Researching 30-year-old murder

Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 12:27 pm

Recently, I did some surfing trying to find high school friends. While thinking of my hometown, a small town in West Alabama, I tried searching for a terrible event which happened in own town in the late 70s. It involved the murder of a teenager by a teenager. I found it odd there was no mention anywhere of this. You can find tons of info on similar events but there is no mention anywhere. Does anyone have suggestions on how to research this? In today's media environment of 24 hour news, this would have been a huge story. Thanks.

Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 2:34 pm

Welcome to Detective Forums!

Depending on how much time and effort you’re willing to put forth, if the information’s out there it can be found. Do you recall media coverage when this event occurred? If so start with the basics. Research local and neighboring newspaper archives. You can find several links by using forum search located in my signature box at the bottom of this post or Google. If archives are not online you may have to call the newspapers, many have a fee for this service. Also some libraries have their own newspaper database with microfilm or computer search capabilities.

The victims family if still available can be a source if approached tactfully, use basic people search databases and contact everyone in the home town with the same last name until you find a relative.

Finding information on a 30 year old event can become challenging, time consuming and expensive especially if it received “little to no” media coverage. Most likely the police investigators have retired or passed on and the case file if it still exists buried in storage. So let’s not cross that bridge at this time.

Keep us updated.

watchman

http://detectiveforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=221&highlight=newspaper

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 5:35 am

Quote:

Recently, I did some surfing trying to find high school friends. While thinking of my hometown, a small town in West Alabama, I tried searching for a terrible event which happened in own town in the late 70s. It involved the murder of a teenager by a teenager. I found it odd there was no mention anywhere of this. You can find tons of info on similar events but there is no mention anywhere. Does anyone have suggestions on how to research this? In today's media environment of 24 hour news, this would have been a huge story. Thanks.

buceoslocos

While researching the below matter which occurred 46 years ago I recalled your post and was wondering how you did. If you still log on can you give us an update?

This week I researched information on a 1962 homicide having only a few circumstances, County and a five year window. Found my lead in a small out of town newspapers free archive. This gave me the name of victim, Defendant and some details. A few phone calls gave me the Def. status and name of investigators, one who’s still alive and in his 80’s collecting a pension. I plan to contact the retired detective next week. This research was done from my desk using free information found on Detective Forums and a phone. I intentionally mentioned a pension. A govt. pension even with direct deposit means the issuing authority has contact information for the retired employee and depending on the circumstances may relay a request for contact although you should be able to locate using information found on this forum. Besides using your computer don’t be afraid to use your phone.

If one doesn’t have the time research, know who to call or able to talk the talk to solicit information I suggest reading lawmanconfidential’s prior post and taking a look at his site http://www.411forensics.com