State may revive cold case squad

? When Raymond Lundin and other cold case investigators reopened an unsolved slaying, they would post a photograph of the victim to look at as they worked.

“It was a reminder that this is a victim,” said Lundin, a member of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s cold case squad that operated from 1998 to 2007.

Disbanded in 2007 so its agents could handle the current load of cases, the cold case squad might return in a new incarnation, said KBI Director Bob Blecha.

Blecha, director since June 1, 2007, was assistant director of the field investigations division when the squad was started in 1998. Larry Welch was KBI director when the cold case squad was created.

The squad originally had four agents and a secretary but was whittled down by other demands. The KBI is authorized to have 95 agents but has 20 agent vacancies.

By the time a crime is cold, it is very difficult to solve, investigators said. “In my experience, they are the hardest cases to work,” said Lundin, a senior special agent.

Blecha said that often witnesses have died, moved or can’t be located, documents might have been lost, and statements by witnesses may have changed. Blecha said the KBI cold case squad was “successful in a number of old investigations.” The KBI laboratory received a grant to examine DNA evidence, which contributed to some of the success.

The cold case squad helped in the prosecution of four defendants. A fifth defendant died of natural causes just days after he was apprehended.

In the 2000s, cold case squad members surveyed cases to see which ones had enough DNA evidence to warrant comparison. One was the 1978 killing of a 17-year-old who was kidnapped and killed in western Kansas.

KBI officials are certain the killer was identified by DNA evidence. Huron Fields, a California man, was charged in the slaying in 2005, but he couldn’t be prosecuted in Kansas. However, Fields was convicted in federal court and is incarcerated until 2081.

The KBI squad also worked on the BTK serial murder case for one and a half years after Dennis Rader re-emerged in 2004, which was 30 years after killing the first of 10 victims.

Lundin said sometimes an investigator has a strong suspect in mind, has good evidence, but there just isn’t enough for a prosecutor to file charges.

In one case, a victim about 18 was “suddenly and savagely murdered,” Lundin said, and cold case investigators eliminated many suspects.

“I believe with some certainty we know who the defendant is, but there isn’t enough evidence,” Lundin said.

The suspect is walking around, and that is frustrating, Lundin said.

At times, time can help a case, said Senior Special Agent Brad Cordts, a former KBI cold case squad investigator.

Starting in 2001, Cordts investigated the 27-year-old slaying of a 13-year-old Johnson County girl, resulting in an arrest and eventual conviction of John Henry Horton in 2007.

Witnesses in the 1974 killing were 14-, 15- and 16-year-old youngsters, who can be difficult to interview. But by the time Cordts tracked them down 27 years later, some were mature mothers with children who were eager to help.

Horton, who was 27 when Wilson was killed, is 62 and serving his sentence in the Hutchinson Correctional Facility.

The KBI has talked to some retired agents, and perhaps by end of the year, retired agents might be reviewing old cases, Blecha said. Funding is the issue because the KBI can’t ask retired agents to put in a lot of hours without being paid.

As a cost-saving measure, the KBI has used retired agents to run background investigations after June 2007, including on members of the governor’s Cabinet and other key employees.