Think back to being a 20-year-old college student—classes and homework during the day, hanging out with friends at night, maybe a party or two on the weekend. Western Michigan University criminal justice students can now add another activity to that list—working with police to solve a 10-year-old cold case.
In an unprecedented partnership, undergraduate criminal justice students at the university will receive access to and work on case files from unsolved murders in southwest Michigan.
Michigan State Police Detective First Lieutenant Chuck Christensen estimates there are more than 20 unsolved homicide cases in his district that are over a decade old. He’d love to get them solved, to bring justice and closure to so many waiting families.
"With us augmenting our resources with the criminal justice program (at Western Michigan University), it's going to alleviate some of the heavy lifting from the front end of this," said Christensen.
The first cohort of undergraduates will join the Cold Case Program in fall 2021. They will spend time in the classroom and the lab, learning new forensic techniques and technology. They will then be assigned a case to investigate, working with Michigan State Police detectives, state crime labs, genetic testing facilities and other entities to identify potential leads—some may even get the chance to visit crime scenes.
Ultimately, the students will be looking for potential new leads or evidence that could be revisited with technology that's been developed over the past 10 years.
“Technological advances in DNA technology are a complete game changer,” said Ashlyn Kuersten, criminal justice studies professor at Western Michigan University and director of the new program. “Ten years ago, damaged DNA samples were untestable and commercial genetic labs hadn’t built the enormous databases we see now. Because of cooperative relationships between police departments and these labs, so many of these cold cases are solvable now. My students will get to watch this process unfold. It will change the career direction for many of them.”
The students Kuersten refers to are young by education standards, which makes this program all the more remarkable. This type of hands-on experience with real-life cases is rarely, if ever, afforded to undergraduate students. Luckily, Kuersten had a bit of a head start when it came to developing policies to ensure the safety of sensitive information, both technologically and logistically.
In 2016, Kuersten received a grant from the Department of Justice to create Western Michigan’s Wrongful Conviction Program. While most innocence projects are run by law students, Kuersten’s version focuses on giving undergraduate students the opportunity to investigate claims of innocence from those convicted of felonies in Michigan. The nuances of including undergraduate students in this program meant she had to develop a specific set of protocols. Ultimately, Kuersten created a class for the students to take and a secure computer system for sensitive files.
“It has taken an army of people at my university to develop these procedures,” said Kuersten. “I’m lucky to work for a university that was able and willing to work with me because nearly all the policies developed were in-house, as there was no other university to ask.” (If there’s a downside to unprecedented, that’s it.)
The Wrongful Conviction Program also connected Kuersten to many people in the law enforcement community, including Michigan State Police’s Christensen. That very important relationship is what ultimately led to the development of today’s Cold Case Program.
“I want this program to solve a cold case, of course, but I’m looking at a bigger picture too; that is, I hope other universities and police departments can develop cooperative relationships like I have with the Michigan State Police,” Kuersten said.
For the students participating in the program, Kuersten hopes they feel like they’re making a difference in the world. As she points out, it’s one thing to sit in a classroom and hear the details of a cold case; it’s an entirely different experience to see and handle the evidence, and talk to friends and family members of the victim.
“Hopefully this program allows students to participate in providing family members with answers to what happened to their loved ones, while also learning research skills that will benefit them for life,” said Kuersten.
Photo: Ashlyn Kuersten and a student. Credit: Western Michigan University.