The District has about 3,400 unsolved homicides on its books. The unsolved slayings date back to 1968.
It’s difficult, though, to get more specific than that.
D.C. police officials say they have solved nearly three-quarters of last year’s homicides. But that figure includes long-open cases that were closed in 2008.
“It’s the same as when someone is assaulted in one year, but they expire later,” police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said Monday. “That’s part of the next year’s homicide rate.”
The D.C. police department also often closes cases “administratively.” That is, a case is consider solved even though no one has been formally charged with a homicide. Sometimes suspects die before charges can be brought, other times the evidence isn’t strong enough to take into a courtroom.
The confusion makes grieving all the harder, victims rights experts say.
“When a homicide goes unsolved, there’s always a sense of longing for information on the family’s part. Not knowing is the worst part,” said Jeff Dion of the D.C.-based National Center for Victims of Crime.
Dion’s sister, Paulette, was slain by a serial killer in Atlanta in 1982. But Dion didn’t learn until the mid-1990s that the man hadn’t actually been charged with the killing. The man was a prisoner with AIDS and Georgia officials were considering releasing him to let him die in a hospice. Dion wrote a letter to the parole board opposing a release, but found out he had no standing under the law.
“He had already been tried and convicted five times for first-degree murder, and the prosecutor didn’t want to go through the expense of trying him again. Not a day that he spent in prison was for my sister,” Dion said.
“Things like that matter,” he added.
Examiner intern Lindsay Perna contributed to this report.
