In partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, Massachusetts District Attorney’s Offices, and law enforcement agencies statewide, the MSP has created a deck of cards to further our mission of securing justice for victims of violent crimes. Credit: MSP
When you flip over the 8 of clubs in this card deck, you don’t just see eight plant leaves. Rather, it’s a photo of a smiling Andy Puglisi, a 10-year-old boy with dark hair and dark eyes who has not been seen since Aug. 21, 1976.
This card is a part of a newly released deck from the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) that features 52 cold cases the Unresolved Cases Unit is hoping to generate new leads for. In a video earlier this month, MSP’s Col. Christopher Mason debuted the cards, imploring the public to look through the deck and come forward with information pertaining to any of the cases.
“For each and every [case], there is someone that lives with a hole in their heart and home that was once filled by one of these victims,” said Mason.
Each card in the deck features a victim’s name, photo and information pertaining to the case, as well as the tip line phone number for the Unresolved Cases Unit. The 52 victims were chosen through input from each participating District Attorney’s Office. The cases range from as old as 1976 to as new as 2018.
Andy’s case is the oldest in the deck. As detailed on the card, Andy went missing on Aug. 21, 1976 from a pool in Lawrence, Michigan. He was last seen at approximately 5:45 pm walking around the pool area in his green swim trucks. Andy, nor a body connected to him, has ever been found.
Andy is not the only minor featured on the cards. The jack of hearts details the case of Mary Francis “Frankie” Harvey, a 13-year-old girl who was shot to death multiple times. She was found in a gravel pit off the highway on Nov. 29, 1980. Ten-year-old Holly Piirainen is on the 2 of hearts. She went missing on Aug. 5, 1993, before her body was found in a wooded area on Oct. 23, 1993.
There is only one card in the deck, the 7 of clubs, that is a John Doe case. The victim is listed as unidentified, and a facial composite from DNA testing is printed on the card, rather than a traditional photo. On June 4, 2014, the man’s body was found affixed to a dolly. The head, arms and legs were removed.
Lastly, the ace of clubs features Devon Hodo, who was stabbed to death on June 8, 2008 in a park during a confrontation. The card reads, “there were several witnesses to the stabbing.”
“Over time, we know that fear subsides and priorities change. A person may reexamine his conscious,” said Mason. “People may have had information about these cases. For whatever reason, they did not share it before. We hope they now feel free to do just that.”
When Mason says that, he’s not only talking to the public at-large. While the MSP is hoping the video of the playing cards is shared among the public, they also plan to distribute physical playing cards to inmates in Massachusetts state prisons in the hopes that have—and are willing to share—information about the crimes.
“Our detectives and forensic specialists across the state work daily to solve cases like these. Often, after years of dedicated work by investigators, we find that we just need a little more information to solve the case. We hope these cards, when viewed, prompt an influx of that information,” said Mason. “We believe justice delayed does not need to be justice denied. Help us speak for these souls who can no longer speak for themselves.”
The Unresolved Cases Unit, which was formed several years ago to focus on cold cases, said they plan to create subsequent decks for homicides and missing persons cases that were not included in this initial one.
This is the first time MSP has used a deck of playing cards to generate tips for unsolved crimes, but the idea is not entirely unique. Connecticut was one of the first to conceive of the idea, distributing cards to prison inmates in 2011. By 2017, the state was on it’s fourth edition of cards, with the previous three resulting in arrests or convictions in 20 of the cases—including several where arrests followed tips received from inmates.
In Dec. 2018, Rhode Island distributed 5,000 decks of cards featuring 52 cold cases throughout the state’s Department of Corrections. In July 2019, the Utah Cold Case Coalition created the first decks designed for public and prison use. The non-profit organization created 750 decks to sell to the public for $10 each, and to offer at Utah prison commissaries for less than $2 a deck.
Military organizations have used the method of custom playing cards to identify enemies dating all the way back to the World War era. In 2003, coalition forces in Iraq used a custom card decks to identify the “most wanted” members of Saddam Hussein’s government.