Help for several cold cases is on the horizon for the Albuquerque Police Department.
In a press conference on Jan. 25, APD brass updated the department’s progress with orphaned and departed homicide cases due to bringing in civilian investigators and a new homicide digital library.
“I think that we found a formula for going forward for justice for these families, and at the same time, we are rerunning these cases with today’s technology for evidence, such as DNA and fingerprints,” said APD Chief Harold Medina. “So that is where we are at with these orphaned cases and we are working to get these cases results and we will continue to move forward.”
Orphaned and departed
Most cases are categorized as active or closed in the homicide unit. According to APD, in the homicide unit, orphaned cases are defined as cases that belonged to a detective who left the department but did not close the case. Departed cases are cases that belong to a detective who left the unit, but is still working on that case.
Acting Deputy Chief for the Investigative Bureau, George Vega, said the department now has 16 homicide detectives in the homicide unit, which has increased from the nine detectives they had when he was hired in 2022.
“That was a lot of work for those detectives to be taking on the amount of cases they were seeing, which led to them not being able to get to some of the departed and orphaned cases,” Vega said. “That is what gave me the idea to bring other investigators in with investigative experience to come in and basically hit the ground running.”
The department currently has six civilian investigators, but hopes to acquire more. These investigators are retired police officers who have experience with this service. Just from the six investigators, there have been 67 cases reviewed, with 57 reviews completed and 11 arrests made.
“They look at the case and get it to the point where they believe it is ready for warrant or it can be sent to cold cases if there are no further things that need to be done,” Vega said. “At that point, it is transferred to one of the homicide detectives and they take it from there.”
Of those 67 reviewed cases, they discussed one of the department’s successful revisions of the case of Peggy Meyers, whose body was discovered in Santa Fe County. Once the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office was able to identify her remains and found that she lived in Albuquerque. APD’s homicide unit then took over the case and was able to find her alleged killer who was then living in Kansas.
The department also introduced the new homicide digital library that will convert hard copies into a digital platform. This will ensure proper documentation of all homicide investigations along with orphaned cases, case supervision and meeting needs of prosecutors for successful prosecution.
“We brought in new programs and we now have very accountable systems within homicide, and we will continue to work diligently to get these solved,” Medina said.