Cold Cases, Criminal Investigations, and the Search for Missing Persons
"Cold Cases, Criminal Investigations, and the Search for Missing Persons" is a multi-part series published in 2026 in The Daily Courier. The series covers ongoing research into decades-old cold cases, how police navigate potential homicides, and how search and rescue crews look for missing people.
 |
(Hava Herzog/Courier) |
Published May 30, 2026 in The Daily Courier
Word Count: 1,030
Link: https://www.dcourier.com/news/detectives-volunteers-ensure-no-cold-case-goes-forgotten/article_90ecb835-7e10-461c-8daf-58ac616248ab.html?_gl=1*5ktwzc*_up*MQ..*_ga*ODQyMDMwOS4xNzg4NjMyODUz*_ga_CP63MSM6R5*czE3ODg2MzI4NTIkbzEkZzEkdDE3ODg2MzY1MjIkajYwJGwwJGg4MjI2MTM2MDE.*_ga_4T2EB147B8*czE3ODg2MzI4NTIkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODg2MzY1MjIkajYwJGwwJGgw
When a case goes “cold,” it does not mean it is forgotten or unsolvable.
Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office (YCSO) detectives and volunteers continue revisiting decades-old investigations with DNA analysis, digital crime scene reconstruction, witness follow-ups, and the belief that time does not erase the chance for closure.
Sergeant Mark Yates has worked for YCSO for 20 years. As a sergeant, he oversees YCSO’s criminal investigations bureau in Prescott.
YCSO’s criminal investigations bureau is split between Prescott and Verde Valley. The “Prescott side” covers cases in the county areas of Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley. It also covers cases in Seligman, Ash Fork, Paulden, Yarnell, Congress, Baghdad, Peeples Valley, and Skull Valley.
Yates said a case becomes “cold” when all viable leads have been exhausted and there is no new evidence or actionable information that has been obtained. He said a case may no longer be pursued as an active case after detectives have collected evidence, submitted it to labs, tested it, and there is still not a suspect or new information that comes of it.
“When a person’s missing, we never close that case. It’s always gonna be open because we don’t know where they’re at,” Yates said. “Most cases that we’re looking into as far as missing persons or homicides, there is no universal time frame of when a case goes cold.”
YCSO currently has about 40 cold cases within its jurisdiction. Only a small portion of those cases are unidentified remains. When asked how YCSO prioritizes the cases, Yates said it is largely based on solvability.
In 1998, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). According to the FBI, CODIS “blends forensic science and computer technology” so laboratories nationwide can exchange and compare DNA profiles electronically.
Yates said having viable DNA in a case increases solvability. If DNA is believed to be viable, cold case volunteers will submit it and see if there is a “hit” in CODIS.
To assist with cold cases, YCSO has a team of cold case volunteers dedicated to looking through old evidence and contacting potential witnesses. Rich Finston is one of those volunteers and has been with YCSO for 15 years. Before he retired, he was teaching at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
“There are so many really capable, high-performing experts in the field right now,” Finston said. “We used to have people who dabbled in ancestry.com and they were valuable, doing good stuff. But this stuff is way beyond that now with DNA profiling.”
Finston said something interesting is the focus on parsing multiple contributors in DNA samples. In the past, with the purity of CODIS, it was necessary to ensure there was a single DNA contributor, he said. Many cases have mixed DNA evidence, which makes it unsuitable to upload to CODIS, he said.
“If there are a number of people who contributed to the evidence, that’s a horse of a different color,” Finston said. “The evidentiary value is questionable, except now, new technologies are coming out to assess that mixture ratio and put likelihoods associated with a suspect being a contributor.”
There are several cases that the FBI’s genealogical research team is working on to help identify missing persons, Finston said. They have success, Finston said, but it is a long process.
“When we say long, it could be years,” he said. “From the point of getting the DNA and sending it off to the lab and then interviewing the people and taking the swabs.”
Not only is the process long and tedious, but expensive too.
