those individuals who work on “cold-case”, unclassified cases

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L. de La Mornais, T. Donzel, A. Monange, K. Sullivan – France 2

France Televisions

While a third of murders would be dismissed out of the 15,000 recorded each year, investigators devote their lives to trying to solve them. Everyone has their technique to achieve this, and if some do not charge for their services, others have made a very lucrative business out of it.

He lives in the sunny and warm hills of Los Angeles (USA). But his domain is rather the cold. Billy Jensen is an investigative journalist. From his office with its mysterious atmosphere, he works on “cold cases”, those cold cases that have not been solved or forgotten by the police. In this huge country, the thousands of different police forces and jurisdictions do not always speak to each other, allowing murderers to slip through the cracks. “There are 15,000 murders a year in the United States, and a third of them remain unsolved”, he explains. Billy Jensen solves cases on a pro bono basis, but chronicles these cold cases in his books and has become a best-selling author.

Elsewhere, others are also investigating the “cold cases”. Jacob Grubbs does it mainly underwater, in North Carolina (USA). “On the sonar, we see that there is a vehicle below, then a second. We can make out the roof of the car, the hood and the trunk”, he says. He is looking for an old Chevrolet Camaro and will have to go and check at the bottom of the water: “These are three young men who went missing after a night out at a bar. We haven’t seen them in 40 years and I hope their bodies are brought back today.”. But he only finds a license plate, which is not that of the model sought. Other investigators, like Sheila Wysocki, have made a business out of it. She charges between 70 and 200 euros per hour. Faced with these thousands of unclassified cases each year, the needs are exploding. She has already trained 23 new “cold-case” investigators.


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