Continue cold-case funding
Published 12:01 am Sunday, May 22, 2011
Without having lived through it, it seems impossible to truly understand the pain inflicted on the loved ones of a murder victim. Similarly, we can only imagine the ways their grief must intensify when the crime goes unsolved.
For the family of Patricia Berry, whose 1995 death may finally have been solved by Snohomish County cold case detectives thanks to persistence and the wonders of modern genetic testing, the wait for justice has been long. Same for the loved ones of Tracey Brazzel, who disappeared earlier that year. Detectives say DNA evidence links her to the same man suspected of killing Berry — a convicted sex offender currently in prison.
And for the family of Susan Schwarz, who was slain way back in 1979. The same cold case team arrested a suspect in that case last month after a woman admitted to witnessing the crime, according to court papers.
Cold case investigations, by definition, are often bound to be exercises in futility. Evidence is lacking. Devoting finite resources to cases that offer little hope of resolution, diverting them from more promising investigations, seems objectively unwise.
Yet these potential successes — no one has yet been convicted in these cases — offer compelling vindication for the investments of money, time and energy that yielded them. And they argue for keeping the three detectives on the county sheriff’s cold case team on the job.
That will require new funding. Two of the cold case detectives have been supported by part of a $394,000, 18-month grant from the National Institute of Justice that runs out next month. Sheriff John Lovick said his office has applied for another grant, and hopes to hear soon whether it will be approved. If it’s not, Lovick said, one of the detective positions will move into the office’s major crimes unit, and another will have to be eliminated at the end of this year. Only one detective will be left to investigate the dozens of cold cases that remain.
And even though scientific advances have rapidly improved genetic testing, it isn’t cheap. State crime labs often have long backlogs, and it’s understandable that cold case evidence doesn’t always rise to the top of the priority list. Private labs are often the best alternative, and have been employed here.
The cold case team’s recent results are ample proof of a smart investment that should continue.
Finding and convicting killers is an obvious matter of public safety, but delivering a measure of justice to murder victims’ families must also remain a strong societal value. It’s hard to put a price on that, but the amount at issue — given the recent results — is a bargain.
