The 2,500 decks being issued to correctional facilities in southern Mississippi seek clues on missing persons and unsolved murders. Cold case cards sometimes bring useful tips to dormant investigations.
People incarcerated in southern Mississippi have been receiving new sets of playing cards that they can use to pass the time, but the images on those cards are not of the typical jacks, queens and kings of other game sets. Instead, they feature people whose murders or disappearances have been unsolved for years.
The authorities hope that people awaiting trial or serving sentences will recognize someone while playing with the cards and offer information to help solve some of those crimes.
The Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers, a nonprofit that helps law enforcement generate tips in unsolved cases, are distributing 2,500 decks. The card sets cost about $6,000 to make and were made possible by a grant from Season of Justice, a nonprofit that provides funding for investigative agencies and families looking to solve cold cases.
“We have nothing to lose,” said Lori Massey, the chief executive director of Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers. “These cases are sitting on investigators’ desks. “We feel like one lead is better than no leads at all.”
Each card has a photo and a name for a victim; the date when the person died or went missing; and contact information for the Crime Stoppers’ organization. For instance, the Ace of Diamonds shows Rebecca Reid, a woman from Lumberton, Miss., who was last seen in 2020, and it provides her age, height and weight. The Ace of Spades depicts Kimberly Watts, from Long Beach, Miss. Underneath her name and photo, there is a brief description of what is known about her death: She was strangled and stabbed in her home.
Southern Mississippi isn’t the only place to have tried this approach. In Indiana, “cold case cards” are available for purchase in the state’s prison facilities, according to the Correction Department website. In Minnesota in 2008, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension distributed its version of cold case cards to all 515 police departments and sheriff’s offices in the state, plus 75 county jail and annex facilities, according to the state Public Safety Department. Connecticut law enforcement agencies have issued five editions of a playing card deck featuring missing people, cases of unidentified remains and homicides; they have published a list of solved cases about people featured on the cards.
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