JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Project Cold Case helps bring awareness to thousands of unsolved cases which in turn helped dozens of them be solved.
If you’ve lived in Jacksonville a long time, you may remember the 1974 killing of Freddie Farah. It was the oldest cold case in the history of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. They solved it 43-years later.
Now on the weekend of Farah’s 62nd wedding anniversary, his son Bobby is helping other families of murder victims.
“Just giving them hope to find out maybe who or why their family member was taken from them,” Bobby Farrah said.
He does it through Project Cold Case. News4JAX spoke to him at a fundraiser Saturday. The Jacksonville based organization was founded in 2015. They help surviving families of murder victims – bringing awareness to their case.
“We have 1,400-1,500 unsolved murder victims in Jacksonville alone. Around the country there are 280,000 so there’s families out there desperate for support and help. They want their loved ones to be remembered, they want them to be on tv, they want people to remember them and hopefully come forward with new information and solve the case,” Executive Director of Project Cold Case, Ryan Backmann, said.
Backmann says he was informed the state would be prorating their grants and won’t cover expenses, so they are struggling to provide necessary resources. They want to grow their staff, intern program, and say they’re running out of funding for their mental health initiatives.
Farah says he looks back on what happened to his father – and how he pushed for the case to be reopened. “I worked in my dad’s store on the weekends. He let me come to work with him. I never thought anything like this would ever happen,” Farah said.
He says Project Cold Case is needed and encourages people to donate what they can – because you never know when your family will need an organization like this.
You can go to projectcoldcase.org to donate to the cause.