JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It’s been 20 years since First Coast Crime Stoppers was created in our area, and over the last two decades, the anonymous crime-fighting tool has paid out more than $1.1 million in reward money -- an average of $55,000 a year -- and helped bring closure to so many local families.
Darlene Farah knows firsthand that First Coast Crime Stoppers is a much-needed system that works. An anonymous tip helped catch her daughter’s killer.
“I think about that person every day,” Darlene said about the anonymous person who helped police find the man who killed her daughter, Shelby Farah.
James Rhodes was sentenced to life in prison without parole after he admitted to shooting Shelby at point-blank range in July 2013 during a robbery -- even after Shelby handed over the store’s money where she worked and asked him not to hurt her. It was an admission Darlene had longed to hear.
While she will never know who contacted Crime Stoppers anonymously, Darlene told us what she would tell them if she could.
“I’d like to tell (them) thank you; that was brave of them to do that, and it took a lot of courage,” she said.
Darlene also said she’s overwhelmingly grateful that Crime Stoppers even exists in our area. “Mr. Cheek,” Darlene said addressing the co-founder of First Coast Crime Stoppers, “I want to say thank you very much for what you do. And I pray that funding still comes in for 20 more years and some.”
The Mr. Cheek she is referring to is retired FBI Special Agent Bill Cheek, who teamed up with Diane Kerr from the U.S. Department of Justice 20 years ago to bring Crime Stoppers to Jacksonville.
“We started it in June of 2002, and we made our first reward payment in 2003,” Cheek remembered fondly. Cheek had been working in Kentucky as a liaison between his FBI office and police, when he was transferred to Jacksonville.
He paid the first anonymous callers their reward money from his own pocket as he waited for the state of Florida to approve funding for the local chapter of Crime Stoppers.
“When we first started,” Cheek recalled, “I had to go to my personal savings account and take out money to pay the first about three or four rewards.”
| Local stats (as of 12/30/2021) | |
|---|---|
| Arrests made | 4,066 |
| Cases cleared | 7,993 |
| Rewards paid | $1,108,225 |
| Property recovered | $15,577,369 |
| Drugs seized | $2,619,979 |
| Total $ Recovered | $18,299,828 |
That was about $1,500.
Today, along with private donations, First Coast Crime Stoppers receives money from a state trust fund that collects fines and fees from any felony or misdemeanor.
But Cheek said not everyone collects their reward money after calling in a tip that leads to an arrest.
“We have 60% of the people claiming it,” Cheek revealed to us. “There’s still 40% of the people that leave their money on the table who don’t want it -- that wasn’t the reason they called.”
Darlene may never know why someone called in a tip about her daughter’s death investigation, but she’s thankful every single day.
“(Crime Stoppers) works, and they do remain anonymous,” Darlene said adamantly about the anonymous tipsters. “Ten years later and I still don’t know who called.”
If you have information about a crime and want to remain anonymous, you can contact First Coast Crime Stoppers. If your information leads to an arrest, you can receive a cash reward of up to $3,000.
- Submit an anonymous tip online: fccrimestoppers.com
- Submit an anonymous tip by calling: 1-866-845-TIPS (8477)
It doesn’t matter how that tip is submitted -- through the website, the toll-free number, or the app -- a person’s identity is protected. Every tipster is given a tip number or unique ID number, which they will use to track their tip and pick up a reward.
There is no caller ID or call recordings, and the online form is not an email, so it can’t be traced. To learn more about how it works, click here.