thank you very much let’s begin with a
little levity and interactive exercise
for fun by a show of hands please who
here and say the last six months has
watched or streamed either a cable or
network crime drama of some kind
Criminal Minds Law & Order SVU Sherlock
NCIS CSI and you thought I was going to
judge you but the reality is we all
watch them their guilty pleasures if
nothing else they make for a great hour
of diversion a great hour of escapism
before we go back to our lives and on
that note consider traditionally
speaking crime dramas consists of 22
one-hour episodes per season where the
crime of the week almost always murder
is wrapped up conveniently in that same
hour or forty four and a half minutes
after commercials but what if what if in
10 or 11 of those episodes or in some
seasons 15 or 16 of those episodes your
favorite protagonists let the killer get
away with it would have half the time
half the season you didn’t know how the
story ended or if it ended at all on
that note let me show and tell you what
you won’t see on television this is what
we call the murder curve it’s something
that when I was a police officer as a
mid-career cop gave me a real crisis of
faith something that kept me up at night
and still does something that hammered
home the discrepancy between the
mythology of police work and criminal
investigations and its day to day
reality the standard XY graph but in
this case one that depicts the
plummeting solved rate or what we call
the clearance rate for murder on this
continent over the last 50 years have a
look the truth is we solve fewer murders
per capita today than we did 45 years
ago before DNA before centralized
fingerprint and ballistics databases
before watch lists or registries or any
of the automated forensic technologies
we take for granted the technologies we
think will keep us safe and no one knows
why what we do know if you have a look
at the graph is that 2016 marked the
lowest solved rate in recorded history
there are fewer murderers apprehended in
the United States and 2016 than there
were in 1935 before any of these
technologies at just over fifty percent
nationally and even lower than that in
some cities one in two killers were
never even identified we’re not talking
about suspected and not arrested or
arrested and prosecuted and then
acquitted on some technicality
nationwide one in two never identified
walking the streets including by the way
an estimated 3,000 serial killers still
based on this arithmetic someone
actually figured out a few years ago
depending where you live or work you’re
likely to whether directly or indirectly
interact with cross paths with drive
past walk pass swipe left or swipe right
passed up to sixteen serial killers in
your lifetime one way or another sixteen
of these people will enter your orbit
and if you’re lucky you won’t even know
well it seized my attention a few years
ago and I knew there had to be a better
way I knew this was a problem you see
everyone is obsessed with the total
number of murders the media politicians
they talk about X number of murders this
year compared to X number last year or
the murder rate in this city is X times
what it is in this other city but this
is the question no one is asking is what
happens to those cases where do they go
how many get solved so that was my
crisis of faith like I mentioned I
watched as so many murders went unsolved
not because they were unsolvable they
didn’t hit a wall in the conventional
sense or like you see on television most
actually just fizzled out for some
comparatively less glamorous and heroic
reason they would fall victim to
competing resources a complete lack of
resources interpersonal conflict a lack
of political will or just plain old
bureaucracy that’s really why most
murders go unsolved and when they go and
solve long enough people start to forget
people forget long enough what was once
an active investigation into a life
stolen goes into stasis goes into
hibernation proverbial refrigeration
that’s why we call them cold cases and
that’s precisely why I founded the cold
case society at Western University a
think-tank
an interdisciplinary group of professors
and students who two times a week leave
their regularly scheduled lives to apply
their expertise whether existing
expertise or emerging or burgeoning
expertise and most importantly their
passion for cold cases for unsolved
mysteries they leverage the full
intellectual and technological might of
a major university campus which is
one-stop shopping for every forensic
science conceivable and then the last
few years have turned it into the most
badass after
Google Club on the planet it’s true
think of us as a diverse group of
intellectuals who range from astronomers
to zoologist engineers to English
literature professors all united in the
cause for finding answers and students
in those disciplines and many more
students who bring fresh eyes and new
perspectives to these mysteries who know
nothing about bureaucracy all they know
is possibility millennial mind hunters
who will enter the minds and do enter
the minds of killers whose crimes date
so that was my call to action that was
the solution to my crisis of faith
so while still a cop and later a
detective by night I went back to
graduate school by day doing first a
master’s degree and then a PhD forging a
new trail breaking new ground in applied
criminology and yet the whole time
getting back in touch with my first
degree which was not in criminology but
