Truth trackers: APD's cold-case sleuths defy the odds

http://www.mountainx.com/article/44264/Truth-trackers-APDs-cold-case-sleuths-defy-the-odds

 


They know each case by name.

“Jake Burrell,” he recalls.

“Virginia Olson,” she adds.

“Glenn Zachery,” he replies.

“Zeke Penland in ’76 and Oscar Davis in ’77,” she says.

The two detectives continue their alternating cadence, exchanging nods and exasperated sighs after every name. For Kevin Taylor and Yvonne Cobourn, Asheville’s 24 cold cases are an all-too-familiar story. But the plots are not conventional: Cold cases don’t have endings. Instead they consist mostly of interviews, evidence and theories — and if they end in anything, it’s typically a question mark. By definition, a case becomes cold when all the leads have been exhausted.

“If they were easy, they would have already been solved,” stresses Cobourn. “But that challenge is what we embrace.”

The Asheville Police Department established its official Cold Case Unit in July 2008, and Cobourn and Taylor got the nod. Across the country, such entities seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

In a 2010 National Institute of Justice survey of cold-case investigations, researchers queried 5,000 police departments; 1,050 responded. Only 20 percent of those agencies had any protocol for cold cases, and even fewer (10 percent) reported having dedicated cold-case investigators like Cobourn and Taylor.

When the Asheville unit was created, these cases were the duo’s primary assignment. Nowadays, however, they must divide their time among active, cold and missing-person cases, working out of a second-floor office at police headquarters.

“That’s your Catch-22,” notes Cobourn. “That’s two detectives that are full-time; that’s two salaries that aren’t [contributing] toward that everyday caseload.”

“We don’t have the luxury of doing cold cases full time anymore.” Taylor adds. “We’re working on them on our own initiative, with time being the key factor.”

Methodical work

The last case they solved was the Sandra Proffitt homicide. That was more than three years ago, and it took the detectives about six months to get a confession. Proffitt was murdered Jan. 17, 1990, in her Deaverview apartment. Nineteen years later, Cobourn and Taylor charged her then boyfriend, Terry Spivey, with second-degree murder. More importantly, they were able to get a conviction, which happens in only about 1 percent of cold cases nationwide.

Even when police “clear” (solve) a cold case, it doesn’t always lead to an arrest. The prime suspect, for example, could be missing, incarcerated or dead. But when someone is convicted of a crime — cold or otherwise — the case is closed.

Still, cold cases don’t get solved by accident, and the process is nothing like what you see on TV. “I wish I could say that every day working on a cold case is filled with excitement and drama and,” here Cobourn pauses for effect, “is sexy.”

“It’s not,” Taylor interjects. “It’s very methodical.”

Getting Spivey’s crucial confession, for example, required a rigorous re-examination of all the case’s files, including documents, photos, drawings and notes. And though all such materials have been scanned into the department’s working database, these cases also still reside in big 3- to 5-inch binders that detectives will thumb through from time to time.

Those notes may help them consider cases with a fresh approach and an open mind. But some aspects of such investigations remain pretty standard. From former detectives to witnesses, Cobourn and Taylor try to interview everyone involved — even those who are listed in the case files but were never brought in for questioning.

“You never know when that person is going to give you some small key or insightful information that can start pointing you in a totally different direction,” says Cobourn. It’s also one of the few instances when the passage of time may work in law enforcement’s favor. “Relationships change, Taylor explains. “People that were close 20 years ago may not be so close anymore.”

Geographic distance can also be a factor. “Once upon a time, you would live out your entire life within 50 miles of where you were born,” notes Cobourn. “Now, it’s nothing for people to jump up and move across the country without any thought.”

Deteriorating evidence

But even independent of any idea, theory or lead, time itself can become a formidable obstacle when it comes to evidence. Before switching to investigations, Cobourn spent a year in the APD’s Forensics Department.

