The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "unsolved murders" ...
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Maywood Confidential
On the evening of Oct. 23, 2006, as a premature snow fell in parts of the Chicago area, Maywood (Illinois) Police Officer Tom Wood pulled his marked SUV to a dimly lit corner known for drug sales, rolled down his window part of the way and began talking to somebody, likely a person he knew. Within minutes gunfire exploded from the street, ripping through the car and hitting Officer Wood in the head and elsewhere, killing the 37-year-old father of five almost instantly. More than six years later, the murder is still unsolved, and an eerie pall has been cast over the official investigation, and Maywood itself. The nonprofit Better Government Association (BGA) and WFLD-TV/FOX Chicago set out to determine what happened – why Officer Wood was killed and why the official investigation into his death had failed to produce an arrest or criminal charges. In a figurative sense, our findings (which form the basis for our entry) indict not a person, but a culture of corruption and apathy in Maywood that may have contributed to Officer Wood’s death, and certainly played a role in the subsequently botched homicide probe.
Tags: Murder; police officer; corruption; homicide
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Cop's Book Says Sean Combs, Suge Knight Ordered Tupac and Biggie Killings
The LA Weekly investigation provided the public with the first big break in nearly a decade in the 14-year-old unsolved murder cases of rap superstars Tupac Shakur and Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace.
Tags: Tupac, Biggie Smalls; Sean Combs; LA Weekly; Rap
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Who Killed Leon Jordan?
The story investigates Kansas City's longest running murder mystery -- the unsolved assassination of politician and civil rights leader Leon Jordan. The newspaper found that not only did the police lose the murder weapon, but they later recovered it in the trunk of one of their own police cars.
Tags: Leon Jordan; murder mystery; murder weapon; murder
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Murder Mysteries
Using state and local Freedom of Information laws, Scripps Howard News Service conducted the most complete accounting ever of homicide victims in the United States. This includes 15,322 kilings never reported to the FBI.
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Murder Mysteries
Schripps Howard News Service has conducted the most complete accounting ever made of homicide victims in the United States. Aggressive use of state and local Freedom of Information laws allowed the wire service to assemble a database of 525,742 homicides, including records of 15,322 killings never reported to the FBI. The "Murder Mysteries" project calculated the homicide clearance rate for every police department in the U.S., prompting four departments to promise reforms. Scripps also developed an algorithm that identified 161 suspicious clusters of unsolved homicides involving women of similar age killed through similar means. Authorities in Gary, Ind., and Youngstown, Ohio, Launched new investigations into possible serial murder in their communities as a result of this project.
Tags: Murder; mystery; FBI; homicide; killings; serial killer; police department; investigation; FOI; algorithm; computer-assisted reporting;
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Fugitive in the Philippines
The story investigates an “unsolved disappearance and murder of a little boy and two mothers”. It is believed the serial killer is hiding in Southeast Asia, which is where the investigation led and even brought them to the suspect. He was the last known person to see the victims alive and detectives believe the” interview has helped them gather additional information”.
Tags: murderer; cold case; homicide; mystery; evidence; hiding; criminal; suspicion; vanish; depart
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The Mysterious Death of Janie Ward
This hour-long report is a result of a five-year investigation into the death of a 16-year-old girl 20 years ago in a small town in the Ozarks. It's about two daughters -- one wealthy and popular (a cheerleader and beauty queen); the other poor and self-conscious. It's about two fathers -- one a powerful judge who allegedly shielded his daughter from the law he's sworn to uphold; the other a bail bondsman who is trying to avenge his daughter's death. And it's about one family's fight for justice against what they believe is a corrupt judicial system that closed ranks around the powerful judge to cover-up a murder. When 16-year-old Jamie Ward fell off a 9-inch porch in the woods near Marshall, Ark., on September 9, 1989, her parents refused to blieve that the fall had killed their healthy teenager. Instead, they began to suspect to suspect she was murdered by the judge's daughter. After years of demanding an investigation into her death, an independent medical examiner associated with Parents for Murdered Children exhumed Janie's body a second time for an extremely rare third autopsy. Because the case was 20 years old, most of the files were not digital; rather, the investigation focused on old-fashioned reporting: finding and interviewing eyewitnesses (all of whom had not been reinterviewed since the original investigation); analyzing inconsistencies in the witness statements, double-checking the forensics with independent experts.
Tags: autopsy; unsolved death; forensic science; criminal justice system; reopened cases; Arkansas
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The Killing Fields
An investigation on murders of women with records of prostitution reviewed hundreds of homicide records and unclassified deaths, showing that more than eighty percent of the murders remain unsolved.
Tags: sex trade; strangling; hooker; trick; DNA; cold case; slaying; brothel; adult entertainment; red light district;
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Who Killed Chandra Levy
The Washington Post spent a year investigating the murder of Chandra Levy, a Washington intern who disappeared in May 2001. This series provides a rare look at an unsolved homicide case from the inside, following the twists and turns of an investigation that was filled with false hopes, false leads and false suspects.
Tags: law enforcement; homicide case; investigation; Gary Condit; Chandra Levy; unsolved cases; police department
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Justice for Peggy
An investigation into the 40-year-old unsolved torture sex slaying of 14-year-old Margaret Lynn "Peggy" Reber in Lebanon, Pa., the hometown of the reporters.
Tags: homicide; unsolved murder; justice; witnesses; prostitution; DNA evidence