Special Topics in Forensic Biology: Researching Cold Cases

Project: Cold Case is a not-for-profit organization with the goal of publicizing all unsolved homicides in the United States while linking information, families, and law enforcement, and ultimately, helping to solve cold cases.

The Doe Network is a 100% volunteer organization devoted to assisting investigating agencies in bringing closure to national and international cold cases concerning Missing & Unidentified Persons.

The Charley Project serves as a publicity vehicle and clearinghouse of information for missing persons. It attempts to catalog as much information as possible about as many cases as possible into a database as a publicity/investigative aid for the public and law enforcement to help solve cases. A wide variety of sources are used, such as other databases, news media accounts, law enforcement, information supplied by friends and family members of the missing, and books, and all the information contained therein is summarized on each missing person’s Charley Project casefile.

Gives police and the public easy-to-use access to two datasets maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation: the Uniform Crime Report from 1965 to the present and — more useful for investigators — the Supplementary Homicide Report from 1976 to the present. Homicide investigators may find this site useful as a quick and easy means to review historical cases within their own departments or to easily identify cases in other jurisdictions that may be of interest. It is possible to search cases sorted by geography, type of victim, method of killing and timeframe of killing. This site is especially useful in cases in which an offender is suspected of killing more than one victim. Possible additional victims may be identified by checking all available reports made to the FBI or obtained independently by the Murder Accountability Project.

amUs is a national information clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases across the United States. Funded and administered by the National Institute of Justice and managed through a cooperative agreement with the UNT Health Science Center in Fort Worth, Texas, all NamUs resources are provided at no cost to law enforcement, medical examiners, coroners, allied forensic professionals, and family members of missing persons.

Navigating the vast terrain of information contained within the existing case law, scientific journals, reports, publications and other resources has been, in the past, an impossible task. The National Clearinghouse for Science, Technology and the Law assembles the available scientific, technological, and relevant legal resources into a comprehensive “one-stop” searchable database with equal access for all.

Website maintained by a true crime writer who analyses old, unsolved cases from the pre-DNA era. Includes search tips and maintains a database of all cold cases discussed on the site.

Allows users to read and write about cold cases; many popular cases have their own subreddits where users people leave info and their own research which could easily offer someone info to follow up on.