“The expensive part is the lab extracting the particular genealogical DNA profile. Which our current state labs are just starting to get into, but they’re not there yet,” Finston said. “So the private labs are the ones that can get the full genealogical profile and that’s not cheap.”
To help pay for the cost, Finston said they get a grant to do the testing, and the information is passed to the FBI.
“This ability did not exist in the past,” Finston said. “What appeared to be no new evidence, nothing we can do with this, all of a sudden, a door opens up saying, ‘We have a bit of DNA evidence here that might show someone’s profile other than the victim.’ You get it, bingo. Then you’re on that trail.”
Besides new advancements in DNA, there are other aspects of crime scene investigations that have changed, which only increases solvability.
Yates said they wear proper protective equipment, take numerous photos of crime scenes, and utilize drones.
“It’s a perspective that we don’t get when we’re standing there,” he said. “But all of a sudden a drone is getting the perspective of that angle looking down that can actually bring us a whole new perspective on the crime scene.”
He said they can create a scan of an entire scene to computerize and look back on later.
The technology can be used inside or outside with markers to show significant pieces of evidence. He said it scans the area and map it out in 3D. The scans not only help law enforcement but can also be used to help illustrate a scene to a jury.
“I always say, in 40 years from now, what are the cops gonna be saying about us,” Yates said. “We don’t know what’s going to exist in 40 years.”
Yates said sometimes new leads will come in years later.
“It could be years later, we’ll get new witnesses or witnesses actually speaking out,” Yates said.
As an example, he said witnesses may not be scared to come forward after an alleged suspect dies.
“You may have somebody 20 years later coming back and saying, ‘I want to now talk,’” Yates said. “That has happened.”
Yates said a lot of times cold case volunteers will reach out to former witnesses and then pass it off to detectives if new leads develop. He said they take every new tip that they get.
Though solving a case is the “ultimate success,” it does not happen every time, Yates said. Cold case success comes through closure, Yates said, whether by DNA, the discovery of a body, or suspect identification.
 |
| (Courtesy) |
Shayna Feinman was someone who was always prepared. She knew how to start a fire, navigate difficult terrain, and cook food in the wild. She was described as someone who would give her shirt off her back for others.
She loved her dog Stormy, who she would frequently take on her adventures. She enjoyed camping, hiking, wood whittling, rock climbing, and being able to see the stars at night.
It has been two years since Shayna went missing, and her family is still searching for answers.
Kara Feinman is Shayna’s younger sister. They grew up together with their brother in Albany, New York. For some time, Kara said Shayna taught kids about animal rehabilitation on a farm in Massachusetts.
Shayna moved to Sedona in April 2022 and then to the Hyde Park area, near Peach Springs and Seligman in November 2023. She lived with her then-boyfriend, 36-year-old Cavett Richards.
Kara said Shayna moved to Arizona to further her education, as she was pursuing her master’s degree. Shayna was taking courses to work with kids in therapeutic nature settings.
“She felt she’d be a really great person to be able to support people going through similar struggles that she had dealt with in alignment with nature because that was the most healing thing for her,” Kara said. “The big thing for her was to be able to connect others to nature and to animals and support healing through those means.”
In the evening hours of March 9, 2024, 35-year-old Shayna went missing. She left the property where she lived on foot, reportedly to a friend’s house.
A witness stated they saw Shayna and the property owner, William DalCerro, 58, in a heated argument, Kara said. DalCerro, Kara said, denied that the discussion involved yelling.
Shayna reportedly went back inside looking for her keys and phone, and left.
When she never arrived to pick up her dog Stormy from a friend’s house a little over a week later, she was reported missing.
The area was searched on-foot, by drone, and by cadaver dogs, but Shayna has not been found.
Kara said according to friends, Shayna had expressed feeling unsafe at the property in the past, adding that her relationship with Richards was also believed to be unhealthy.
A detail Kara said “did not add up” was that Shayna did not have her identification the day before she went missing. Kara said their dad had to pay for a hotel room that night because she did not have her ID, a story corroborated by a friend who also said she did not have her ID.
