Decades in the Cold: How Homicide and their Cold Cases Impact Families
Dheeksha Senthur
Fall 2021
Rain like silver bells fell in gentle pings, rolling off the woolen clouds and clinging onto verdant blades of grass. The group of family and friends, pressed together against the chill, held hands and bowed their heads before their beloved sister’s and friend’s grave. Forty-six years had passed since Lori Nesson’s 1974 unsolved homicide case: now, it had finally been closed. When the Ohio Attorney General’s office opened their cold case unit in December 2020, Lori Nesson’s had been one of the first files to be dusted off the shelves; using a tip and DNA evidence, Reynoldsburg police officers traced the unsolved case to another unsolved case and eventually to two men, who were deceased before apprehension, responsible for both homicides (An, 2021). Months after police had informed her of the case’s closure, Toni Hastings, Lori’s sister, and Lori’s high school friends, had returned to Ohio on Toni’s birthday to embark on a new chapter of healing, beginning with closure at Toni’s sister’s grave. “‘What we wanted to do here today is to give you peace… Give mom peace and to know that we did everything we could do to right a wrong,’” Toni stated pensively as rain gathered in silver chrysanthemums on the green slope (An, 2021). “‘I actually felt like I was 14 again… I kind of froze like I did back then and I realized how much it had affected me,’” Debbie, Lori’s high school friend, also remarked (An, 2021). That morning, though bittersweet, was filled with a quiet sadness and serenity.
Cold cases like Lori Nesson’s are cases in which all investigative leads generated by the primary investigators are researched, yet lead to a standstill, resulting in the case being open and unsolved for three or more years; these cases can range from unsolved homicides to missing persons (“Cold Case,” n.d.). Cases, particularly those with a higher clearance potential, are reviewed periodically, and evidence is retested to determine whether emerging forensic technologies can generate potential leads for follow-up investigations (“Cold Case,” n.d.).
Presently, there are 250,000 unsolved cases in the US with 6,000 being added each year; homicide unsolved cases constitute 36% of all homicide cases, with 64% being officially cleared (“The Crisis of Cold Cases,” 2019). Yet these statistics overshadow the estimated 16 million American adults and thousands of families who endure the struggle of abruptly losing loved ones to homicide, filling the emptiness left behind with their loved one’s memory as years fade to decades (Kopelovich, 2015). How do homicide and homicide cold case investigations affect the surviving families of the deceased loved one?
When Grief Becomes Complicated
Families of homicide victims experience a unique kind of grief that diverges from the traditional grieving framework of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and, similarly, of grief for families of sudden death (Jacobs et. al, 2015, pp. 2-3). Unlike the traditional stages of grief, which include finite endpoints that entail acknowledgement and healthy resolution, a more complex grief surfaces: traumatic, or complicated, grief (p. 2). For surviving families, traumatic grief looks like a hurt that can be ongoing or may never end, a hurt like a chasm that engulfs them (p. 2). The complicated nature of this pain may be contributed by such a death leading to families fostering long-term relationships with related practitioners and the criminal justice system (p. 3). Having their lives woven with reminders of the traumatic loss after the homicide, such as media appearances or further interviews with police officers, especially if the officers’ progress seemed unsatisfactory, exacerbated the grief (p. 3).
Figure 1: Infographic on Traumatic/Complicated Grief Symptoms
Traumatic or complicated grief engenders complicated mourning symptoms, a singular or combination of psychological, behavioral, social, or physical symptoms whose context reveals that there is some compromise, distortion, or failure in one or more of the six processes of mourning, which may mesh into complicated mourning syndromes (See Rando (1993) for more details on the six “R” processes of mourning and mourning syndromes).
In contrast to bereavement-related grief, traumatic grief is concomitant with bereavement, depressive, and PTSD symptoms without the avoidance and hypervigilance of an official PTSD diagnosis; it is a separate phenomenon that merges dimensions of both illnesses but is not currently recognized in the DSM (Kopelovich, 2015, pp. 25-26). Lifetime prevalence of PTSD itself among the surviving family was startlingly high, at 22.1% compared to the current lifetime prevalence rate of 8.9% (p. 21). Studies have further noted cognitive and behavioral differences in families of both solved and unsolved homicide cases, who experience secondary victimization in increased stress, ruminations, vivid imaginings of the loved one’s death and their agony before the death, overwhelming feelings of revenge, fear, and numbness along with the internal struggle of balancing grief with maintaining the composure required for media and court appearances (p. 26). Along with corollaries such as substance abuse and somatization, the conversion of a mental state into physical symptoms with no discernable ‘organic’ origin, bereaved families are at risk of chronic psychological deterioration (p. 26).
Likewise, families often express feelings of social isolation and stigmatization, having to hide their inner emotions and assume the perception of a normal life despite their grief and feelings of incomplete recovery from the trauma (Jacobs et. al, 2015, p. 3). There is a sense of a permanent change in the world where nothing would ever be the same again, yet also a sense of purpose to pursue what matters the most and provides meaning (Kopelovich, 2015, p. 18).
