Michigan state funding aims to tackle unsolved homicide cases

(CBS DETROIT) — Michigan is ranked sixth in the nation for most cold cases. According to Project Cold Case, in 2022, the state had a 54% clearance rate for homicides. But state funding, some of which is headed to universities, could help raise that solve rate.

"You would probably be surprised to how many cold cases we have-- it's overwhelming," said George Williams, a family and media specialist with Crime Stoppers of Michigan.

Project Cold Case estimates that Michigan is sitting on about 19,000 unsolved homicides between 1980 and 2019.

"It's thousands of families that are still grieving, you know, every holiday, every birthday, every death day. Year after year just keep ticking by with no resolution, and I hear parents and spouses and children say that no matter how long it's been, it never gets any easier," Williams said.

The state government has allocated about $1 million for the next fiscal year, which begins this fall.

About $200,00 will go to the Michigan State Police's Forensic Division, $400,000 to MSP's Special Investigation Division, and another $400,000 to Western Michigan and Northern Michigan Universities for their cold case programs, where students help state police with cold cases.

"They produce about 3,500 hours of labor for the detective, in that case, through a semester," said Professor Ashlyn Kuersten, the director of the WMU Cold Case Program. "One of the things always strikes me in these cases we work on is how time-consuming it is to look at a cold case...the case files are just massive."

Kuersten says that the work she and her students have done has led to the closing of cold cases more than 40 years after the crime. The money, she says, will be used to fund the program's operations.

"It's so important that students see how they can benefit the public good, how they can work for the betterment of all of us. And being able to travel to scenes like this to go tour facilities from the state police. It's just so critical for this," she said.