“Whenever you start pulling evidence out to send to the labs and it’s older than 20 years, how things were packaged and kept was different then, because we didn’t have the knowledge that we have now about biological fluids and things of that nature,” Cobourn reveals.

Accordingly, much of the evidence in Asheville’s cold cases has since been repackaged to today’s standards to help stave off deterioration. If biological evidence such as blood, semen and saliva samples isn’t kept in a dry environment protected from sunlight and ultraviolet radiation, the unique DNA profile could be compromised. This makes it difficult for forensic labs to find a match in CODIS (the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System database). Only state labs can submit DNA profiles into CODIS.

And for local law-enforcement agencies, submitting cold-case evidence to state forensic labs can pose a number of problems. Forensic science is constantly evolving, with new techniques introduced every year, but thanks to tight budgets and other issues, they’re not filtering down to the state or even federal labs, says Cobourn.

“We have evidence in these cases that could potentially solve the case if we had the money to send the evidence to these private labs,” she laments.

Financial constraints aside, there’s also a logjam at the State Bureau of Investigation labs. “We’ve got cases where we feel like we’ve got some good leads and re-submit evidence to the lab, and we’re waiting 12 to 14 months to hear anything back,” says Taylor.

“If not longer,” adds Cobourn.

“But in the eyes of the state lab, it’s a cold case: They think, ‘What’s the hurry?’” continues Taylor. “So it goes to the bottom of the totem pole, so to speak.”

Meanwhile, the Asheville team has no choice but to wait patiently and keep investigating and researching.

For the families

Still, it’s not the kind of work the detectives can simply leave at their respective desks. It follows them home — sometimes in unexpected ways.

“I might just be going to a place by coincidence where the crime occurred, and then I just start thinking about it,” Taylor reveals.

“Or driving by it,” says Cobourn. “With some of the cases that I have, I live in the geographical area, so I drive by them on my way to work and on my way home.

But it’s not just the crime scenes that embed these cold cases in the lives of the detectives trying to solve them. For Cobourn and Taylor, the families are a key motivation to keep going.

“If we’re not doing it, nobody else is going to be doing it, and those families are still going to be waiting for answers,” says Taylor. “We, unfortunately, can’t always give them the answers they want, or the outcome, but at least we’re making the effort.”

Cobourn also works closely with Families Pursuing Justice. Founded in 2009 by people affected by cold cases, the local nonprofit works with law enforcement to give families emotional support while they wait for justice for their loved ones. The group also tries to raise money to help continue the investigations.

“It’s not about patting ourselves on the back: It’s about the families, and it’s about the victims,” Cobourn asserts.

Denise Vlahakis is one of the nonprofit’s founding members. After leaving work at the Hendersonville Road Wal-Mart at 9 p.m., her son, Zebb Quinn, went missing on Jan. 2, 2000. Two weeks later, authorities found his light-blue Mazda Protege in the parking lot of the Little Pigs Barbecue restaurant; a pair of lips with two exclamation marks was drawn on the rear window in lipstick, and inside the vehicle was a live black Labrador puppy.

The case garnered national attention when it aired on the Investigation Discovery Channel show “Disappeared” recently. But even without that increased exposure, Cobourn says she feels a strong attachment to this high-profile case and to Vlahakis as a mother.

“I have kids, and I’m not sure, if I was in her shoes, if I’d even be able to breathe. So I kind of take that approach to Zebb,” confesses Cobourn.

An abiding passion

Taylor, who’s worked in the APD’s Criminal Investigations Department since 1994, has a different style. “She’s a little more outgoing than I am,” he remarks.

Cobourn, an investigator since 2006, agrees. “Where I’m pretty much like full-steam-ahead, Kevin will say no. Where I may want to charge forward, Kevin will slow me down.” She pauses. “He knows when to slow down, whereas I’m still learning that boundary.”

Nonetheless, the two share an abiding passion for what they do. “I always aspired to work these types of cases,” Taylor explains. “I enjoy working other cases as well, but I find the challenge of these to be the most intriguing.”

