EVERETT – They are secrets that have been kept for years -secrets that could catch a killer.
“There is always someone who knows something,” Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart said. “We just need to trip their memories. One little thing can solve a case.”
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
Bart is hoping that the department’s intensified focus on nearly 50 unsolved homicides will yield results and deliver long-awaited justice.
“I want us to solve at least one before I leave as sheriff,” the former homicide detective said. “I still have nightmares about some of the cases I couldn’t solve.”
Bart and others in his office have pushed for a cold-case unit for years. The unit was quietly launched a couple years ago but it wasn’t until February that the office was able to assign three full-time detectives to investigate unsolved homicides.
Detectives also have reached out for help from two civilian volunteers – an unusual move for police.
The team has been poring through stacks of reports, interviews, lists of evidence and other materials.
Detectives are searching for new leads or potential witnesses who need to be interviewed again on cases that date back to the early 1960s.
“Somebody has said something over time to someone,” cold-case detective Jim Scharf said. “Maybe at the time they were too close to the (suspect) or too scared. It’s important people get involved and speak up now. It could protect someone else.”
Scharf and detectives Dave Heitzman and Joe Ward are investigating homicides or probable homicides that happened at least a year ago and aren’t assigned to a detective.
Other detectives in the major crimes unit continue to investigate homicides, in which they have the most knowledge, Scharf said.
Volunteer Jill Rhynerd is helping establish a database of the murders. Chuck Wright has been reviewing cases, looking for ones that he believes can be solved in the next year.
“I think we’ve got five that are really solvable,” Wright said. “The information is in the file. The killer is in the file.”
Wright, a retired state Department of Corrections supervisor, worked closely with investigators as a part of the Green River Task Force and also was a member of the Sno-King Arson Response Team, the task force that captured serial arsonist Paul Keller.
“Chuck frees us up to do the leg work,” Scharf said.
Some of that includes reviewing cases for possible biological samples recovered at crime scenes.
Detectives have recovered DNA samples connected to eight cases and sent them to the state crime lab for analysis. So far, none has matched those available in law enforcement databases.
“We still have a lot of work to do. These aren’t cases that will be solved in the next week or next month,” Scharf said.
Scharf and Heitzman sit across from each other in a small office that their captain gave up for the team. A sign reading “We do God’s work” stands out from the rows of three-ring binders that hold the details of the lives and deaths of teenagers, transients and grandmothers.
The team must prioritize the cases based on the chances of finding the killer, Heitzman said.
“That can be hard on the victims’ families,” he said.
The hope for justice can fade but it never leaves entirely, said Jenny Wieland, executive director of Families and Friends of Missing Persons and Violent Crime Victims.
“In those cases, whether it’s five or 30 years, it really always is on their minds,” she said.
Detectives don’t forget either.
“Every unsolved case I had, a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about the victim and their families,” said sheriff’s Sgt. Shawn Stich, cold case supervisor.
Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.
Can you help?
Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives are investigating nearly 50 unsolved homicides dating back to the 1960s. Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriff’s tip line at 425-388-3845.
Can you help?
Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives are investigating nearly 50 unsolved homicides dating back to the 1960s. Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriff’s tip line at 425-388-3845.
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