In yesterday’s blog, I said I’d be reviewing past questions raised on this blog over the last year and a half and today was going to examine one of those questions. There has been change of plans and I hope readers will understand why the question will wait until another day.
This blog is a continuation of the yesterday’s post which wondered how cold case detectives work. It was prompted by two separate news stories, one television and one newspaper.
The television story contained a phrase used by police officers who were investigating a criminal case- not an old one but one that threatened to disappear from the active category. The phrase was “planned re-visitation” and it referred to returning to people (possible witnesses) who had been interviewed before in hope of discovering something new.
The newspaper story was more intriguing as it related to an apparent crime committed almost two years ago. Here are two quotes from that story:
“About fifty officers and detectives are recanvassing a midtown neighborhood where a young Tucson girl went missing almost two years ago, trying to stir up new information in the case.”
“In addition to patrol officers, eight detectives are working the effort in hopes that residents will recall new information or tell investigators something they did not report earlier.”
Now, everyone knows that the New Hampshire State Police do not have the resources of the Tucson Police Department. Imagine, if the NHSP could devote just 25% of this sort of effort to finding the killer of Stacey Burns, there could be ten patrolmen and two detectives “revisiting” or “recanvassing” or “reinterviewing” those who just may have forgotten something or, better yet, remembered something.
It was just worth mentioning the effort of the Tucson PD in this case. By the way, the city of Tucson has a population of just over 1,000,000 while the state of New Hampshire’s population is over 1,300,000. I know, this is comparing apples to oranges, but doesn’t Stacey Burns (and her family and friends) deserve some additional effort to find her killer?
I say this all the time but if I am wrong about what is being done, please, someone, let me and the rest of the curious public know!
Duke
