The Cold Case Challenge

For decades, cold cases have haunted families, frustrated detectives, and left entire communities searching for answers. These unsolved crimes often stretch back years or even decades, where crucial evidence has been misplaced, witnesses’ memories have faded, and investigative momentum has long since stalled.

Traditional investigative work in cold cases is often a painstaking, manual process. Detectives must sort through boxes of disorganized files, decipher faded or illegible handwriting, and cross-reference reports with incomplete databases. In many jurisdictions, there is no dedicated cold case unit, which means these cases are only revisited when a detective can make time outside of their regular workload. This lack of resources and modern infrastructure has allowed countless cases to remain unresolved.

Why Time Can Work in Our Favor

Although time presents challenges, it can also create unexpected opportunities for progress. Relationships change, and people who once feared retaliation may now feel safer sharing what they know. Others may experience shifts in loyalty or personal values that encourage them to come forward.

Meanwhile, advances in forensic science have fundamentally changed what is possible. DNA analysis has become more precise, allowing for identifications that were impossible a generation ago. Phenotyping can now generate visual approximations of a suspect’s appearance from genetic material. Investigative genetic genealogy can connect DNA found at a crime scene to distant relatives, even when the person is not in a criminal database. Tools like the FBI’s CODIS system, NIBIN for ballistic linkages, and AFIS for fingerprints can now provide matches across jurisdictions in seconds.

TimePilot brings another powerful advantage: the ability to harness artificial intelligence to make sense of massive, complex datasets. By integrating AI-powered evidence analysis into an investigation, detectives can uncover connections and patterns that would have taken months or even years to detect by hand.

The Roger Dean Case: 35 Years to Justice

The 1985 murder of Roger Dean in Douglas County, Colorado, is a striking example of persistence meeting technological progress. Despite early investigative work, the case stalled for decades. Witness accounts conflicted on the number of suspects and their descriptions. Forensic tools at the time were limited, and leads quickly ran cold.

Over the years, detectives revisited the evidence whenever new techniques became available. In 2003, DNA profiles were uploaded to CODIS, but no matches were found. In 2018, investigators used phenotyping to create a visual profile of the suspect. The turning point came in 2020 and 2021, when investigative genetic genealogy linked the crime scene DNA to a suspect through relatives. That breakthrough led to the arrest of Michael Shannel Jefferson, who was convicted in 2025. After 35 years, the victim’s family finally saw justice.

How TimePilot Changes the Game

TimePilot was designed to eliminate one of the biggest obstacles in cold case work: the overwhelming volume and fragmentation of evidence. The platform brings all case materials into a single, searchable view, creating a “single pane of glass.” This means that police reports, forensic lab results, photographs, interview transcripts, jail call recordings, and even social media data can be accessed and analyzed in one place.

Its AI assistant allows detectives to search using natural language in more than 120 languages, including slang and regional dialects. This is especially important in cases involving multilingual witnesses or coded communications. TimePilot can automatically generate detailed timelines of events, helping investigators spot patterns, inconsistencies, or gaps in the record. The system’s pattern-matching capabilities allow it to connect evidence across different formats and time periods, surfacing leads that might otherwise have been overlooked.

Why This Matters Now

For the families of victims, solving a cold case is not simply about closing a file. It is about gaining long-awaited answers, holding the right person accountable, and beginning the process of healing. For law enforcement agencies, it is about fulfilling the promise that no victim will be forgotten, no matter how much time has passed.

By combining the skill and determination of investigators with the processing power of AI, cold cases can be transformed from stagnant files into active investigations. The Roger Dean case is proof that when the right tools meet dedicated police work, justice can be achieved even after decades of silence.

With Tranquility’s TimePilot, “cold” no longer has to mean “unsolvable.” As technology continues to advance, more families can hope for what once felt impossible: closure, accountability, and the knowledge that the truth can survive the passage of time.

Webinar: Cracking Cold Cases - The Intersection of Traditional Investigation and AI

Check out this webinar with Michele Kennedy, Crime Analyst Supervisor at the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, and Kevin Clark, VP of Analytics & Investigations at Tranquility AI, as they walk through the Roger Dean case and demonstrate how AI tools like TimePilot are transforming how agencies approach complex, unsolved investigations.