They depict the faces of missing or murdered people, and are distributed in US prisons to induce inmates to collaborate in investigations
This week the inmates of some prisons in the US state of Mississippi received playing cards different from those spread all over the world: traditional figures such as kings, queens and jacks were replaced by photos of people who have been missing for years, or death due to murders for which the perpetrators were never identified. The cards were created by the non-profit organization Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers, which works to help local police in carrying out investigations, particularly those relating to unsolved cases.
Lori Massey, the organization’s director, told the New York Times that the cards aim to encourage prisoners to collaborate with the police: the hope is that people awaiting trial or serving a sentence will recognize the faces they see during the games and provide useful information to find out further details about some of these crimes, obtaining benefits and sentence discounts in exchange.
Massey said 2,500 decks of cards were made, at a total cost of $6,000. Each card contains essential information: the photo of the victims, their names and personal details, the date on which they died or disappeared and the numbers and addresses to contact the association. For example, the photo of Rebecca Reid, a woman who disappeared in 2020 from the city of Lumberton, Mississippi, was printed on the ace of diamonds, while the ace of diamonds depicts Kimberly Watts, a woman who in 2014 was found dead in her apartment in Long Beach (another city in Mississippi).
The use of cards of this type is not new: they have already been used on other occasions, and sometimes they have actually been important for the resolution of some cases. For example, in 2007 about 100,000 decks of cards depicting missing or murdered people were distributed in Florida prisons and, according to the state police department, helped trace the identity of the perpetrators of some murders, such as that of Ingrid Lugo, which occurred 3 years earlier.
Bryan Curry, the perpetrator of the murder, was arrested thanks to the collaboration of an inmate who had seen Lugo’s photo on a card in the deck, the six of spades: he had met Curry a few years earlier in a Cross City prison, in Florida.
“Cold case cards” (“unsolved case cards”, as they are called in jargon) are also used in other American states, such as Indiana, Minnesota and Connecticut.
Ryan Backmann, founder and executive director of Project: Cold Case, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based organization that provides assistance to family members of victims of cold cases, told the New York Times that not all associations of this type consider these cards effective, for one reason in particular: they are quite expensive, and the percentage of cases resolved thanks to their use is very low.
Furthermore, as the criminologist Camela Hughes explained, evaluating the reliability of the statements of those who decide to collaborate with the police is rather difficult: in almost all cases, to take their words as true, it is necessary for another inmate who is informed about the facts you confirm them with separate testimony.
One of the cards made by Project: Cold Case (Project: Cold Case)
Usually these cards can only be used in prisons, but some states also allow them to be used outside the structures of the penal system: for example, in 2022 Project: Cold Case had printed a thousand decks and had obtained permission to distribute them even in some business.
– Read also: There are not only Neapolitan and Piacenza cards
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