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“Cold case” playing cards in Mississippi jails aim to solve murders, disappearances
A Mississippi organization is trying to solve cold cases with a special deck of cards.
The Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers created “cold case” playing cards that have information about various unsolved homicide and missing persons cases, printing 2,500 of the decks to be distributed within seven jails.
Each deck features 56 cold cases. There are 20 missing persons cases, according to Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers CEO Lori Massey, and 36 unsolved homicides on the cards.
The cards each have photos of a missing or deceased person, and information about the circumstances under which they died or were last seen.
Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers
Massey told CBS News that the organization was inspired to release the decks after learning that other Crime Stoppers units nationwide had used the technique to successfully get information about cold cases.
“We are not the first, but we are the first in our state to issue them,” Massey said. “It’s not my idea, I just borrowed it from someone else.”
The technique has a record of success. In 2009, a similar pack of playing cards distributed in Minnesota helped identify a set of remains as a missing woman. In 2017, arrests were made in two cold cases in just one week after playing cards with case information were distributed in Connecticut jails.
Inmates who report information that leads to the discovery of a body of a missing person or an arrest in a case would receive $2,500, Massey said, though she added that the Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers have not figured out how people in jail could receive the funds. Different Crime Stoppers organizations have different incentives, Massey said.
Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers
“We can’t put the money into their commissary account or anything like that,” Massey said. “So we’re going to have to figure out how we’re going to get them the money. But not everyone’s serving a 15-year sentence. These are our county jails. … We’re very hopeful that this will lead to something.”
Massey said that families of those listed on the cards were “appreciative” of the initiative. Lacy Moran, whose father Joey disappeared in 2019, told CBS News affiliate WLOX that she hoped the cards would lead to more information.
“I’m hoping this is a new community that we haven’t reached yet,” Moran said. “Along the coast, everyone has heard Dad’s name and I’m hoping there’s some people who still haven’t heard and this is going to solve something.”
Boeing’s 33,000 unionized machinists on Wednesday voted to approve the plane manufacturer’s latest contract offer, ending a seven-week strike that had halted production of most of the company’s passenger planes.
The union said 59% voted to accept the contract. Members have the option of returning to work as soon as Wednesday, but must be back at work by Tuesday, November 12, the union said in a statement.
Union leaders had strongly urged members to ratify the latest proposal, which would boost wages by 38% over the four-year life of the contract, up from a proposed increase of 35% that members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) had rejected last month.
The revised deal also provides a $12,000 cash bonus to hourly workers and increased contributions to retirement savings plans. The enhanced offer doesn’t address a key sticking point in the contentious talks — restoration of pensions — but Boeing would raise its contributions to employee 401K plans.
Average annual pay for machinists, now $75,608, would climb to $119,309 in four years under the current offer, Boeing said.
The vote came after IAM members in September and October rejected lesser offers by the Seattle-based aerospace giant.
“In every negotiation and strike, there is a point where we have extracted everything we can in bargaining and by withholding our labor,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers stated last week in backing Boeing’s revised offer. “We are at that point now and risk a regressive or lesser offer in the future.”
Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su has played an active role in the negotiations, after recently helping to end a days-long walkout that briefly closed East and Gulf Coast ports.
The Boeing strike that began on Sept. 13 marked the latest setback for the manufacturing giant, which has been the focus of multiple federal probes after a door plug blew off a 737 Max plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. The incident revived concerns about the safety of the aircraft after two crashed within five months in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.
Boeing in July agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud for deceiving regulators who approved the 737 Max.
During the strike, Boeing was unable to produce any new 737 aircraft, which are made at the company’s assembly plants in the Seattle area. One major Boeing jet, the 787 Dreamliner, is manufactured at a nonunion factory in South Carolina.
The company last month reported a third-quarter loss of $6.1 billion.
contributed to this report.
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