Shayna’s car was located near the property where she and her boyfriend were living. Shayna’s wallet with her ID, her passport, and her camping gear were left inside the unlocked car.
Kara said she also left behind some of her most prized possessions including her childhood stuffed bear named Guggy, and her mom’s blanket. Kara was 9 and Shayna was 11 when their mother passed away because of pancreatic cancer in 2000.
Kara described Shayna as someone who was always prepared. She said Shayna always someone know where she was camping and would never leave Stormy without someone able to watch him.
“She would have never left Guggy, the dog, the car, and my mom’s blanket behind. Everything she cared about, her most valuable items,” Kara said.
A week after she went missing, the large battery pack Shayna and her boyfriend used to charge their phones was found outside with a full charge. Shayna’s phone was discovered a month later, still functioning, on a rock at a neighboring property. Kara said the phone was found in the opposite direction from where she was believed to have been headed. Kara said the phone had been turned off since the day she went missing.
Kara said between the time Shayna went missing and was reported missing, there were two snow storms, ranging between a foot and a foot and a half. She said it does not make sense that her phone could be outside for that amount of time and still function.
Various charges were pressed against Richards and DalCerro including tampering with physical evidence, theft of means of transport, and possession of a weapon by a prohibited person, which they would later respectively be found guilty for.
In September 2024, they were charged with first-degree murder. In January 2025, the first-degree murder charges were dismissed.
There have been no updates in the court case since then.
“I put my faith in the legal system, in Arizona, I put my faith in the detectives,” Kara said. “I was able to, not put that fire out, but take it down a little and get back to a little bit of normalcy in my life. There was a while where normalcy was far, a very far reach. Now that fire is burning.”
Kara said she believes there is someone out there who saw Shayna on her last day.
“There’s stories that contradict themselves, and it makes it really challenging when people are not being truthful, especially when somebody is missing,” she said. “Somebody had to have seen something.”
In April 2026, Kara took a trip to Arizona. She said things have been challenging because the search had been stagnant for a while, but the trip to Arizona “reignited the fire” in her.
Kara said she keeps in touch with Shayna’s friends. She also started an email list to send out updates on the case.
On April 30, 2026, Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office (YCSO) announced a $20,000 cash reward for information on Shayna’s whereabouts, which Kara said is the most recent update.
“I’m not done looking. I am not done searching. I am not done fighting for answers,” she said.
Shayna was last seen wearing sweatpants with athletic-type shorts over them, a hoodie, and green hiking boots. Shayna was a white woman, about 5-foot-4, 140 pounds, with green eyes and brown hair.
“I know that everybody is doing everything they can to find justice for my sister and allow the opportunity to put whatever remains are left of her to rest,” Kara said. “I just know that’s what she would want.”
Those in the surrounding area are asked to check their camera footage for anything suspicious or relevant to the case. Those with information regarding Feinman’s disappearance are encouraged to contact YCSO at 928-771-3260. To submit an anonymous tip through Yavapai Silent Witness, call 800-932-3232 or submit a tip online at yavapaisw.com.
 |
| (Courtesy) |
Published June 2, 2026, in The Daily Courier
Word Count: 1,159
Link: https://www.dcourier.com/news/behind-the-search-how-yavapai-county-responds-to-missing-injured-reports/article_b3e5d012-b407-4b61-a87c-2b499554db69.html?_gl=1*1m5zkzh*_up*MQ..*_ga*ODQyMDMwOS4xNzg4NjMyODUz*_ga_CP63MSM6R5*czE3ODg2MzI4NTIkbzEkZzEkdDE3ODg2MzY1MjIkajYwJGwwJGg4MjI2MTM2MDE.*_ga_4T2EB147B8*czE3ODg2MzI4NTIkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODg2MzY1MjIkajYwJGwwJGgw
When someone goes missing in Yavapai County, be it a lost hiker, an elderly resident with dementia, or a stranded family deep in the forest, volunteers are often some of the first ones into the wilderness.
