The Dallas County Cold Case Initiative Project

The Dallas Police Department has an inventory of cold case homicides, many of which are believed to be sexually motivated. The Dallas County District Attorney’s office is the lead agency for this task force. It is partnering with the already existing Dallas County Sexual Assault Response Team, which has been meeting regularly since 2009 to discuss ways to improve sexual assault response in Dallas County. This task force includes members from the Dallas Police Department, the Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center, the SANE Initiative, and the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences.

This project will work alongside the long-existing Dallas County SART to create a Violent Crimes Cold Case Task Force to ensure the collaboration between multiple service providers to establish an effective system to inventory, test, investigate, and prosecute cases arising out of unsolved homicides at the Dallas Police Department and various other local law enforcement partners.

This grant-funded project aims to reduce the number of homicide cold cases pending investigation by creating a Cold Case Unit. Likewise, it seeks to build stakeholders’ capacity in investigating and prosecuting cold cases to prevent the development and continuation of conditions leading to a significant number of unsolved homicide cases by creating a Violent Crimes Cold Case Taskforce. This project will contribute to keeping the community safe and provide justice to victims by holding offenders accountable through investigating violent cold cases, prosecuting the offenders, and achieving proper dispositions.