A “coin flip”: Nearly half of U.S. murders go unsolved as cases rise

Police known as Denita Williams in April and gave her the deal with of a fuel station of their city of Jackson, Mississippi and requested how lengthy it might take for her to get there. 

“When I pulled up, all I see is this crime tape,” Williams instructed CBS News.  

Her son, Kenland Thompson, Jr., was shot and killed whereas placing air in his tires. He was 20 years previous. 

“The coroner had already taken his body,” she mentioned. “He was already gone.” 

Three months later, nobody has been arrested for the homicide of Kenland Thompson, Jr. 

“I gave them names,” Williams mentioned, describing how she instructed police she would assist them examine the case herself. “I felt like I was going crazy, giving them so much. They’re not doing their job.”  

Across a nation that’s already within the grips of a rise in violent crime, murders are going unsolved at a historic tempo, a CBS News investigation has discovered. A evaluate of FBI statistics exhibits that the homicide clearance charge — the share of cases annually which are solved, that means police make an arrest or shut the case as a result of different causes — has fallen to its lowest level in additional than half a century. 

“It’s a 50-50 coin flip,” says Thomas Hargrove, who runs the Murder Accountability Project, which tracks unsolved murders nationwide. “It’s never been this bad. During the last seven months of 2020, most murders went unsolved. That’s never happened before in America.” 

Police are far much less prone to resolve a homicide when the sufferer is Black or Hispanic, in line with CBS News’ evaluation. In 2020, the murders of White victims have been about 30% extra prone to be solved than in cases with Hispanic victims, and about 50% greater than when the victims have been Black, the information present.  

In dozens of interviews throughout the nation, police and prison justice specialists have supplied a spread of explanations for these traits. Some elements are evident when visiting communities such as Jackson, Mississippi, which has suffered from one of the nation’s highest homicide charges.  

In that metropolis of about 160,000 individuals, the police division responded to 153 murders prior to now 12 months however has simply eight murder detectives to work that caseload. FBI tips counsel murder detectives needs to be overlaying not more than 5 cases at a time.   

Police Chief James Davis mentioned his division wants extra of every part to maintain up with the violence. 

“The whole system is backlogged,” Davis mentioned. “I could use more police officers. I could use more homicide detectives, but if the state is backed up, the court is backed up, we will still have the same problem by developing these cases that we’re already doing.” 

Police are additionally contending with a breakdown in belief between their officers and the communities they serve, a outcome of many years of tensions that spilled over throughout high-profile cases of police misconduct in recent times.  

That has made it tougher for police to obtain ideas or get hold of assist from witnesses, mentioned Danielle Outlaw, the commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department. Outlaw instructed CBS News there’s a historical past of “systemic inequities that contribute to the mistrust” in lots of communities most affected by crime. 

“We’ve gotten in our own way,” Outlaw mentioned, referring to previous episodes of police misconduct. “It has to be a two-way street, as it is with any relationship.” 

The problem of closing homicide cases is mirrored in nationwide statistics, however is particularly acute in some areas, the CBS News evaluate discovered. 

METHODOLOGY: Learn how CBS News analyzed FBI murder clearance charge knowledge 

“I don’t have any hope in the system” 

Some states have struggled with persistently low clearance charges, CBS News’ evaluation exhibits. From Maryland to Texas, from Michigan to California, households who buried family members too quickly await justice, typically going years with out solutions. 

Three-year-old Terrell Mayes, Jr. had celebrated Christmas along with his household simply at some point earlier than he was killed by a stray bullet, his life lower quick as he fled up the steps to security inside his north Minneapolis dwelling. More than 10 years later, his mom, Marsha Mayes, nonetheless grieves — and nonetheless longs for the day that her son’s killer might be delivered to justice.  

“I want the killer to know you can’t run,” Mayes mentioned. “God knows everything.”  

But she nonetheless is aware of little greater than what she did greater than a decade in the past: that the one who killed her little one hasn’t been caught.   

During the ten years since Terrell’s homicide, the Minneapolis Police Department recorded 418 homicides dedicated and solely 221 solved — a clearance charge of about 53%, in line with CBS News’ evaluation of FBI knowledge.  

In Los Angeles, Barbara Pritchett-Hughes mourns her personal loss. Her son Devon Hughes, 15, was caught within the crossfire exterior of a church in 2007. His killer was caught simply 4 days after the capturing and is in jail to today. 

But 9 years later, in 2016, one other tragedy: her different son, DeAndre Hughes, was shot and killed simply steps away from their entrance door.  

