MARQUETTE, MI— Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist met with students and law enforcement officials Friday to discuss Northern Michigan University’s Cold Case Academic program.
Each semester, eight students work with the Michigan State Police to study old, inactive cases and develop new ideas.
Former trooper Chris MacMaster teaches the class. He says putting that many sets of eyes and intelligent young minds on a paper-based cold case and developing investigative leads saves police thousands of hours each year.
“And we’re digitizing that and we’re actually creating this case file in a couple different formats and we’re turning that back over to the State Police, and that’s just invaluable in helping to move the case forward, in addition to the potentially actionable leads they’re going to follow up on.”
Gilchrist says he’s impressed with the level of collaboration between students, State Police, and Michigan universities.
“We have a need, we need the personnel to be able to solve it, we need to have additional capacity, we need to upgrade our skill set, and all of that is true in this program.”
Officials say they’re looking to expand the program to other areas of the state in the near future.
