Grieving mothers find hope in Kentucky's new cold case law

Rose Smith and Deondra Kimble, two Louisville mothers, are still waiting for answers.

Both lost their sons to gun violence and have yet to learn the full story behind their deaths. Smith has been waiting for nearly 10 years; Kimble, nearly seven.

Michael David Sr. was shot and killed Nov. 4, 2017. Kimble found out about her son's death on a call from her daughter. She drove to David’s apartment in west Louisville and waited roughly five hours until a coroner notified her that her son was murdered. He was 37 years old and left behind a daughter who is now 9 years old and a son who turns 15 in August.

Kimble describes David as a self-driven entrepreneur who cared deeply about his family. He designed custom-made t-shirts and sold them at clothing stores in Louisville with plans to one day open his own shop.

“I told him, I said, ‘Get a business plan, let’s talk about it and let’s see where we’re at. But I’m willing to help you and see what we need to do,’” Kimble said. “That was our last business conversation.”

Cory Crowe was 24 when he was shot and killed Oct. 25, 2014. Smith describes her son as lighthearted, ambitious and a big dreamer.

“When you’d see him most of the time, he had a smile,” Smith said. “A smile that would light up a room.”

Crowe was earning his license to become a barber instructor. His dream was to one day open his own barber school.

“That is the main dream that I know he had that someone took from him,” Smith said. He left behind a son who will turn 15 in September.

David and Crowe’s cases are among hundreds of unsolved homicides the Louisville Metro Police Department’s cold case unit has. The oldest dates back to 1961.

A new law taking effect next month could help change that.

Beginning July 15, law enforcement agencies across Kentucky can contract retired officers to help solve cold cases involving homicides. LMPD has 761 of them.

“We were pretty much hopeless before the bill,” Smith said. “But this bill gives me a little hope.”

Victims of gun violence deal with more than just the pain of losing a loved one. While talking to impacted families, Rep. Keturah Herron, D-Louisville, the sponsor of the bill, said one person told her there’s always the fear of somebody then coming after them.

“Just to think about the hurt, the harm and the lack of ability for them to heal," Herron said. "To know that that person potentially is still walking around in their community, and then also the fear of not knowing who that person is.”

LMPD’s cold case unit is understaffed, according to spokesperson John Bradley. Detectives are saddled with other job responsibilities and its caseload grows weekly.

On average, the unit closes one to two cases each year. But closed doesn’t mean resolved — it just means an investigation is complete. That can stem either from an arrest or an investigation that has come to an end due to “exceptional means,” which refers to causes beyond law enforcement’s control such as the death of the offender or the victim’s unwillingness to move forward with a prosecution.

But the issue is bigger than just one unit.

Bradley said every unit in the department is experiencing personnel shortages. As of June 1, LMPD reported 285 vacancies of sworn positions and roughly 138 non-sworn positions. The cold case unit is staffed by two detectives, one civilian investigator and one sergeant.

“The main burden is having more cases and leads to work than there are detectives to reasonably work all of them,” Bradley said. “The cases are categorized and assigned to detectives based on solvability factors. This determination is made by the cold case sergeant and sometimes changes based on new information or tips received.”

Smith, who recently attended a gun safety conference in the District of Columbia, recently reached out to one of the detectives regarding her son but said no new information was provided. Kimble's last attempt was last year. She called twice and left a voicemail but didn’t hear back.

“And that’s how it was with the detective that I’ve dealt with,” Kimble said. “I would call periodically wanting to know information — I got no return calls.”

“I want answers,” Kimble said. “I think I’m entitled to that.”

Bradley said David’s case was assigned to the cold case unit last October but “not knowing to whom Ms. Kimble reached out to before this, I’m unable to offer any explanation.”

Kimble realizes she may have reached the wrong department and that she wasn’t 100% sure — she was clear on that, she said — “but nobody ever returned my call to say ‘Hey, you did call the wrong department. You may need to call someone else.’”

Bradley said the cold case sergeant “makes every effort to communicate with the families and loved ones of victims regarding their cases.”

After her son's death, Smith founded The ACE Project, which stands for Acting Compassionately Everyday. The nonprofit sits at the intersection of 25th Street and Standard Avenue — where Crowe was murdered — and helps people in similar situations cope with trauma. It offers literacy and a variety of entrepreneurship programs to more than 200 children each year.

"This work that I’m doing is not just about me and my son and my answers,” Smith said. “It’s about everyone who wants answers and some closure.

"I’m hopeful that this bill will bring in detectives and people to work these cold cases where, someone, even if it’s not me, someone’s case will be solved,” she said.

Herron hopes her bill will bring awareness to these cold cases and attract funding from all levels of government.

“Letting our people know, letting our Metro Council members know, letting our mayor know, letting our state representatives know that as we’re looking at budgets, and we’re increasing budgets, that this is a budget piece that we need to make sure that we have money set aside to hire those retired officers to come back and work on some of these cases,” she said.

LMPD defines a cold case as a homicide case that has reached two years without being resolved or that is deemed cold by the homicide commander. It keeps a list of open homicide victims on its website dating back to 2005. The most recent cold case involves a 61-year-old male who was shot and killed in the Beechmont neighborhood.

Anyone with information about a cold case involving homicide is encouraged to call LMPD's anonymous tip line at 502-574-5673.

Reach Dmitry Martirosov at dmartirosov@courier-journal.com or @dmrtrsv on X, formerly known as Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky cold cases: New law boosts effort to get answers