“Not again, not again,” Barbara mentioned she remembers pondering after she heard the news. “And I prayed, and I asked God to don’t allow this to happen again.”  

Barbara mentioned she initially thought DeAndre’s homicide can be solved simply as shortly as Devon’s. But some six years later, she nonetheless does not know who’s accountable.  

In 2020, the Los Angeles Police Department reported a clearance charge of about 55% — barely higher than the nationwide common. But that clearance charge masks a deeper drawback: like in lots of cities, police are much less prone to resolve the murders of Black victims.  

Between 2016 and 2020, the common clearance charge for Black murder victims in Los Angeles was simply 45%, in line with CBS News’ evaluation of knowledge submitted by the LAPD to the FBI. For White victims, it was 70%. 

The LAPD recorded 351 homicides in 2020 — 36% greater than the earlier 12 months. Chief Michael Moore pointed to that spike, together with the pandemic, as explanations for the town’s clearance charge. He additionally cited a scarcity of group belief in police that stops potential witnesses from coming ahead.  

“The solving of a crime, a homicide particularly, is dependent on community trusting police,” Moore mentioned. 

The metropolis of Los Angeles is now providing a $50,000 reward for information resulting in the arrest of DeAndre’s killer. Barbara implores anybody from the group to return ahead. 

“Tell, because if this was your loved one you would want someone to tell,” she mentioned.  

An incomplete image? 

In Chicago, police do not report clearance knowledge by way of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program, so CBS News submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for Chicago Police Department (CPD) knowledge. In 2020, that knowledge confirmed, the division’s homicide clearance charge was about 44% — 16% lower than the nationwide common.  

But that does not present the entire image. The CPD knowledge distinguished between cases that have been cleared as a result of a suspect was arrested and charged, and people cleared for different causes. Those cases — so-called “exceptionally cleared” murders — are closed though a suspect wasn’t prosecuted. 

Exceptional clearances are purported to be uncommon — reserved for uncommon cases such as when police determine the suspect, however that suspect is lifeless, Hargrove mentioned. That’s not the case in Chicago, the place, in 2020, half of the murder cases police closed have been exceptionally cleared. 

One of these exceptionally cleared cases was that of Diego Villada, who, in April 2017, was murdered in an alley in broad daylight on the town’s Northwest Side after being jumped by two males. His sister, Anna Villada, watched it occur.  

“One of the dudes told Diego, ‘Start running, because this is the day that you die,'” Anna mentioned. 

Diego tried to get away however was shot within the head. Anna tried desperately to avoid wasting him, but it surely was too late. He died within the hospital two days later.  

Anna mentioned she made direct eye contact with Diego’s killer instantly after the capturing and described him to police. The man she recognized was arrested the identical day, however wasn’t charged as a result of lack of proof, in line with spokespeople from each CPD and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.  

Police exceptionally cleared his homicide case as a result of that lack of proof precisely 4 years after he was killed, on April 1, 2021. 

Without these exceptionally cleared cases like Diego’s, CPD’s 2021 homicide clearance charge was simply 24%, CBS News’ evaluation exhibits. 

In different phrases, three out of 4 killers in Chicago are nonetheless on the road. This lack of accountability perpetuates the cycle of violence, in line with Arthur Lurigio, who teaches prison justice at Loyola University Chicago.  

“When 70% of homicide homicides don’t lead to an arrest, that’s a critical mass of survivors of homicide victims that are never going to experience the justice that they deserve,” Lurigio mentioned. “So, they bury their child and have to live with it for the rest of their lives, feeling that there’s been no closure on the matter.”  

In Baltimore, a federal prosecutor hopes to deal with the issue by way of a partnership headquartered in a nondescript warehouse in a safe location. There, a collaboration of greater than 20 native, state and federal companies work collectively investigating Baltimore’s most brazen drug syndicates, and a particular intelligence unit identifies connections among the many metropolis’s a whole lot of uncleared murders.

The intelligence unit hopes to observe the “Al Capone strategy” of convicting homicide suspects for different crimes being pursued by the interagency partnership. Former performing U.S. Attorney Jonathan Lenzner used that mannequin in 2021, when his workplace indicted 15 members of a Baltimore gang on expenses associated to racketeering and drug conspiracy. Prosecutors linked them to unclosed cases involving 18 murders and 27 tried murders.

“There are homicides and non-fatal shootings occurring all across the city, [and] we have a map which shows where each of these shootings has occurred. And at times, unfortunately, and somewhat tragically, that map can look like the constellations on a clear, starry night,” Lenzner mentioned.