GAYLORD - A new cold case team is being formed at the Michigan State Police Post in Gaylord.
The new three-member team will be taking another look at unsolved cases that originated at the Gaylord Post. The post covers 19 counties in the northern Lower Peninsula.
Gaylord Michigan State Police Post Commander and the brainchild behind the new cold case team, Captain Jennifer Johnson, said cold case teams are nothing new. There are other teams throughout the state, but she’s excited to have one in the 7th District.
“There’s families that have been waiting so long for answers and we’d like to give it to them,” said Johnson.
Johnson said they several cases at the post that remain unsolved.
“A lot of them have been waiting for their loved one to come home, or just not knowing and going to bed every night, not knowing where they are,” she said.
She said it might make the difference having a dedicated full-time team focused on cold cases.
“Some of these cases go back decades, and the detectives have full-time dockets of their own, so they’re not able to always go back and check in on these cases. And so, this team will enable us to be able to do that,” said Johnson.
Johnson said with the advancements in DNA analysis, interview techniques and technology, they are hoping to crack some unsolved cases.
The three-person cold case team will be led by Detective Sergeant Matthew Wilt. He said cold cases can be a challenge.
“You’re not going out to a crime scene and gathering any more evidence. So, our job is to go through all the information that’s already been collected. Try to find that one or two little things in there that are going to help us solve the case,” said Wilt.
Wilt said the majority of the cases will either be unsolved murders or missing person cases. He said they will be using a solvability matrix, or point system, to determine which of the 17 cases they have to start with.
“Is there a suspect developed? Is there, you know, trace evidence that could be analyzed for DNA? Are there witnesses that are still available to interview?” said Wilt.
He said with some older cold cases, time can be a double-edged sword.
“You’re not going to have too many people around anymore. Are there detectives, police officers available that actually handled the cases? Those types of things are what we look at,” said Wilt.
But time also works in their favor.
“Sometimes people will come forward later on when they weren’t willing to back, you know, when it first happened. So, time can be a friend sometimes,” said Wilt.
Johnson said they are still at the beginning stages of getting the team set up.
“We’ll have some tip lines and an email system set up so that people can contact us if they have any information. We’re not really set up to take tips on, on, on the cold cases right now,” said Wilt.