Investigations heat up
OSBI to open new cold case unit
On May 15, 1987, in Owasso, a woman came home to discover her house ransacked, and her 50-yearold husband, David Simpson, in their bed, dead from a gunshot wound. He was a race car driver who worked at Rockwell International in Tulsa.
On November 12, 1988, near Chandler, the body of Dwayne McCorkendale, a 27-year-old trucker from Kansas City, Kansas, was found dead on the ground near a telephone booth at a rest stop. Someone shot McCorkendale in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun. McCorkendale’s wallet was missing.
On December 19, 1992, in Hugo, Daniel Hampton was found face down and dead in the passenger side of his pickup. A 45-year-old former Democratic candidate for the District 19 House seat, Hampton died from a gunshot wound to his head.
The three homicides are among more than 1,200 murder or missing persons cases in Oklahoma that have gone cold since 1950. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation wants to reduce that number.
On Nov. 1, the OSBI will open a new Cold Case Unit. The OSBI chose 1950 as a cut-off year based on the likelihood that suspects in the crimes are still alive.
“Over the years, there were cases that there may not have been enough evidence at the time to prosecute, or the evidence we had at the time we may not have had the technology to completely vet it,” said OSBI Director Ricky Adams. “In many cases today, we have some of that. So we’re looking to go back and try to capitalize on that.”
The OSBI investigates crimes across the state, operates forensic labs and assists other law enforcement agencies. Records show the agency has nearly 300 employees and a budget of almost $38 million.
In 2009, the OSBI received a $500,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice to investigate hundreds of violent crimes in Oklahoma. But over the years, a lack of resources meant cold cases continued to pile up.
It’s of no comfort to victim’s relatives who wonder what happened to their loved ones.
“If you are the family members of someone gone missing, you don’t want to hear that we don’t have the money to look into your case,” OSBI Spokeswoman Jordan Solorzano said.
Cases not only go cold because of a lack of usable evidence but also because an investigator may retire, a district attorney could step down or a key witness may die.
But with new technology and investment in modern investigative tools, the OSBI says it can focus on cases considered close to being solved.
“We’ve had some significant upgrades,” Adams said. We’re going to be leveraging that to solve some of these cases.
The new cold case unit will start with an OSBI investigator, and a crime analyst. Law enforcement jurisdictions around the state may soon hear from OSBI agents.
“We’re going ask outside agencies how many cases they have so we can dedicate resources to helping to helping solve them,” said Andrea Fielding, director of criminalistics with the OSBI.
The agency hopes legislators will add funding for the program to expand it over the years.
“We don’t care who puts the cuffs on a bad guy, we just want to make sure that these families get answers and we can find justice to speak for those people who can no longer speak for themselves,” Adams said.