AUGUSTA, Maine — Officials from the Maine attorney general’s office will tell the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee on Thursday why the state’s first cold case squad is being formed months later than expected, officials said Monday.
Sen. Linda Valentino, D-Saco, a committee member who sponsored the bill appropriating what eventually became $491,662 annually, sought the hearing in response to questions from families that have lost loved ones to unsolved homicides.
She said she wants to ensure that the squad conducts good customer relations, community outreach and victims advocacy.
“You need a conduit between state police and the families. You need someone who is listening to the family side and who is able to act as a go-between,” Valentino said Monday. “For too long they [victim’s families] haven’t had anybody to deal with. I feel like they need someone to listen to them.”
“We need to do outreach and bring these cases back to light. It is not just a matter of going through a file and looking for something new to be done,” Valentino added. “We need to re-involve the communities.”
The AG’s office and state police announced on Oct. 15 that the squad would start in December to allow the appointment of three squad members. That includes two state police detectives and a state police lieutenant who will oversee the squad and the detectives investigating homicides and other crimes in central Maine as part of the state police Major Crimes Unit.
That lieutenant should be named this week. The selection of two cold-case detectives is due next month, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, on Monday.
The pending appointment of the lieutenant raised questions among cold case families who noted that Valentino’s bill called for the squad to be run by the AG’s office. They also said the funding was effective July 1, meaning that state police might have started the squad shortly thereafter.
“The language of the bill is confusing. It says the squad is under the jurisdiction of the AG’s office, but that office doesn’t investigate. They prosecute,” said Patrick Day, a volunteer who works with about 60 cold-case families as part of administering a website, coldcasesquadme.com, and a Facebook page, Support Cold Case Squad Maine, with 3,497 and 3,463 subscribers, respectively.
Some family members also noted that a state police telephone tip-line was nonfunctional and that the cold case homicide page at maine.gov lists 70 cases. That’s about 30 cold cases short of the number under investigation.
McCausland said he was not aware of any malfunctioning tip-lines but that state police would update the listing as part of the squad’s organizing.
The families, Day said, realize that state police “are creating the squad out of nothing” and need time and patience to do it right.
“I think they have high hopes but not high expectations of cases being resolved. I think families are cautiously optimistic,” Day said. “They view as a reality that not every case will be solved.”
The hearing will occur at 10 a.m. Thursday at Room 228 at the State House.