It isn’t glamorous. Rather than riding around in a squad car, these detectives spend most of their time ruminating over cases, their two desks separated by a little blue rug.

“It may mean months of going through cell-phone bills. It may mean weeks on this computer trying to find a witness that was never interviewed,” Cobourn emphasizes. “I spend a lot of time sitting right here.”

Currently, the pair are investigating about six cold cases.

“There are those days when it’s like you look at it and you look at it and you still think you’ve missed something,” Cobourn explains. “It’s like I have lived, slept, eaten and breathed some of these cases,” she says softly.

Taylor nods. Glancing at his partner in solving crimes, he says in a low echo, “I’m always thinking about one of them.”

If you have any information about these and other cold cases, call Det. Cobourn at (828) 259-5923 or Crimestoppers at 255-5050.

— Caitlin Byrd can be reached at cbyrd@mountainx.com, or at 251-1333, ext. 140.

Event: Vigil for Kristen Modafferi 6/23/2012

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/06/22/3335917/vigil-saturday-15-years-after.html

Vigil Saturday, 15 years after Kristen Modafferi disappeared

By Meghan Cooke
macooke@charlotteobserver.com

Posted: Friday, Jun. 22, 2012

Kristen Modafferi of Charlotte was last seen on June 23, 1997, leaving her job at a coffeehouse in San Francisco. The rising sophomore at N.C. State University had moved there for the summer to work and take a class at the University of California at Berkeley.

On the 15th anniversary of Kristen Modafferi’s disappearance, organizers of a foundation for missing adults will gather Saturday in Frazier Park to remember her.
Modafferi, a Providence High School graduate, was 18 when she was last seen on June 23, 1997, leaving her job at a coffeehouse in San Francisco. The rising sophomore – and Park Scholar – at N.C. State University had moved there for the summer to work and take a class at the University of California at Berkeley.
A year after her disappearance, police said they suspected foul play. But her case remains unsolved.
Joan Scanlon-Petruski, a neighbor of Modafferi’s parents’, created the Kristen Foundation, which gives assistance to families searching for missing and endangered adults. The foundation has provided search teams with equipment and placed “missing person” billboards across the country.
On Saturday, organizers will gather at 10 a.m. at the Children’s Memorial Walkway in Frazier Park to remember Modafferi and others missing from the Charlotte area. Scanlon-Petruski is inviting area families with missing loved ones to join them and seek help from the foundation.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/06/22/3335917/vigil-saturday-15-years-after.html#storylink=cpy

Family Hopes Billboard will Help Missing Jamie Fraley

http://charlotte.news14.com/content/video_stories/622229/family-hopes-billboard-will-help-in-missing-person-case?ap=1&MP4

GASTONIA, N.C. – The Kristen Foundation paid for a new billboard along I-85 in the hopes of sparking some tips in the 2008 missing persons case of Jamie Fraley. She'll turn 24 this march, and her family is continuing their search for her.
The I-85 billboard is the second one the Kristen Foundation has put up to help find Fraley.
The foundation is working about 100 cases, and the organizer decided to profile about three cases a month. They chose this month to profile Fraley, who went missing from Gastonia in 2008.
"The families are very alone," Joan Petruski, of the Kristen Foundation, said. "They don't have the finances to do this kind of thing, so that's what we do."
The foundation is also bringing to the forefront the cases of Kristen Modafferia, a Charlotte native who went missing in California, and a missing person case from New Jersey.
For families the Kristen Foundation helps, they say billboards can really make a difference.
“We have to keep doing every little thing that we can do,” Jamie Fraley's mother, Kim Fraley, said. “We can't just give up.”
But the foundation needs donations to continue missing persons campaigns, and there are other families out there with the same kind of hope.

