. I'm not sure what the age is for a crime to be called cold case or maybe there isn't even an age, just that the investigation is no longer active.

In general, the cases most likely to be solved are newer cases and cases with major evidence like DNA.

Just to pick out a case, I'll say The Original Night Stalker.

hopefully this SOB. he is one of, if not the most, prolific Serial offender in history. so much so that he has actually 3 nicknames-the Visalia ransacker, the east area rapist and the ONS. It was DNA that actually linked these 3 previously thought unrelated series-so they have his DNA. So hopefully if he is ever caught for something else even, they can make a match and catch this loser.

[RivkahChaya]

I've always considered a classic cold case to be over 20 years old but I know a case can be considerably more recent and be considered a cold case.

It really depends at what point all leads are exhausted. That may take a few weeks or several years. It's really something that requires the judgment of professional law enforcement. But if you want to add "classic" to it, it probably needs to be something more-- a case that the country followed, and had something unusual or distinctive about it. The Cooper skyjack, and its uniqueness, the fact the the ONS escaped on stolen bicycles, and made creepy phone calls right out of a Hollywood movie, the Zodiac's ciphers, the fact that JTR's timing in history made him the first serial killer to be a media sensation, not to mention the fact that he seemed to elude to police by seconds, the Axeman and jazz, which was a new kind of music at the time.

[RivkahChaya]

I forgot about that one. Is there DNA? yes, you are probably right, because as the US continues to build its database of all incarcerated people, it may turn out that the ONS was arrested in Florida in the 80s, and died in a fight in prison ten years later, and his DNA is preserved, but the entry in the national database is backlogged, because living people (prosecutable) are entered before dead people. Computers get faster, and the public desire to clear cold cases because the technology exists, gets stronger, so maybe more personnel are dedicated to making the entries, and eventually the data are there. Someone in California runs the sample yearly, and finally a match pops up.

What may happen in our children's lifetimes is that they see 100 year old cases cleared by DNA. Just look at what already happened in the Bobby Dunbar case. The judges in 1913 examining the child's toes and eyes couldn't have dreamed of DNA tests 100 years later.

[sdreid]

I've always considered a classic cold case to be over 20 years old but I know a case can be considerably more recent and be considered a cold case. I'm not sure what the age is for a crime to be called cold case or maybe there isn't even an age, just that the investigation is no longer active.

In general, the cases most likely to be solved are newer cases and cases with major evidence like DNA.

Just to pick out a case, I'll say The Original Night Stalker.

[RivkahChaya]

Barring a deathbed confession, or the incredible luck of finding a letter, or authentic diary, or something, what cold cases do you think are the most solvable?

My number one if Philadelphia's Boy in the Box. He'd have to be exhumed, but I think there's a good chance that a familial search on his DNA would turn up something. Both theories on the crime involve people that suggest he has family who are in the system somewhere, and I think identifying him would go a long way to solving the crime.

Speaking of DNA matches, I'm hesitant to suggest this one, but I think that if the British crown exhumed the bodies buried as the princes in the tower, and compared them to the Y-chromosome of the body now known to be Richard III, those bodies could be identified once and for all, and if they are the princes, it wouldn't be hard to determine whether they died at 10 & 12, or 12 & 14, since so many changes happen to the skeleton around those years. Sounds like the government isn't interested in this, though.*

I think the Zodiac is solvable, just because there is so much evidence. Some day, a familial match may pop up when a nephew or something of his commits a crime, and I think that he didn't get rid of every artifact-- there's a hood some place that maybe a family member thinks is just a costume, or notes on the original code, that again, someone doesn't know the significance of. I think he's probably dead, and I think the police think so as well, which is why the case is not on top of anyone's desk, but it would still be a feather in someone's cap to solve it, so there's probably a detective who periodically runs the DNA.



*Yes, I realize there have always been other people for DNA matches, but those would require further exhumations. Because the gov't already has Richard's DNA, no other exhumation, besides the boys, would be necessary.