Nearly 340,000 cases of homicide and non-negligent manslaughter have gone unsolved from 1965 to 2022.
PRESCOTT, Ariz.—Before she began investigating old homicide cases, in times of trouble Theresa Higdon would bring to mind the phrase: “There but for the grace of God, go I.”
Now, when she’s looking at photos of a victim from an unsolved murder that happened years ago, she has another thought.
Higdon, 74, said there are moments when she tells herself, “But for the grace of God, I could have been there,” and saved the person’s life.
She said it’s only human to be angry with a suspected murderer and have deep sympathy for a victim. It’s easy to get emotionally involved in a case in a way that goes beyond death.
Above all, Higdon said, “You have a job to do”—and that is helping to find the victim’s killer.
Higdon is one of four volunteer cold case investigators with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Bureau in Prescott, Arizona.
A cold case is a crime that has yet to be solved and is no longer actively investigated by detectives.
Retired as a business analyst from a major insurance company, Higdon joined the volunteer cold case unit believing her professional expertise would be helpful.
She and her fellow cold case investigators receive no payment for their work.
“The only pay is a pat on the back, which beats a kick in the butt,” Higdon said jokingly, sitting at her workstation with two computer screens.
But it’s serious business to solve a murder case, she said.
Her shared office is a 6-by-20-foot space in the sheriff’s office building, with a row of tall filing cabinets and cardboard boxes containing evidence from unresolved cases.
Some of the crimes include murders from the 1950s or, more recently, high-profile fraud cases in which the victims lost millions of dollars to online schemes.
Higdon works two days a week, giving her full attention to her murder cases from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
She said she doesn’t worry about the age of a case because there is no statute of limitations on homicide in the United States.
