Cold case homicides are the topic of numerous television shows and online theories.
But there are real people at the center of these tragic mysteries, each waiting to see justice.
The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office highlights about a dozen cold case investigations on their website. Some of the cold cases shown date back to 1970. However, the cases featured are ones chosen by the department in hopes of catching a new lead and do not reflect the number of unsolved cases in the county, according to Sacramento County Sheriff's Office spokesperson, Tony Turnbull.
Unsolved cases are different from cold cases, according to Turnbull. A cold case is one that's met a dead end.
"You work it until you've exhausted all leads, tested all the evidence, until there is no more," Turnbull said. "Everything is done, everyone is talked to"
An unsolved case is defined as a case which homicides detectives are still investigating, but may be waiting to clear a lead or haven't stacked enough evidence to arrest a suspect.
Currently. there are 431 unsolved homicide cases in Sacramento County, the oldest dating back to 1957, according to Turnbull.
Turnbull told ABC10 the number of cold cases within the 431 unsolved cases is not defined.
"We don't keep track of which have leads and which don't," Turnbull said.
However, older cases, such as the oldest case on record, are usually considered cold cases until new information is received, he said.
Turnbull explained, today's advanced technology, such as DNA testing, can help solve difficult cases. In the 1950s, law enforcement didn't have the same tools to solve homicides so cases had a higher chance of going cold. There was also a very low homicide rate compared to the rate seen in the past 20 to 30 years.
"We're seeing 45 to 50 cases a year," Turnbull said.
Although the solve rate for homicide cases in Sacramento County varies every year, the national solve rate averages at about 60-65 percent, according Turnbull.
In Sacramento County, unsolved homicide cases are periodically looked into whenever detectives receive a new lead or when new sergeants or new members are added to the homicide team.
There are currently 12 detectives on the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office homicide unit.
In addition to unsolved homicides, the Sacramento County Coroner Office's has 73 active "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" cases dating back to 1975.
The county coroner's office works with the homicide team to either rule out or confirm homicides. Unfortunately, many bodies or remains found cannot be positively identified and sometimes there isn't enough information to confirm a homicide, so there may be more unsolved homicides not accounted for.
In California, there are more than 2,200 cases of unidentified persons, according to the National Missing and Unidentified (NamUs) database.