Foundation keeps memory of Kristen Modafferi alive

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/03/07/3063068/foundation-keeps-memory-of-kristen.html

The future was bright for Charlotte resident Kristen Modafferi on June 1, 1997. It was her 18th birthday and she was flying to San Francisco to spend a summer exploring the city. She would begin photography classes at the University of California Berkeley on June 24.
As a member of the first class of Park Scholars at N.C. State University, she had completed her freshman year as an industrial design major and had been encouraged to plan an enriching summer to share with her peers at the start of her sophomore year.
But the life experiences the Providence High School graduate had hoped for never came to be. On June 23, Kristen left her shift at a coffee house in the financial district of downtown San Francisco and disappeared.
To the heartbreak of her parents, Bob and Debbie Modafferi, her case remains unsolved.
Because Kristen was 18, law enforcement classified her as an endangered/at-risk adult, so child-search organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children were unable to feature her in their notices.
There were also no federal or state funds to assist the Modafferis in their search, and social networking was years away.
With no significant clues, a remembrance mass was held for her at St. Matthew Catholic Church in June 1998.
Inspired by the crisis, Joan Petruski-Scanlon, a neighbor of the Modafferis in Providence Plantation, asked them if she could help raise awareness and funds to maintain the search.
What began as a kind gesture evolved into a nonprofit organization that helps search for missing adults nationwide.
In 1999, Petruski-Scanlon launched The Kristen Foundation to provide financial and informational assistance to family members of missing persons older than 18 and designated as endangered/at-risk by law enforcement.
To date, the organization has provided emotional support and assistance to more than 100 families in their searches for loved ones. Petruski-Scanlon, who works strictly as a volunteer, is determined to reach more.
"I have many goals for the foundation, most importantly to create a base in all states, which we have started to do. All information and financial assistance would still come out of Charlotte, but others will run the foundation and help families in their state," says the 60-year-old mother of two grown daughters.
More than $200,000 has been raised so far through the annual Crystal Ball Dinner Dance and Golf Classic events as well as the sale of cookbooks, DNA Legacy Testing Kits and memorial bracelets.
"The monies are used in many ways. We provide fliers, billboards, private investigators, search teams and travel expenses for family members. We also buy equipment for search teams and sheriffs' departments," says Petruski-Scanlon. "Where we cannot always bring a loved one home alive, we have been successful in bringing closure to many families."
She also educates young adults on effective personal safety and security, gives speeches on what to do if a loved goes missing and lobbies national, state and local leaders to provide strategies for effective investigations.
Petruski-Scanlon stresses that the foundation needs help in many areas, particularly in getting information about the foundation out to the public, assisting with fundraisers and promoting the sale of the "Expect Miracles" bracelets. She would appreciate donations or help from anyone interested in getting behind her cause.
Petruski-Scanlon remains close to the Modafferis and says, "They go about their lives as we all do, but with a place in their hearts missing."
As the result of lobbying by the Modafferis, Kristen's Law was passed in 2000 to help families searching for missing adults. This law helped establish the National Center for Missing Adults, which provides funding for searches.
On their website dedicated to finding Kristen, modlink.com, the Modafferis say they fear Kristen could still be at risk, unable to contact her family or friends, and they say, "...we cling to the hope that she is still alive and we remain very proactive in the search to find her."
With the 15th anniversary of Kristen's disappearance approaching, Petruski-Scanlon says she will be doing billboards and other media in California to keep Kristen's profile in the public eye.
"I will try to never let Kristen be forgotten. She was here for only a short time - a beautiful, bright young lady. The Kristen Foundation is her legacy. So many families have been helped through her, and we would love for her to come home."

