Looking For Justice In The Cards

You won’t find these cards on a blackjack table in Vegas. They won’t be used in vying for a multimillion-dollar prize pool in the World Series of Poker. The games and the players won’t be covered by CBS Sports.

But to the families of victims of countless crimes in the state of Florida, these cards are more valuable than any payout, because they might lead to tips … and tips can lead to arrests … and arrests can lead to convictions — or at least to answers.

In an attempt to solve the backlog of cold case crimes, the state is hoping to up the ante with playing cards.

Yeah, you heard that right.

Last month, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced that 5,000 decks of playing cards — standard fare for incarcerated men and women trying to pass the time — would be distributed among prisons statewide, but with a purpose: to gather tips designed to generate new leads for unsolved homicide and missing persons or hit-and-run cases.

Decks come with the standard 52 cards — four jokers, along with clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds ranging from a 2 to an ace on one side. There, a Crime Stoppers logo also appears, with a tip line and a website address.

The other side of each card includes the image and name of a victim, with other vital information. The hope is that somebody might know something — somebody always knows something — and they just might be willing to share it.

“Sometimes that new information comes from criminals or co-conspirators who have a change of conscience, or maybe they are motivated by a reward,” Moody said in a news conference. “Since taking office, we have launched several innovative initiatives to bolster ongoing efforts to solve cold cases, and today, we are taking action to generate even more leads to help law enforcement bring criminals to justice.”

The cards are designed not only for specific use by any of the 26 Crime Stopper organizations in different Florida locations — information about victims is particular to a given area — but in various states of the country.

“Since 2008, we have done quite a lot of these cold case playing cards,” says Teri Hansen, president and CEO of Priority Marketing in Fort Myers.

The firm designs and produces the cards upon request from law enforcement agencies as an effort to help the families of victims find both succor and justice. Priority’s primary business includes public relations, brand development, web services, social media, creative services, media buying, video production, digital marketing and event planning.

The latest initiative, according to a press release, was spearheaded by the Florida Association of Crime Stoppers, along with the Florida Attorney General’s Office, Florida Sheriffs Association, Florida Department of Corrections and Season of Justice, a national organization dedicated to solving cold cases.

“To date, we’ve done cards for agencies in California, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana (where the idea started in 2007), Kansas, Nevada and Ohio,” Hansen explained. “It might be a Department of Corrections or a sheriff ’s department or some other agency. They provide us with a name, a photo of the victim, age of the victim and a description of the type of case. Then we design the card.”

Kendall Mills, program coordinator for Season of Justice, noted that caring donors fund their programs, including advanced DNA testing for unsolved cold cases and awareness programs for families seeking new information or renewed community focus.

Those included Ashley Towers, owner of the Deck podcast and the company AudioChuck, who gave $100,000 for the program when she founded Season of Justice.

“Our founder, a true-crime podcaster, has a heart for helping, and she started with the podcast, and it grew into her production company with a podcast that features cases on playing cards, called the Deck,” Mills said.

The Deck started in 2022, picking up the idea then 15 years old, and “We funded 15 individual grants that paid for the creation and printing of 20,000 decks of cards over 10 states in the U.S.

“This is such a good initiative, and we’re proud of all our (law enforcement) agencies that have taken and spearheaded this.

“But we’re out of funds now for the playing cards” — so any donations of any size to Season of Justice are welcome, she said.

In Palm Beach County, “All of our facilities will get the decks,” said Angela Barnard, executive director of Palm Beach Crime Stoppers. “The Florida Sheriffs Association is handling the distribution based on the number of inmates, and it’s going to be about one deck for every 35 of them.”

Earlier this year, Priority Marketing designed and produced 600 decks for Florida Crimestoppers of Southwest Florida, which includes five counties. The cards began circulating to local jails and detention centers in February. Calls to an official heading Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers were not returned by press time.

Since 2008, “We have produced nearly 250,000 decks of cards; that’s almost 13 million individual cards,” Hansen said.

Nationwide, the cards have been linked to hundreds of tips and arrests, officials say.

Sometimes, Hansen gets some feedback. Coming from a family in which many members served in law enforcement, she’s committed to this cause, she acknowledges — committed to law enforcement itself as important in the peaceful and law-abiding conduct of American life, and pleased when she hears that the cards get results.

“There was one case of a man in Kansas,” she recalled, “Ernie Ortiz. He was murdered in 2019 outside of his restaurant in Garden City. We did these cold case playing cards for Kansas in 2022, and Ernie was one of cases in that deck.

“In 2023, a tip came in, and they made an arrest of the perpetrator in South Carolina. We were ecstatic.”

With all those cold case cards in circulation, law enforcement agencies might finally get the luck of the draw. ¦

The post Looking For Justice In The Cards first appeared on Charlotte County Florida Weekly .