They arrive on foot, with drones, Jeeps, ropes, K-9s, and years of hard-earned knowledge about Arizona’s rugged backcountry and trail systems. It is Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office (YCSO) search and rescue organizations scaling mountainsides, traversing rivers, and hiking trails when every hour matters.
YCSO search and rescue incorporates multiple organizations, all consisting of volunteers.
Yavapai County Search and Rescue Team (YCSRT) has several units such as 4-by-4, forest patrol, search and rescue, swift water rescue, technical ropes, drones, and K-9s. Yavapai County Jeep Posse (YCJP), Verde Search and Rescue Posse (VSAR), and Yavapai County Sheriff’s Air Group aid in searches from tough terrain on the ground to a bird’s-eye view in the air.
Lieutenant Chuck Owens has been with YCSO for 13 years, previously in the Criminal Investigations Bureau as a detective and a detective sergeant. Now, he manages the eastern area command including Camp Verde, Cottonwood, and Sedona. He also manages the forest patrol division of YCSRT, which handles the area’s search and rescue and fire incidents.
YCSO officers manage the volunteer teams because they know the “ins and outs” of the legal system and to coordinate missions, Owens said.
“The SAR groups that volunteer their time, know the areas, know the trails, know the local infrastructure of where we’re searching and they’re avid hikers,” Owens said. “They’ve been in the areas for several years. They are very well versed on the different trails that they hike on.”
Volunteers offer their time, equipment, and vehicles to best help Yavapai County residents out of sticky situations. Some volunteers pour a lot of money into SAR equipment or equipping their vehicle for off-road terrain.
When volunteers are not responding to missions, they are participating in monthly training. Owens said training could be book learning or a mock mission—all to prepare to help people in need or search for a missing person.
When someone goes missing, Owens said a mission begins with a report to dispatch. Owens said missing people are often a mix of people with cognitive disabilities leaving home or people getting lost or hurt while recreating outdoors.
Sometimes a deputy can handle finding and aiding a person, depending on their location. If the terrain is more technical, then SAR groups will be deployed. Owens said they will segment a map of the area to see which resources are needed.
To assist in searches, Owens said they utilize statistical data.
Statistical data is based on the person’s demographics and patterns of other missing people over the past decade. The data is used to create search area maps detailing the most likely areas a person might be.
Other information factored in is if someone is an avid hiker or lives locally.
“People that are not from the local area don’t know the local terrain and how a normal walk in the woods could turn very torrential in a matter of moments,” Owens said.
The statistical data is generally accurate, though there have been times when it has been wrong, Owens said.
“The statistical data is not hard pressed, 100%, black and white, ‘We’re going to stay within that,’ but it is a good starting point to start with,” he said.
Other technology that assists search and rescue operations includes drones, GPS, backcountry mapping through CalTopo, night vision, and satellite internet through Starlink. Owens said the biggest game changer has been drones.
“Most of it is good old fashioned, people on the ground, looking for clues of a person being in that area, making movement, making tracks through the area,” Owens said.
When suspicion of foul play is added to the mix, the operation changes.
“Ultimately, when foul play is expected, you have a crime scene that has to be worked, but you still have to have the search capabilities,” Owens said.
Owens said the process is like an incident command team. Owens said he coordinates with the Criminal Investigation Bureau lieutenant, then he sends the information along as to what they are searching for.
“Sometimes we are searching for evidence, sometimes we are searching for a person,” he said. “My forest patrol team has been well versed in how to search for evidence and what to do when they find that evidence. It’s a coordinated effort.”
He said forest patrol and other search and rescue units play a vital role in the criminal aspect of search and rescue.
Searches can go on for varying amounts of time. Owens said the longest search he has seen lasted two weeks, though at that point it was deemed a recovery effort. He said they have seen success in multiday searches too.
The search stops once all means have been exhausted, he said.