In contrast, research into the impact on families of homicide cold cases has been nascent. The modicum of research that has been conducted so far reveals that these families are particularly afflicted by prolonged grief and experienced higher levels of distress compared to those who had navigated the criminal justice system successfully (Jacobs et. al, 2015, p. 3). In the Wellman (2014) study, families reported significantly more suffering compared to the bereaved of non-homicidal deaths and deaths involving other trauma, an upward comparison that tended to result in increased anxiety, depressive thoughts, and isolation as families demarcated themselves as “worse off” or “different” (p. 472). They described how “frightening, maddening, and disheartening” the unsolved status of the case was and that the unknown identity of the perpetrator had complicated their grieving process (Wellman, 2014, p. 471). Interestingly, families also used downward comparison when describing individuals perceived to be worse off than them but with a solved homicide case as in a more harmful scenario compared to their unsolved one (p. 471). This could be to suppress their own pain of not knowing and to provide a justification for why identifying the killer may not be so helpful (p. 471).
Qualitative interviews with twelve homicide family members by Jacobs et. al (2015) corroborates that families of cold cases share similarities with the families of homicide victims, namely the psychological stress and the sense of an irrevocable change, with slight differences (p. 4).
Disrupted or Strong Family Relationships
Homicide is a tragedy that can shatter lives with one phone call or conversation. It can either strain family relationships, creating a less functional family, or it can bring them together in an environment of love, hope, and support (Jacobs et. al, 2015, pp.18-19). The existing familial relationships post-homicide were magnified, strengthening already strong bonds and disintegrating the strained ones (p. 2). The family subsystem tended to become dysfunctional as family and social belief systems were torn, with members either comforting themselves or becoming disillusioned with religion (p. 3).
Particularly when the victim is a child, homicide can cause one parent to shift the blame to the other or to absorb the guilt onto themselves; parents also question their ability to protect their other children and to trust others (pp. 2-3). Family members became overprotective of one another due to a heightened need to protect their loved ones from further danger (p. 6). This also applies to families of cold cases, especially if there is a failure in spending time with loved ones, increasing personal and familial strain (6).
Family traditions themselves change; for example, one of the interviewees of the Jacobs et. al. (2015) study stated that her mom stopped cooking many of her brother’s, a homicide victim, favorite meals, and a different interviewee, a father, no longer celebrated his birthday because his son’s absence made the day, even the month, unbearable (p.10). Celebrations like graduations and holidays, though normally a time of joy, became tinged with an emptiness, like something was missing (p. 10). In other families, traditions were altered rather than stopped, like a family who began visiting their relatives for Christmas instead of spending Christmases at home (p. 11).
Moreover, while familial support in cold cases was crucial during the distressing time after homicide, individual members felt the pressure to mask their own grief in order to stay strong for their family (9). The pressure to internalize their pain and vulnerability so that their families did not fall apart impelled them to grieve alone.
Resources to Help Families
A tragedy such as the loss of a loved one can produce times of pain and loneliness. Discussing the unique, individual needs of those grieving alone, as well as nurturing a vulnerable yet strong family environment through mediators like mental health professionals or privately through a family member can allow every voice to be heard (Jacobs et. al, 2015, p. 12). Dedicating quality time together as a family through a designated routine or schedule can help strengthen bonds and begin emotional healing during this time (p. 13). Similarly, creating new family traditions and celebrations can help produce a sense of normalcy, where the loved one is remembered but where each family member can also appreciate each other’s company (p. 14).
Survivor support groups such as Project Cold Case and organizations such as Families of Homicide Victims & Missing Persons (FOHVAMP) also provide emotional support and empower family survivors in their respective regions (“General Cold Case Resources,” n.d.). Connecting families with other families of cold cases has been shown to help everyone, from survivors drawing guidance from those further along the healing process or helping those just starting out by creating a sense of belonging and hope (Wellman, 2014, p. 471). NCSTL.org is an invaluable resource that chronicles websites for active groups, institutes, and networks for homicide and cold case families to get involved with (“General Cold Case Resources,” n.d.).
Policywise, the Bureau of Justice’s (BJA) Cold Cases DNA grant program provides funding to local and state governments to review and investigate cold cases, which, through training, forensic analyses in laboratories, and funding personnel, have devoted time and energy to cracking them (“FY,” 2021). Likewise, cold case units in local and state police departments, using increasingly sophisticated forensic technology and databases like CODIS, a system containing DNA profiles, have proven instrumental in this mission, closing hundreds of previously unsolved cases (Heurich, 2008).
It is important to let families often overshadowed by homicide and homicide cold cases know that they are not alone and to continually reopen and retest the evidence so that leads can be mapped. As Toni Hastings profoundly stated, “Nobody should ever have to go through this but unfortunately it is not a perfect world… That’s why I say just because it's been however long, don't give up hope’” (An, 2021).
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