KCK police announce new cold case unit

The Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department will have a new cold case unit, according to an announcement from Police Chief Karl Oakman’s office.

“We have assembled a unit of highly motivated and experienced detectives,” Oakman said in a news release. “Kansas City, Kansas, has roughly 285 unsolved homicides spanning five decades which we believe will benefit from a fresh review, as well as advances in DNA and other forensic testing. The family of these victims deserve justice and closure.”

Capt. Angela Garrison, a 27-year veteran of the department, will lead the unit, made up of three full-time detectives. The team will review all cold cases and then prioritize them based on solvability. Missing person cases where it appears that foul play may have been involved, will also be reviewed.

“I’ve been a detective for 14 years and during that time I have worked a number of cold cases,” Garrison said in the news release. “I can truly say that one of the best experiences of my career has been delivering news to a family that we have a resolution for their loved one’s case. I would love to be able to do that for more families in our community.”

A cold case is an unsolved criminal investigation that remains open pending the discovery of new evidence.

Nancy Chartrand, Police Department public information officer, said in the past in the KCKPD, any homicide or missing person cases have remained open, with no statute of limitations applying to homicide cases. Usually in the past, unless someone came forward to provide new information or new developments came forward, these cases have remained inactive but open status.

The new cold case unit will allow the new team of detectives the opportunity to go back and go through all the cases, she said, and see if there has been anything that has been overlooked. Perhaps there was evidence presented at the time, but because of technology at the time, nothing could be done with it, she said, and now the detectives will be able to look for potential new leads in all the cases.

After the team looks through all the cold cases, it will then prioritize the ones where something could be done, she said, but the team is not focusing on any one case to begin with.

“Sometimes when you solve one case, it may lead to solving another case,” she said. The detectives and captain may see similarities in cases that were not linked before, which could lead them to solve a number of them, she added.

Chartrand said Capt. Garrison, who has 27 years in law enforcement, went to specialized training for this assignment.

Currently, the KCKPD has a solve rate of about 88 or 89 percent, which is much higher than some decades in the past where a lot of cases were not solved, Chartrand said.

Technology has changed over the years, including advances such as DNA and more cameras in the community, that may help solve more cases nowadays than in the past.

Even aside from technology, officers now have more training and skills and may look at cases differently than detectives did 50 years ago, she said.

“I think it’s exciting and we’re cautiously optimistic that we’ll be having good results with this,” she said.

This will be the only cold case unit in the Kansas City metropolitan area, she said, and the three detectives and captain are new positions. There will not be a reduction in other areas for this team, and the positions have been approved by the Unified Government Commission, she added.

As the team here solves cases, it may lead to information that helps solve other cases in the metro area, she said. Only 7 percent of law enforcement agencies in the United States have dedicated cold case units.

The cold case squad was one of Chief Oakman’s priorities when he was interviewed for the position.