believe it or not in archaeology and
that’s because before I thought I wanted
to become a cop I wanted to be Indiana
Jones it’s true
and then I realized they’re kind of
already the same thing you see
archaeology is of course the study of
our collective pass through its
artifacts its remnants relics unearthed
and studied in contemporary times that
tell us stories about earlier societies
how they lived and how they died and
that’s precisely what cold cases are an
excavation of the past and it’s most
puzzling and painful mysteries so I
thought if I could overlay that
philosophy that archaeological
methodology onto unsolved murders
elevate cold cases from being just paper
files or bankers boxes collecting dust
and make them artifacts worthy of
scientific scrutiny subject to the
scientific method
I could turn cold case studies into its
own academic discipline into its own
field of scholarship and this was
initially very exciting for a number of
people law enforcement other academics
and the families of these victims there
was some skeptics there’s some people
who said how are you gonna make cold
case studies its own field and my
response it’s basic math again there are
about 1,800 specimens in the dinosaur
fossil record no one debates
paleontology being a field an area of
scientific expertise there are over a
quarter million cold cases on this
continent in the last 40 years alone
it’s an issue of scalability there are
also people who were worried naturally
that if this is a program at a
university I’m just going to be like a
prolonged episode of scooby-doo churning
out meddling kid after meddling kid year
but very quickly our results said
otherwise
I remember just a few months into this
initiative I’m sitting in my office and
a report from a student in the club
Society comes across my desk and I
realized very quickly it contains a very
lengthy transcript of what appears to be
a telephone call
I soon realized the subject the
recipient of this call placed by a
student is a suspected serial killer
who’s been on the run since 1968 when he
absconded in May of that year from his
police polygraph in New York City
thought to be dead but located
interviewed through a one-party consent
recording and a confession elicited from
a student and that’s when I realized
this could change everything
I also took a serious knuckle rapping by
the university’s administration it turns
out students communicating directly with
and yet here we are stronger than ever
still standing still standing and beyond
our own successes I look to other
successes born out of the same
philosophy that drives us the creative
engine that keeps us going I look to the
retired for instance patent attorney and
amateur genealogist a field no one
thought would have any forensic
applicability just even a few years ago
and yet in the last 12 months she has
closed 15 cold-case murders using
genealogy including by the way catching
the alleged Golden State killer one of
the most elusive serial murderers on
record
so with these successes and the
possibility of this in mind amid this
problem I want you to start thinking
about law enforcement and Criminal
Investigations differently not about
privatization deregulation even but
about democratization disruption this is
one of the last industries that has not
been disrupted we will always need the
men in women in blue but what about you
what about you and I ask that because
the next frontier for the cold-case
society is beyond the university and
it’s in the workplace you may be doing
work like that genealogist I mentioned
like my students right now that can be
leveraged to help with the mission start
pulling the solved rate out of the
basement your work right now could make
a difference and if not okay what are
you doing after work because I know what
my students and I and other professors
are doing you can join an Ultimate
Frisbee League or you can join a league
it’s time to get in touch with your
inner
crimefighter the reality is this an
estimated 95% of all crime is solved
through some form of citizen engagement
and involvement and that’s really what
this is just take it to a higher plane
people are looking for meaning for
something beyond their nine-to-five this
could be your calling we need all the
help we can get
and now you may say okay Mike that makes
sense but you know what as disingenuous
and as fictitious as television maybe
that’s how I prefer to deal with crime
vicariously passively from a safe
viewing distance I’m not really
interested and I don’t think I have the
temperament for a real-life crime and to
that I say maybe so but I’ll tell you
this real-life crime it sure as hell
interested in you so it’s up to you what
you want to do about that but I would
suggest sitting idly by is not an option
as I just explained we are solving fewer
murders today than ever quarter million
on this continent in the last two
generations alone quarter million
killers still walking around this has
nothing to do with reinventing the wheel
quitting what you’re doing and going and
becoming a cop this has everything to do
with not being a cop and doing what
you’re already doing everyone has value
and expertise they can impart for this
mission Mission Control will always be
at Western University but the idea is to
have satellite teams all over the place
so remember and take it from me you are
never too old and it is never too late
to join an after-school Club
thank you very much [Applause]
