Long-Term Missing Persons & No-Body Cold Case Investigations

Criminal homicide investigations generally begin with the response of officers to the finding of a body and a crime scene. From this, investigators develop leads, evidence, and cases, identifying and interviewing witnesses and others. Notes, reports, sketches, and photographs become the case file. Due to the severity of criminal homicide/murder, most agencies traditionally spared little expense to solve the case. Similarly, reports of missing persons begin in much the same way, but given exigent circumstances such as large-scale publicity or public status of the missing person, large-scale devotion of agency resources and investigative follow-through have often been minimal, or lacking.