State puts ‘cold case playing cards’ in Missouri prisons to generate leads through inmates

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

In a new effort by Missouri law enforcement to try and generate tips through inmates, 2,000 decks of playing cards that feature dozens of victims in unsolved crimes are now in every state prison.

Each card features a photo and details about an unsolved homicide, missing person, or unidentified remains case adding up to a total 52 cases. The initiative encourages offenders with information to come forward and assist investigators with new information.

Ten of the cases featured are from Columbia. Nine cold cases are unsolved homicides out of the 17 total CPD is currently investigating including:

• James Hickem
• Virginia Davis
• James Hundle
• George Showalter
• Timothy Jones
• Antonio Houston and Danielle Marine
• Michael J. Walker Jr. and Jeffery D. Jones
• Mark Dailey
• Bryant Wilkes ll

The 10th case featured from CPD is the October 1994 disappearance of Kristina Bishop.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol also unveiled a new cold case investigative unit on Wednesday. Two dedicated investigators from the Division of Drug and Crime Control will work cases at the request of local police departments. This process similar to how the FBI takes on its cases to investigate.

Chris Ormerod, the special agent in charge of Kansas City's Field Office, said the office has recently fully cleared their DNA backlog.

"If you look today, there's a lot of cases with rapid DNA and genealogy back, so we look at the family trees on some of these, DNA that we don't have in CODIS to help solve some of the cases," Ormerod said.