“Of course, our philosophy is we want to bring everybody back to their families,” Owens said. “But sometimes, it takes us a step back and say, ‘OK, where are we going with this? Are we doing the most effective search that we possibly can?’”
At a certain point, Owens said leadership will discuss the search. He said it is a “holistic view of the search aspect,” which depends on the missing person and how far out they may have traveled.
“If it’s an elderly person that has medical conditions where they’re on mandatory medications, and we’ve far exceeded that, then it becomes more of a recovery instead of a search and rescue,” he said.
Owens offered various tips to avoid becoming a missing person. For loved ones with cognitive disabilities, Owens recommended placing a tracking device, such as an AirTag, into a shoe. He made the same recommendation to hikers. He said they can go directly to a person’s location when they carry a tracking device.
“Have someone know where you’re going, at least a starting point,” Owens said. “A starting point will give us a point of reference of where we need to start our search at.”
Owens said to stay in the same area after calling 9-1-1 for assistance, because that is where they are going to search first. A charged phone, with a way to recharge it, is essential. Carrying ample water, a snack, and basic first aid supplies is also essential.
Each faction of search and rescue aids in keeping the people of Yavapai County safe.
“We could not do our job without the search and rescue volunteers and them keeping up with their training the way they do,” Owens said. “If I didn’t have the volunteers from Yavapai County, and that includes [Verde Search and Rescue Posse], we could not do our job. Those people are essential to making every single search and rescue the best possible rescue that we can get out there.”
For more information on volunteering with Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office’s search and rescue groups, visit ycsoaz.gov/Divisions-and-Bureaus/Law-Enforcement-Services-Division/Search-and-Rescue.
.JPG) |
| (Hava Herzog/Courier) |
Published June 3, 2026 in The Daily Courier
Word Count: 1,133
Link: https://www.dcourier.com/news/erau-students-faculty-bring-fresh-eyes-to-cold-cases/article_b6a12c6e-5e97-4071-b70f-260793e3d659.html?_gl=1*184pax1*_up*MQ..*_ga*ODQyMDMwOS4xNzg4NjMyODUz*_ga_CP63MSM6R5*czE3ODg2MzI4NTIkbzEkZzEkdDE3ODg2MzU2NTQkajUkbDAkaDgyMjYxMzYwMQ..*_ga_4T2EB147B8*czE3ODg2MzI4NTIkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODg2MzU2NTQkajUkbDAkaDA.
Fresh eyes can make all the difference. That is the philosophy behind Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Cold Case Task Force.
Students use research, forensic science, and investigative techniques to revisit unsolved cases in hopes of bringing justice to victims and peace to loved ones.
Kelly Crockett served in various law enforcement roles before teaching forensic and psychology courses at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). Crockett is also the supervising faculty and co-founder of ERAU’s Cold Case Task Force (CCTF).
“We are facing a homicide crisis, a cold case homicide crisis, and we actually have one of the largest unsolved case backlogs in the world,” Crockett said.
Crockett said there are over 250,000 unsolved homicides nationwide, a number that is increasing by 6,000 every year.
Crockett said in her time in law enforcement, she saw how much staffing affected cases being worked. Crockett saw a solution through academia and presented her findings at the 78th Annual Conference of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
Student founder of ERAU’s CCTF, Maylynn Burns, also presented at the conference about the use of open-source intelligence to solve cold cases. Burns graduated with her degree in forensic psychology this May.
“I ended up running hypotheticals for why academia can be useful for law enforcement, especially in these cases, because we have time, we have the research infrastructure, and we have people,” Crockett said. “Students who are in academia, they’re pretty much taught scientific method application, reproducible research skills, that’s something we can do. Which is all essential when we’re running forensic investigations.”
Crockett said she found about 800 institutions in the United States with criminal justice programs and 200 with forensic-based programs.
If roughly 1,000 universities adopted a cold case program and each took on two cases per year with 10 students assigned to each case, Crockett said about 2,000 cold cases could be investigated annually.
“We can utilize these students in this capacity because they’re not only going to gain the real-world experience and research and analytical and investigative experience, but we’re also doing something good for our families,” she said.
