Spartanburg County's Effort To Solve Cold Cases

Some of the cases have been unsolved for decades, dating back to 1970.

The Spartanburg County Sheriffs Office has 40 cold cases, consisting of 50 homicides, that remain a mystery.

The suspects are still at large or unidentified and the families of the victims--still waiting for answers.

A lone cold case detective works daily to try and bring closure to those families. As the years go by, these cases get harder to solve.

But investigators say unsolved murders can be solved years later, if the missing link is found. And that link, is often--you, the public.

"You can be sure somebody told someone something about it," said Det. William Gary.

"Sometimes time can weigh on someone. Someone is carrying a burden. The best way to get rid of that burden is to tell someone about it."

Because Det. Gary couldn't possibly justify one case being more important than the other, he says his job is to solve all the cases. and when a tip comes in--that case is the one that gets new life.

He explains why these cold cases are hard to crack:

"If we don't have physical evidence thats helping us solve the case, and witness interviews have not given us what we need to solve it, that means we either haven't talked to the right person, or the right people have been spoken to, but they haven't told us the information we need."

To put those numbers in perspective, the sheriffs office says only a small fraction of their yearly homicides go unsolved. Those 50 homicides are over a 40 year period.

Although they do admit, solving those cold cases has proven difficult.

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Anyone with information on an unsolved crime in the county is asked to contact CrimeStoppers at 1-888-Crime SC.

As for other counties in the Upstate:

The Greenville County Sheriffs Office's cold case task force announced this week they solved a 2004 cold case.

And the Greenville City police department has formed a new beefed up task force to handle these cases.

Spartanburg county has one detective assigned to cold cases. He does have the assistance of other deputies if need be.