DragonFly Tales
Where is the Unresolved Case Unit in the State Police and what are they doing?
This pervasive question eats away at me day and night. I am a family that has been desperate for answers to what happened to their missing and murdered loved one.
How are they resolving the many unresolved crimes in Massachusetts, particularly murder cases, particularly my sister Molly Bish’s case, which was assigned to the Unit in 2019.
There is no clarity in the work that is being done in this unit. I have written to the new Interim Colonel asking him what is happening in this unit, and my email has gone unanswered.
When this unit was brought forward in 2019, I was elated. I thought that the State Police were committing a whole unit to solve these otherwise termed “cold” cases. But all I have seen accomplished is some playing cards with featured cases on them being delivered to jails across the Commonwealth.
It was my hope, and I am sure I share this sentiment with all families of unresolved murder victims across Massachusetts, that the unit would make a difference in the tireless waiting game we play with investigators. We await word that some new information has come in, or that forensic analysis has provided more evidence, or that the decades of information and evidence that has been collected is logged, secured, and reviewed with a “fresh eyes” approach.
It is my understanding that this unit needs to be “invited” to work on a particular case by the DA overseeing it. That is concerning to me in terms of equity. Which cases are being referred? What is the reasoning behind some case being referred and others not? There are a lot of unanswered questions about what this unit is doing and how it intercepts with the DA offices’ investigations. One might think, ‘how is it our right to know?’ Well, it is our families, our future, and our tax dollars.
Recently, I learned in a meeting that this unit was being tasked with planning Missing Children’s Day, an event held for families across Massachusetts and started by my parents and our Foundation.
And it occurred to me, do they not have more pressing tasks? Why are they not working to resolve cases? Why aren’t they finding the person who stole my sister from us and left her dead in the woods alone? It has been 8,323 days since my sister was abducted from her life-guard position in our small town in Massachusetts.
To me, it is a stretch for the Unresolved Case Unit to be planning an event for Missing Children. I don’t know, call me crazy, but should she not be trying to RESOLVE CASES???
I believe efforts could be better used to input the many cases not in our data systems. And, the unidentified bodies that are not in NAMUS could use the attention. Because, frankly, how do families find their missing loved one, if they don’t have access to the data?!
I know I am just a teacher, but I can plan an event. I can find volunteers to help me plan an event. What I cannot do, despite my best efforts in over 8,323 days is solve an unresolved case. I do not have the training, or the skills, or the position to do so. But the State Police do have the ability to solve these cases, in fact that seems to be the point of having an unresolved case unit in the State Police.
With all due respect, if the Massachusetts State Police do not have the capacity to solve my sister’s unresolved case because they direct their daily attention to mundane tasks (such as event planning), may I please take custody of it? At this point, I do have a better shot in solving it than with this approach.