little levity and interactive exercise
for fun by a show of hands please who
here and say the last six months has
watched or streamed either a cable or
network crime drama of some kind
Criminal Minds Law & Order SVU Sherlock
NCIS CSI and you thought I was going to
judge you but the reality is we all
watch them their guilty pleasures if
nothing else they make for a great hour
of diversion a great hour of escapism
before we go back to our lives and on
that note consider traditionally
speaking crime dramas consists of 22
one-hour episodes per season where the
crime of the week almost always murder
is wrapped up conveniently in that same
hour or forty four and a half minutes
after commercials but what if what if in
10 or 11 of those episodes or in some
seasons 15 or 16 of those episodes your
favorite protagonists let the killer get
away with it would have half the time
half the season you didn’t know how the
story ended or if it ended at all on
that note let me show and tell you what
you won’t see on television this is what
we call the murder curve it’s something
that when I was a police officer as a
mid-career cop gave me a real crisis of
faith something that kept me up at night
and still does something that hammered
home the discrepancy between the
mythology of police work and criminal
investigations and its day to day
reality the standard XY graph but in
this case one that depicts the
plummeting solved rate or what we call
the clearance rate for murder on this
continent over the last 50 years have a
look the truth is we solve fewer murders
per capita today than we did 45 years
ago before DNA before centralized
fingerprint and ballistics databases
before watch lists or registries or any
of the automated forensic technologies
we take for granted the technologies we
think will keep us safe and no one knows
why what we do know if you have a look
at the graph is that 2016 marked the
lowest solved rate in recorded history
there are fewer murderers apprehended in
the United States and 2016 than there
were in 1935 before any of these
technologies at just over fifty percent
nationally and even lower than that in
some cities one in two killers were
never even identified we’re not talking
about suspected and not arrested or
arrested and prosecuted and then
acquitted on some technicality
nationwide one in two never identified
walking the streets including by the way
an estimated 3,000 serial killers still
based on this arithmetic someone
actually figured out a few years ago
depending where you live or work you’re
likely to whether directly or indirectly
interact with cross paths with drive
past walk pass swipe left or swipe right
passed up to sixteen serial killers in
your lifetime one way or another sixteen
of these people will enter your orbit
and if you’re lucky you won’t even know
well it seized my attention a few years
ago and I knew there had to be a better
way I knew this was a problem you see
everyone is obsessed with the total
number of murders the media politicians
they talk about X number of murders this
year compared to X number last year or
the murder rate in this city is X times
what it is in this other city but this
is the question no one is asking is what
happens to those cases where do they go
how many get solved so that was my
crisis of faith like I mentioned I
watched as so many murders went unsolved
not because they were unsolvable they
didn’t hit a wall in the conventional
sense or like you see on television most
actually just fizzled out for some
comparatively less glamorous and heroic
reason they would fall victim to
competing resources a complete lack of
resources interpersonal conflict a lack
of political will or just plain old
bureaucracy that’s really why most
murders go unsolved and when they go and
solve long enough people start to forget
people forget long enough what was once
an active investigation into a life
stolen goes into stasis goes into
hibernation proverbial refrigeration
that’s why we call them cold cases and
that’s precisely why I founded the cold
case society at Western University a
think-tank
an interdisciplinary group of professors
and students who two times a week leave
their regularly scheduled lives to apply
their expertise whether existing
expertise or emerging or burgeoning
expertise and most importantly their
passion for cold cases for unsolved
mysteries they leverage the full
intellectual and technological might of
a major university campus which is
one-stop shopping for every forensic
science conceivable and then the last
few years have turned it into the most
badass after
Google Club on the planet it’s true
think of us as a diverse group of
intellectuals who range from astronomers
to zoologist engineers to English
literature professors all united in the
cause for finding answers and students
in those disciplines and many more
students who bring fresh eyes and new
perspectives to these mysteries who know
nothing about bureaucracy all they know
is possibility millennial mind hunters
who will enter the minds and do enter
the minds of killers whose crimes date
so that was my call to action that was
the solution to my crisis of faith
so while still a cop and later a
detective by night I went back to
graduate school by day doing first a
master’s degree and then a PhD forging a
new trail breaking new ground in applied
criminology and yet the whole time
getting back in touch with my first
degree which was not in criminology but
believe it or not in archaeology and
