Napa County Receives Grants For Cold Case Unit
NAPA (KCBS) _ Some unsolved homicide and sexual assault cases in Napa County are about to get more attention, as the county has received a federal grant to fund a Cold Case Unit.
"A cold case is going back on those cases where a number of years have gone by or a case has been worked to its fullest at the time," said Napa County Sheriff's Detective Chris Carlisle. "And because the leads ended or there was no evidence, they were put in storage."
Carlisle said the older a case gets, the more expensive it is to investigate because priority goes to newer cases.
However, the county recently received a $500,000 federal grant to create a Cold Case Unit to investigate unsolved homicides and sexual assault cases from both the Napa County Sheriff's Office and Police Department.
The funding will keep the unit in operation for 18 months, but work on these cases will continue for longer.
"All this evidence will be put into a DNA database," Carlisle said. "When those DNA profiles of unknown offenders match to someone, those will still continue to come back to our agency."
Two full time detectives will be assigned to the joint Cold Case Unit.
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