Farmington Hills police launch website dedicated to cold cases and missing persons

FARMINGTON HILLS — Farmington Hills Police Chief Jeff King recently announced a new tool at the department’s disposal to try to help solve cold cases and locate missing persons.

The city recently launched a website dedicated to the specific purpose of solving cold case homicides and missing person investigations.

The Police Department currently has seven unsolved homicides that date back to 1974 and five open missing person investigations.

From King’s perspective, the launch of the website page is the “next evolution” of the Farmington Hills Police Department, which he said is the best in the nation.

“Our department has a very active investigative unit that includes investigators dedicated to both cold case investigation homicides and missing persons — things that affect families,” King said. “Our intent is to bring justice to any wrongdoing and to ensure that the families get closure (and), most importantly, the safety of the individuals at the focus of the investigation. … We’re always trying to focus on doing what is next.”

Upon evaluating what more could be done to help solve cold cases and locate missing people, one option stood out.

“The next step’s getting this information on our webpage as another resource for individuals to contact us to provide investigative leads and/or information to assist us in locating … these individuals to the best of our ability,” King said.

Sgt. Chad Double shared how the department’s cold case team started.

“We started this team in 2015, when I was a detective; I started with two other detectives because we had three successful cases that we brought to justice regarding cold cases prior to that,” Double said. “We still had a few cases remaining, so we wanted to put the team together on our spare time and work on these kinda cases … to continue to bring justice for these families; to let them know that we have not forgotten their loved one.”

Sgt. Paulo Hernandez added that, “success is a great motivator.”

Brian Moore is a lieutenant with the department. He credited the success that the department had in solving previous cold cases to the public coming forward, and he is hoping that the launch of the website page turns out to be an “excellent tool for us.”

“The more that we can publicize these things and bring them back to people’s memories, in terms of cold cases —some go back to 1974 — I think it’s important to re-publicize it because there’s certainly people that might know what happened back in 1974 (but) were reluctant to come forward at the time,” Moore said. “Now that time has passed, we’re hoping that additional people come forward. … We also think it’s extremely important for the families to know that we haven’t forgotten about them.”

Moore also addressed the missing persons page on the city’s website.

“In terms of the missing, especially when it’s a juvenile, all of us in the room are parents, and I don’t think any of us could imagine not knowing where your loved one is, so to me, that’s even more gratifying than the cold case ones — reuniting someone with one of their loved ones,” Moore said. “Unfortunately, on the cold case ones, there’s obviously been a violent crime, and even if justice is served, it’s a bittersweet victory, I guess, at that point.”

In regard to missing persons, the department works closely with NamUs, which is a government national information and resource center for missing, unidentified and unclaimed person cases across the United States.

The website for NamUs is namus.nij.ojp.gov.

Aside from potentially helping to bring closure to families, there is another aspect of visiting the city’s website that could appeal to some members of the public.

“Over time, one thing we’ve learned is a lot of people enjoy going on the internet and being part in solving (crimes), helping the police and tracking down information on these kind of cases,” Double said. “Having people go onto the page and looking at it brings life to them, and to bring life to the family to show that we haven’t forgotten.”

Advances in technology can play a major role in helping law enforcement personnel solve cold cases.

“As technology changes, we will continue to look at these cold cases and use any technology that comes out to help us identify the perpetrators (of) these crimes,” Moore said. “We’ve used the assistance of the FBI, the Michigan State Police lab. We’re re-submitting DNA from old cases. We’re looking at things like age progression for people. We’re doing everything that we can in our power to try and help all these families.”

King discussed the difference between missing persons and cold cases.

“In each one of the cold cases we know that there’s a death — there’s a homicide,” he said. “A lot of our missing person cases we have reason to believe (they) either fled voluntarily or they’re under the control of someone else — they’re safe, but we’re concerned for their safety nonetheless. We have an idea where they are, where they’re staying.”

King added that in a lot of instances, missing person cases are voluntary.

“Those are not the ones we’re concerned with; the ones we’re concerned with (are when) we can’t get a hold of the people involved and we can’t verify at least they’re safe or at least they’re willingly not coming home or they’re a voluntary missing person — those are the ones that we’re most concerned with,” he said.

With tips from the public often being the key to help police departments solve cold cases, King shared how important it is for the public to come forward when there is potentially relevant information to be shared.

“As minor or inconsequential (as) someone thinks their piece of information could be, what they might not know is all of the information, that backstory we have that makes that tip or that bit of information important, up to critical, to identifying not only the suspect but maybe their involvement in something that took someone’s life or hurt someone,” he said. “So my recommendation (is) no matter how minor or unimportant they think it is, let us … hear the information.”

King said that missing person tips can save lives.

“We can not only save the life of that individual, but the trauma to that family that is worried or reporting that individual missing and is concerned for their safety, just as the investigators and the Police Department is,” he said. “No matter how minor, no matter how unimportant someone thinks it is to call us — report it; send us a message; let us do our jobs and let us go out there and try to serve the public.”

Based on the experience of the Farmington Hills Police Department, one phone call can completely change the dynamics of a case and lead to a mystery being solved.

“That’s why we’re getting this information out there,” King said. “We’re giving opportunities for people to call us, for people to email us, for people to remain anonymous and send us information — that is the main purpose of this.”

The public can view the Farmington Hills Police Department Cold Case Homicide and Missing Person webpage at fhgov.com/coldcases.

Tips may be submitted through the website or by calling the Police Department Command Desk at (248) 871-2610.

The names of the missing people on the website are Amaya Marie Arteaga, Eimy Bertila Lopez Rivas, Nicholas Nassir Bouyer, Jacob Petty and Joshua Petty Jr.

The names of individuals a part of the cold case investigations are Armand Hickmon, Darlene McKenzie, Dennis Wallace, Gordon Machek, Kerry Beatty, Kristi Frontera and William Jones.

In the case of Machek, who went missing in 2001, Edgardo Luis Perez is wanted for his alleged involvement in the murder.

The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office issued a warrant for Perez’s arrest, charging him with felony murder.

Perez fled and is currently at large. He is wanted by the FBI, and in the FBI’s remarks section, it states that Perez has ties to Indiana, Michigan, Puerto Rico and Tijuana, Mexico.

He reportedly had a collection of books on how to be a fugitive, how to do money transactions over the internet, and how to change identity and create fake identifications and documents.

It is also stated that Perez should be considered armed and dangerous.

Pictures and details for missing persons and cold cases can be found at fhgov.com/coldcases.