Cold Case Research Resources for Unidentified, Missing, and Cold Homicide Cases

Silvia Pettem

Jul 2012 · CRC Press

About this ebook

Cases in which all investigative leads appear to be exhausted are frustrating for both investigators and victims families. Cold cases can range from those only a few months old to others that go back for decades. Presenting profiles and actual case histories, Cold Case Research: Resources for Unidentified, Missing and Cold Homicide Cases illustrat

About the author

Silvia Pettem is a longtime historical researcher, newspaper columnist, and author of more than a dozen books. After decades of work for individuals, businesses, and governments, her life took a new turn in 1996, when she stumbled upon the gravestone of a Jane Doe, a murder victim from 1954. A few years later, Pettem applied her research skills to both old-fashioned detective work and the power of the Internet by entering into a successful partnership with her local sheriff and forensic experts of the Vidocq Society to determine the young woman‘s identity. Pettem chronicled their work in Someone‘s Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe.

In 2008, the Boulder County Sheriff‘s Office gave Pettem a Sheriff‘s Commendation Award for doing the "lion‘s share of the research" on the Jane Doe case. Two years later, the Vidocq Society presented her with its Medal of Honor.

While continuing to volunteer for the Sheriff‘s Office, Pettem is now an associate member of the Vidocq Society, a volunteer in the detectives section of the Boulder Police Department, a NamUs Academy graduate, and a NamUs instructor in classes sponsored by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, expanding her expertise and working with colleagues all over the country.