Florida's top law enforcement agency is rolling out a website with more than 400 unsolved homicide cases, some going back decades.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced the creation of the website on Wednesday and credited Republican Sen. Aaron Bean, Fernandina Beach, with the idea.
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The hope is that people scrolling through the cases might be able to provide information to solve the homicides.
ONLINE: FDLE unsolved cases website
“In Florida the bad guys are never off the hook,” Bean said in a statement. “Our goal is to arrest the criminals who committed these crimes. By empowering our citizens, they can help local law enforcement agencies by providing tips on these cases.”
FDLE asked local departments to provide cases to be listed on the website, which can be used to send in tips.
“Florida’s local law enforcement agencies work tirelessly on these unsolved cases,” said FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen. “This website allows local agencies to display their unsolved homicide cases to be seen by millions of eyes.”
Among the oldest is the 1957 stabbing death of Dorothy Thomas at a Tallahassee dry cleaning business. The website says there is still a primary suspect in the case who is currently living in another state.
One of the most memorable local cases in the database is the 1989 disappearance and presumed death of Tiffany Sessions from the University of Florida in Gainesville. She told her roommate she was going for a walk and never returned.
Among the Jacksonville cases listed were 56-year-old Clifford Backmann, who was robbed and killed while finishing construction work on an office condo on Bonneval Road in October 2009. Backmann was able to call 911 after being shot and gave details before he died, but not enough to catch his killer, investigators said.
The youngest victim in the database so far is Baby Jane, an unidentified baby girl found floating in a private pond in Alachua County in 2003. Recent advances in DNA technology determined that Baby Jane was a black female whose parents were both black and most likely of Caribbean descent, according to the case information on the website.