that’s because before I thought I wanted
to become a cop I wanted to be Indiana
Jones it’s true
and then I realized they’re kind of
already the same thing you see
archaeology is of course the study of
our collective pass through its
artifacts its remnants relics unearthed
and studied in contemporary times that
tell us stories about earlier societies
how they lived and how they died and
that’s precisely what cold cases are an
excavation of the past and it’s most
puzzling and painful mysteries so I
thought if I could overlay that
philosophy that archaeological
methodology onto unsolved murders
elevate cold cases from being just paper
files or bankers boxes collecting dust
and make them artifacts worthy of
scientific scrutiny subject to the
scientific method
I could turn cold case studies into its
own academic discipline into its own
field of scholarship and this was
initially very exciting for a number of
people law enforcement other academics
and the families of these victims there
was some skeptics there’s some people
who said how are you gonna make cold
case studies its own field and my
response it’s basic math again there are
about 1,800 specimens in the dinosaur
fossil record no one debates
paleontology being a field an area of
scientific expertise there are over a
quarter million cold cases on this
continent in the last 40 years alone
it’s an issue of scalability there are
also people who were worried naturally
that if this is a program at a
university I’m just going to be like a
prolonged episode of scooby-doo churning
out meddling kid after meddling kid year
but very quickly our results said
otherwise
I remember just a few months into this
initiative I’m sitting in my office and
a report from a student in the club
Society comes across my desk and I
realized very quickly it contains a very
lengthy transcript of what appears to be
a telephone call
I soon realized the subject the
recipient of this call placed by a
student is a suspected serial killer
who’s been on the run since 1968 when he
absconded in May of that year from his
police polygraph in New York City
thought to be dead but located
interviewed through a one-party consent
recording and a confession elicited from
a student and that’s when I realized
this could change everything
I also took a serious knuckle rapping by
the university’s administration it turns
out students communicating directly with
and yet here we are stronger than ever
still standing still standing and beyond
our own successes I look to other
successes born out of the same
philosophy that drives us the creative
engine that keeps us going I look to the
retired for instance patent attorney and
amateur genealogist a field no one
thought would have any forensic
applicability just even a few years ago
and yet in the last 12 months she has
closed 15 cold-case murders using
genealogy including by the way catching
the alleged Golden State killer one of
the most elusive serial murderers on
record
so with these successes and the
possibility of this in mind amid this
problem I want you to start thinking
about law enforcement and Criminal
Investigations differently not about
privatization deregulation even but
about democratization disruption this is
one of the last industries that has not
been disrupted we will always need the
men in women in blue but what about you
what about you and I ask that because
the next frontier for the cold-case
society is beyond the university and
it’s in the workplace you may be doing
work like that genealogist I mentioned
like my students right now that can be
leveraged to help with the mission start
pulling the solved rate out of the
basement your work right now could make
a difference and if not okay what are
you doing after work because I know what
my students and I and other professors
are doing you can join an Ultimate
Frisbee League or you can join a league
it’s time to get in touch with your
inner
crimefighter the reality is this an
estimated 95% of all crime is solved
through some form of citizen engagement
and involvement and that’s really what
this is just take it to a higher plane
people are looking for meaning for
something beyond their nine-to-five this
could be your calling we need all the
help we can get
and now you may say okay Mike that makes
sense but you know what as disingenuous
and as fictitious as television maybe
that’s how I prefer to deal with crime
vicariously passively from a safe
viewing distance I’m not really
interested and I don’t think I have the
temperament for a real-life crime and to
that I say maybe so but I’ll tell you
this real-life crime it sure as hell
interested in you so it’s up to you what
you want to do about that but I would
suggest sitting idly by is not an option
as I just explained we are solving fewer
murders today than ever quarter million
on this continent in the last two
generations alone quarter million
killers still walking around this has
nothing to do with reinventing the wheel
quitting what you’re doing and going and
becoming a cop this has everything to do
with not being a cop and doing what
you’re already doing everyone has value
and expertise they can impart for this
mission Mission Control will always be
at Western University but the idea is to
have satellite teams all over the place
so remember and take it from me you are
never too old and it is never too late
to join an after-school Club
thank you very much [Applause]
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