In this Sum it Up: great progress is being made in Ireland to solve some of their cold cases. A variety of police officers are looking into the cases of Paul Ryan (April 2003), Sandra Collins (Dec 2000), Emer O’Loughlin (April 2005), Dessie Fox (Sep 1990), Raonaid Murray (Sep 1999), Bernard Brian McGrath (March 1987), Marie Kilmartin (Dec 1993), and Rita Ponsford (Jan 1985). Hopefully, we will be able to read about the solutions in these cold cases!
Lost of departments have announced that they are picking up old cases again but could use the public’s assistance. Just a few:
The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department (CA) could use your help in solving two cold cases: Kimberlie Kantonen, last seen March 8, 1989, and Hannah Zaccaglini, last seen June 4, 1997. They are making progress and state that “progress in these cases could not have been made without the assistance of the media and the public we serve,” Sheriff Jon Lopey said. Still, many questions remain open.
If you have any information, please give them a call. Those with information regarding Kantonen should call Detective Frank Barrett at 842-8316. Those with information regarding Zaccaglini should contact Detective Jeff Moser 842-8764.
The Salt Lake City Police (Utah) could also use some help in the cold case of Patricia Ramirez. Patricia Ramirez, a chef in training was found strangled in July, 1986. “The murder was bad enough, but these individuals treated this body like trash and threw it to the side of the road,” said Salt Lake Police Sgt. Shawn Josephson.
Patricia’s murder is one of several unsolved homicides recently opened again by Salt Lake City Police’s Cold Case Squad. Detectives say things are progressing and hope a new piece of information might finally lead to an arrest. They believe Patricia, also known as Smurf to her friends, was dumped from a mid-1980’s black Pontiac Bonneville with four other people inside the vehicle at the time. Police hope someone will remember the car and call.
If you have any information about the 1986 murder of Patricia Ramirez, they can call the Salt Lake Police Tips for Cash hotline at (801) 799-4636. Callers can remain anonymous.
The FBI could also use a helping hand in cracking a code they have not been able to decipher since 1999. “On June 30, 1999, police officers in St. Louis, Missouri found the body of 41-year-old Ricky McCormick, who’d been murdered and dumped in a field. The only clues investigators recovered from the scene were two encrypted notes stuffed into the victim’s pockets.
Despite extensive work by our Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU), as well as help from the American Cryptogram Association, the meanings of those two coded notes remain a mystery to this day, and Ricky McCormick’s murderer has yet to face justice,” the FBI said in a press release.
CRRU chief Dan Olson added, “We are really good at what we do, but we could use some help with this one … Maybe someone with a fresh set of eyes might come up with a brilliant new idea.”
If you love a good puzzle, check out the photographs and see whether you can help the FBI decode these two notes that were found on Ricky McCormick’s dead body.
Last, the Huff Post Books reports that author Fred Burton is late finishing his book. Please excuse him while he solves a 37 year old cold case of Joe Alon! A murder he witnessed as a teenager…
“On a warm Saturday night in July 1973 in Bethesda Maryland, a gunman stepped out from behind a tree and fired five point-blank shots into Joe Alon, an unassuming Israeli Air Force pilot and family man. Alon’s sixteen-year-old neighbor, Fred Burton, was deeply shocked by this crime that rocked his sleepy suburban neighborhood.
As it turned out, Alon wasn’t just a pilot—he was a high-ranking military official and with intelligence ties. The assassin was never found and the case was closed. In 2007, Fred Burton—who had since become a State Department counterterrorism special agent—reopened the case.” The book is out now via Palgrave Macmillan.
Enjoy!