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/03/07/3063068/foundation-keeps-memory-of-kristen.html#storylink=cpy

Woman missing 14 years inspired change for similar cases

http://charlotte.news14.com/content/top_stories/642820/woman-missing-14-years-inspired-change-for-similar-cases

CHARLOTTE – A Charlotte woman who disappeared 14 years ago Thursday has left a legacy of change for missing adults.
Kristen Modafferi vanished in San Francisco three weeks after she turned 18.
“She decided to go out there as part of her schooling from N.C. State, and you know, not a thought that something would happen,” said Joan Petruski, the founder of the Kristen Foundation.
Because she was an adult, her parents struggled to find help with their search, so the Modafferis worked to create Kristen's Act, a national law that changed the way missing adult cases are handled.
“I asked them what they needed, they needed help. They needed financial help and there was nothing coming out of the national center in Washington so I started raising money and that's basically where the Kristen Foundation started. And how it is now, I perceive it as, well, it is Kristen's legacy,” Petruski said.
Kristen's Act was signed into law Nov. 9, 2000. It allows the attorney general to give money to organizations that help find missing adults. It also created a national, interconnected database to track missing adults who are determined endangered.
The law requires statistics be kept regarding missing adults and provides resources for families of missing adults.
Through the Kristen Foundation, Petruski said she's helped more than 160 families across the country in the search for their children.
Petruski said Modafferi's case was closed by investigators because there were no leads. Despite that, there are still billboards in San Francisco reminding people she's missing.

http://www.t-g.com/story/1783508.html

Donated billboard keeps missing persons in view

Friday, November 11, 2011

By TRACY SIMMONS ~ tsimmons@t-g.com

A billboard featuring photos of Shelbyville's missing was installed on Madison Street early Thursday morning. (Mook's first name is misspelled.) The sign was donated by the Kristen Foundation.
(T-G Photo by Tracy Simmons) [Order this photo]

A national organization has donated a billboard featuring photos of Shelbyville's Missing. Installed near the 1200 block of Madison Street facing east, the photos of Bobby Smelcer, Antonio Taylor and Shelley Jones Mook remind drivers of the families who continue to search for their missing loved ones.
The Kristen Foundation is a national non-profit for missing adults named after Kristen Modafferi, missing since 1997. Joan Scanlon-Petruski, a neighbor of the Modafferi family, started the foundation in 1999, and continues to assist the families of missing people throughout the country.
'Important' plea
"When I was contacted by Kristy [Smelcer, sister of Bobby], we thought the request [was] important, and were happy to be able to get the billboard up right away," said Petruski.
"By getting the names and photos of the missing out there as often as we can, our hope is that someone will see it and remember something, or be moved to call and give law enforcement the information they need to bring some answers to the families."
Dusty's Outdoor Media donated the billboard space and rental free of charge.
Search continues
Taylor, then 21, has been missing since Sept. 20, 1999. Smelcer, then 52, went missing Nov. 21, 2010. Mook, then 24, was last seen Feb. 28.
Rewards for information concerning the disappearances of Smelcer and Taylor are $5,000 and $3,000 respectively. Contact the Shelbyville Police Department at 684-5811 or anonymously call Crimestoppers at 685-4300.
The reward for information concerning the disappearance of Mook is $20,000. Contact the Bedford County Sheriff's Department at 684-3232 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND.
For more information on the Kristen Foundation, visit www.kristenfoundation.org/.

She leads the hunt for missing adults

http://blog.sfgate.com/crime/2010/03/04/she-leads-the-hunt-for-missing-adults/

After 7 Years, 'Missing' Butler Man Found

   