She said there is hesitancy from law enforcement to allow academia to get involved. She said she has strict standards in place regarding who can join the CCTF and there are conduct codes students must follow.
“First rule about cold cases: Don’t talk about cold cases,” she said.
She said in other areas of academia such as psychology and biology, there are government contracts pledging confidentiality. She said her students are perfectly capable of “keeping a secret,” especially considering the line of work they are pursuing.
ERAU’s CCTF students work on various different cold cases, in both small groups or individually. Crockett said they do not have to be a capstone student, or even study forensics to participate.
“Everybody’s working on different cases and it’s just those fresh eyes that we want to be able to have somebody working it,” she said.
Crockett said she gets a new batch of students every four years and that their eyes “may be the ones that they need.”
CCTF students displayed their research skills during Discovery Day on March 27. Discovery Day is ERAU’s campus-wide showcase of undergraduate and graduate research.
Talia Stuller graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in forensic psychology.
Stuller’s project was titled: “Small Town Effect on Cold Cases.” Stuller said she did a deep dive into the 2002 unsolved homicide of 43-year-old Barbara LaForge that occurred in Lakeport, California. Stuller took interest in the case because she grew up in the area where the crime occurred.
As a part of her research, she spoke to local police, looked into open sources such as newspapers, obituaries, ancestry, spoke with community members, and spoke with the victim’s stepsister.
When asked about the lessons she learned throughout the project, she said small town law enforcement should prioritize training to prepare for bigger crimes.
Megan Cramer, Hillary Eaton, Jacob Harris, and Katelyn Bolhofner studied the decomposition of pigs in northern Arizona as an estimate for human decomposition. The project was aimed to address the lack of research on decomposition in the northern Arizona region. They placed one deceased pig in the sun and the other in the shade and studied the decomposition process over a year.
“The Sonoran Desert is hotter and drier than up here and so the pigs, or anything, would decompose a lot faster,” ERAU forensic biology student Megan Cramer said. “In one study, the pigs fully decompose in eight days. We took a year to not even fully decompose, so it’s a pretty drastic difference.”
Maylynn Burns, Greyson Eversole, Emma Gruenberg, and Kaylyn-Rae Trenka’s project was titled “The Serial Murder Effect: Determining Inconsistencies in Unsolved Cases.” The project examined the Zodiac murder, which are a string of unsolved homicides and attempted homicides from the ‘60s and ‘70s.
The students examined inconsistencies in the case and the potential of another suspect’s crimes being falsely linked to the Zodiac Killer.
“The biggest takeaway from all this is that it is so important to be aware of biases that can make their way into investigations and making sure that you’re very conscious of all of that and taking proactive measures to prevent them from happening in cold cases and new cases,” ERAU forensic psychology student Greyson Eversole said.
In the school year to come, the CCTF hopes to get more cases to examine, including some cases from Arizona. Crockett said they will continue to build the program and submit abstracts over the summer for consideration at the 79th Annual American Academy of Forensic Science Conference.
Crockett said they will also submit a workshop proposal on “Family Centered Approaches to Victim Advocacy in Cold Cases” and a case presentation on using modern technology and flight simulations to investigate a missing aircraft cold case. Crockett said she wanted to highlight the uniqueness of ERAU’s program in the area with that cold case.
“We are also looking forward to continuing our current projects and investigations, including our partnership in the End of Watch Project, our continued research into using modern technology and forensic techniques to investigate cold cases, and our continued work in victim advocacy,” Crockett said. “I am looking forward to providing some unique trainings to my students as part of their participation in the task force to help prepare them for their careers and help them grow as investigators.”
Crockett said she and the CCTF will continue to support law enforcement and the families who continue to wait and pray for justice for their loved ones.
“All my students know, we don’t do this for the glory. We don’t do this to get our names in the papers or anything like that,” Crockett said. “We work and we fade back into the shadows, and we move onto the next case.”
Comments
Post a Comment