Griping and complaining about the lack of progress in a cold case homicide or sexual assault case is easy.  Yet, the fact that someone hears those issues is a change in the landscape for families of cold case victims.  One of the hallmarks of victim families is feeling alone.

Parents of Murdered Children, Phoenix, and Homicide Survivors, Tuscon, changed that landscape.  These non profit organizations support and educate families of murder victims with meetings, newsletters, and people who listen.  For families with cold case homicides and felony sexual assaults there are specific legal and judicial issues that are now surfacing:

1. Poorly done police investigations;

2. Lack of cooperation between police and families;

3. Understanding how new technologies in forensics either blend or replace old police detection methods;

4. Encouraging and helping to make an investigative effort more productive moving toward an arrest and all those promised notifications;

5. Assurance that evidence is being stored properly; and,

6. Investigation oversight

It's a different process when a case goes cold after a year.  Flashing lights, sirens, and guns neatly concealed on belts don't reassure anything.  A constant nagging hope begins to arise that families shocked into the world of homicide don't have to suffer the same issues.  Let's put it this way: At the moment you read this and the next homicide occurs, the clock starts ticking for the investigator, the perpetrator, and the victim's family.  The investigator has at hand all the current available tools to solve the case though funding and access to those tools may fall short let alone the investigator probably learned detection in a medieval master-apprentice vocational teaching arrangement not governed by certification standards.  The perpetrator, if sober by now, has the option of hundreds of choices and the right to remain silent and use of appointed legal counsel at taxpayer expense, which extends to the perpetrator's marital partner, if the perpetrator is in such a relationship.  What does the victim family have?

The answer: self initiative.

In exploring options on the Robert Krahn Murder  I found no one really to mentor me through the process.  Thankfully, victim rights laws, patient people, and support kept me going.  Nothing was in place though to say this is what you do if the murder you are worried about goes cold.  The entire process is intimidating.  The killer hiding behind anonymity uses that to intimidate people into silence.   Whether the police investigators believe it or not, they use their image and position to intimidate victim families into silence.  The silence required seems to emanate from an inept and inert criminal justice system that is more focused on trying cases that will result in easy convictions and good political, yes, political, press releases.

Families of homicide and sexual assault victims are left to join the few organizations available to get support and direction.  These organizations are hallmarks of courage and issue recognition for crime victims.  It's not a matter of them falling short, being inadequate, or deserving criticism.  It's the next step for families of cold case victims to focus their efforts in conjunction with POMC and Homicide Survivors.  It's a natural extension of these to groups to organize an additional effort for families involved in cold cases.  Waiting 30 years for justice, being told that efforts to resolve the case are interference, biding time to see if forensic tests were even requested or interviews were being done, and depending solely on the criminal justice system for case success are all outrageous burdens to carry.  Coming together to seek other options is natural; it's American; it's within our rights as citizens.  Because families and friends of homicide victims disagree with police efforts should not be a basis for treating those family and friends as a "hostile citizen" or like an insurgent.  The role of families and friend of cold case homicide and felony sexual assault victims is not to be oppressed by a perpetrator and to be dismissed as though the Constitution requires victim families and friends to assume a less than active role.