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A Butler man who had been declared missing since 2004 was found safely in September, according to a statement released by Capt. Jeffrey Paul speaking on behalf of Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi.
But it is possible that Timothy Carney was never missing at all.
According to Carney's family, the then-25-year-old was last seen on September 28, 2004 by his roommate, Roy Anthony, at their Butler Ridge apartment. Tri-Boro Patch reported last year that Carney allegedly called his employer to say he would be late for work and was not heard from after that. His car was found abandoned on the side of the road at the border of Elizabeth and Newark.
"Mr. Carney was reported missing on September 28, 2004. He was subsequently located on September 23, 2011 and as a result was cleared from the missing person’s database," Paul said Tuesday. "Mr. Carney was found alive and well but did not wish to disclose his whereabouts."
Carney's parents, Phyllis and Ed, spent years looking for their son and, with help from The Kristen Foundation, a national organization dedicated to bringing home missing persons, on several occasions paid for billboards to be placed on Route 23 advertising that Carney was missing and a phone number anyone who saw him should call.
Paul said Carney's parents were notified in September that he was located and that the missing person's case, which was filed jointly by the Morris County Prosecutor's Office Missing Persons Unit and the Butler Police Department, has since been closed.
A call to Carney's parents was not immediately returned Tuesday.
Joan Petruski, who founded The Kristen Foundation in 1998 after her own daughter went missing in 1997, said she and Carney's family members still believe that the Gospel Outreach, a religious organization led by Jim Lethbridge, could have influenced Carney to not make contact with his family for such a long time and could still be influencing him today.
"We know where he is and his family knows where he is but we don't really know what's in his mind right now," she said. "Hopefully, he'll stay put where he is."
Carney's mother told Tri-Boro Patch last March that her son and his roommate were both members of the Gospel Outreach and that the leaders of the organization became controlling, at one point insisting they accompany Carney to a hospital to visit his sick aunt because they believed he was lying about where he was going.
Petruski said Carney's family believes he is currently living in Chicago but that they are "as perplexed as anybody else" as to why he did not contact them for so long. While it seems as though Carney may have willingly not made contact with his family members, Petruski said she and his family are not discouraged that they put forth effort to search for him for so many years. Instead, they are just glad he is safe.
"We'd rather have him alive and well than any other circumstances," she said. "The family is happy about that and I don't think they hold anything (against him) other than they're happy he's alive and they'll work from there."

Billboard Brings New Hope

Video about the Billboard for Dedrick Smith

Winston-Salem, NC-- Long after stories of the missing stop making headlines, the families are left to search and try to maintain hope. A renewed search for a Winston-Salem man, Dedrick Smith, who disappeared in 2006, is giving his family a fresh outlook - that perhaps he may be found.
Dedrick was 6'1" and 178 pounds when he was reported missing.

His mom, Debra Smith, says Dedrick called her at 2 a.m. on October 2nd, 2006 and explained he wouldn't be home that night. He was with his girlfriend, according to his mother.

Since that night, there's been no sighting or even one clue to help police or Debra find her missing son

"It's a struggle everyday to wake up and not know, the child that you birthed, where is your child?," she said as she tried to hold back tears

Dedrick's aunt, Belinda Smith, also can't believe no one has found her nephew's car. It was a 1993 Pontiac Grand AM with North Carolina license plate number NYB3645. It also seems to have vanished into thin air.

"This was not a part of him," said Belinda who explains that Dedrick was close to his family and always maintained contact.

Two neighborhood searches and hundreds of flyers have yielded nothing since 2006.

"What we were doing, we were beating at the air even though we were doing everything we knew to do," said Belinda of their futile attempts to find Dedrick.

Since it became apparent Dedrick was missing, Debra has kept busy with work to ease some of the pain but she says it still creeps up on her.

"At the end of the day, that's when it all hits. When things are quiet, peaceful, everybody is at home with their family and you're wondering, where is my child?" she said

Monday, the Smith family will renew the search
"I need peace and I need closure," said Debra.

Drivers along Sillas Creek Parkway will have a larger-than-life reminder of what Dedrick Smith looks like as they travel along the road starting Modnay.
A billboard will be erected with Dedrick's picture along the 2000 block in hopes it would bring in a lead.
"You've got to get the community talking about it because nobody is going to come forward if nobody is talking about it," said Betty Brown. Brown is with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) and has been closely helping the family line up the billboard.

She explains the cost is being covered by The Kristen Foundation, a non-profit that helps families with endangered adults.

The Smith family says even as they hold on to hope, they are prepared for the worst. They say finding Dedrick's body would be better than never knowing what happened to him.

"I know that we will get an answer. We cannot lose hope. No," said Belinda.

Dedrick is one of just hundreds of missing people across the state.

You can see pictures and profiles of some of them by clicking here.
If you have any information call Crime Stoppers at 727-2800