Interested in cold cases? Now you can directly help Fort Worth investigations.
The Fort Worth Police Department’s cold case unit hope a new website will lead to more donations for the expensive work of solving decades-old crimes.
According to the cold case website at fwpdcoldcasesupport.org, Fort Worth has 970 unsolved murders and more than 30 active cold cases. The police department’s cold case unit works on those dormant cases, often following up on decades-old leads and working to solve the case through modern forensic analysis.
But that analysis is expensive, and the unit’s budget is not enough to cover analysis in many cold cases. For example, the forensic genealogy and DNA extraction technology used to identify and convict the man who murdered Carla Walker in 1974 was only possible due to $15,000 donations from NBC and producers of “The DNA of Murder.”
After Walker’s killer, Glen McCurley, was convicted in 2021, cold case Detective Jeff Bennett launched the FWPD Cold Case Support Group, a nonprofit with the goal of giving all cold cases the same resources that Walker’s case had.
The group’s website, which launched in May, has more information on cold case investigations. But perhaps the most important part of the website is the blue button in the corner of each screen that says “donate.”
“The launch of the new website will enable individuals to easily make donations to support the FWPD Cold Case Support Group‘s mission,” said a press release from the support group. “Every donation, no mater how small, can make a big impact in helping bring closure to the families of the victims and bringing justice to the perpetrators.”
Those donations will go toward additional training, equipment and forensic analysis which would otherwise be unavailable, or unreasonably delayed, to cold case detectives. The nonprofit and all donations are separate from city funding, ensuring “that every dollar donated goes directly towards supporting the investigative efforts of the Cold Case Unit,” the news release said.
Seven members make up the FWPD Cold Case Support Group Board of Directors. On the law enforcement side, the board has Bennett, Detective Leah Wagner, retired Sgt. David Thornton and Detective John Galloway. The other members are Emily Dixon with the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, Deanna Kizer and Carla Walker’s brother, Jim Walker.
