St. Johns County cold case gets fresh look from state commission
Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell, president of the Florida Sheriffs Association’s cold case advisory commission, addresses law enforcement and other officials gathered for a meeting of the group held at the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office on Friday. [PETER WILLOTT/THE RECORD]
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By Jared Keever
Posted Mar 17, 2018 at 2:01 AM
Updated Mar 17, 2018 at 6:14 AM
St. Augustine Record
A St. Johns County cold case is one of three cases getting a closer look by a team of experts from around the state.
Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell called it a “multidisciplinary team” during her opening remarks at a meeting of the Florida Sheriff’s Association Cold Case Advisory Commission Friday morning in the squad room at the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office.
She is chair of the commission, made up of medical examiners, representatives from various state attorney’s offices, investigators and other experts, that meets quarterly to review unsolved homicide cases. Later in the day Friday they planned to do just that with the case of Richard Jeffery Jackson, who was found stabbed to death in a St. Augustine Beach hotel room in 1982.
The group was also planning to look at the St. Lucie County death of Pamela Cantaline and the death of Thomas Wall who was shot to death in Putnam County in 2015.
“We don’t even like to call them cold cases,” St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar said as he got things started in the morning. “We like ‘old case’ ... We always like to at least reach out, even if it’s once a year, and touch them in some way.”
It’s important work, Darnell said, calling the growing number of cold cases in the state and across the country a “silent epidemic.”
“The reason our commission was formed by the Florida Sheriff’s Association back in about 2015 was because the numbers of unresolved murders and missing persons had been significantly increasing,” she said.
“It is estimated that there are 80,000 or more ... in the nation of missing persons with foul play suspected,” she added. “Most of them are likely murder victims. There are an additional 10,000 individuals who have been recovered but they have not been identified and therefore not claimed by their families.”
One reason many homicides go unsolved today, she said, is because so many of them are what she called “stranger homicides.”
Literature provided by the commission says that clearance rates in homicide cases decreased from 91 percent in 1965 to 63 percent in 2007.
“While numerous theories related to what caused this change exist, in the early [1960s] most homicide cases involved individuals who knew one another,” the pamphlet says. By the mid 90s though, 53 percent “of all murders were between strangers making them more difficult to solve.”
But with fresh eyes from all around the state looking at the three cases being reviewed on Friday, authorities are hopeful they can catch a break. Part of that can come from consulting with experts and reexamining old evidence that advances in technology, like DNA analysis, can make more meaningful.
That’s the hope of St. Johns County Sheriff Office Lt. Bobby Dean who just recently took another look at the Jackson case with Sgt. Jeremy Russell.
While waiting for the commission meeting to get under way on Friday, he spoke a little about the St. Augustine Beach case that started shortly after a maid found the 27-year-old Jackson dead in a hotel room on the beach.
“It went cold for several years until 2011” when another detective took a look at it, he explained.
“He did a ton of work on it because we had a cold case grant at the time,” Dean said.
In recent months, he and Russell have been trying to learn as much as they can about Jackson and looking at what evidence they have that they “might be able to retest and a get a better result,” he said. “Or reevaluate fingerprints, things like that.”
The group discussion was closed to the media, but Darnell’s public information officer, Sgt. Brett Rhodenizer, said that investigators, as they presented their cases would be asked to discuss as much as they can about the death, the initial investigation and the evidence and witnesses they have.
“We want as much discussion and as much disclosure as possible,” he said.
That’s the best way to be sure that even the smallest details get examined by the experts, one of whom might notice a small connection that moves the case forward.
“Whatever that thread is we can pull,” Rhodenizer said. “We pull it until we solve the case.”
For more about the Jackson case and the detectives’ work, check back with The Record in the coming days.
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