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Alameda County Sheriff’s Office officials said Tuesday they hope arrests will be in the cards thanks to a new program in which jail inmates will be given playing cards featuring details on 13 unsolved homicide cases.
Sgt. Scott Dudek said the new decks will be given to the 4,400 inmates assigned to the county’s jail system, many of whom play cards for up to six hours a day.
Dudek said the idea is that looking at the cards repeatedly over time will trigger the inmates’ memories and prompt them to come forward with information about what they may have seen or confessions or bragging they may have overheard while in jail.
Dudek said investigators hope that inmates who want to get a reward for information on the unsolved cases or who want to get their sentenced reduced will come forward.
He said it’s “unfortunate” that it often takes a reward or a reduced sentence to get inmates to come forward, but said “that’s how it works.”
Dudek said that since criminals tend to hang out with other criminals, there’s a good chance that the inmates at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin and the North County Jail in Oakland have information that can be useful to investigators.
“This could be a huge source of information for us,” Dudek said.
The sheriff’s office began looking into the possibility of playing cards featuring unsolved cold cases about a year ago after the idea was suggested by relatives of Dana Ramm, a 20-year-old Pleasanton woman who was found strangled to death on the side of Andrade Road in Sunol on Dec. 29, 1986, Dudek said.
Dudek said similar card programs are already being used in San Diego and the state of Florida, but they both feature 52 cases. The Florida program has solved two homicides, he said.
Dudek said Alameda County sheriff’s officials chose to focus on 13 cases, with each case featured on four cards, because they thought there would be a higher chance of success by focusing on a small number of cases.
“We want the inmates to look at these 13 cases over and over and over,” he said.
The parents, family members and friends of the victims in the 13 unsolved cases joined Dudek, Sheriff Gregory Ahern and other sheriff’s officials at a news conference at the county’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, which is next to the Santa Rita Jail.
Georgia Ramm, Dana Ramm’s mother, said she thinks the cards are “a good idea” and “very unique.”
Ramm said, “This is a little nudge to them (the inmates) to get them to report anything they know.”
Mike Misheloff, the father of Ilene Misheloff, who was 13 years old when she disappeared while walking home in Dublin on Jan. 30, 1989, said, “I hope this develops some leads.”
Misheloff said, “There are no guarantees but there’s potentially a big payoff with little effort or money. I think it’s a good idea.”
However, Essley Green, a 44-year-old Oakland man who’s serving a 15-year sentence for his conviction on robbery charges, said he doubts that many inmates will come forward because they won’t want to risk their lives by being labeled as snitches.
“I wouldn’t say anything,” Green told reporters who watched him and seven other inmates play cards at a recreation room at a maximum-security unit at Santa Rita.
He said, “A reward sounds good, but is your life worth that?”
Green said, “The chances are slim that any cases will be solved, but it’s possible. If they can solve one case, then I guess it’s worth it.”
Most of the playing cards feature photos of the victims along with text describing the basic details of the crimes. Some of the cards feature evidence that’s been found or information about persons of interest in the crimes.
In addition to the decks that are being distributed at the county jails, 500 decks will be distributed at bars and lounges thanks to a donation by the Jenny Lin Foundation.
Jenny Lin, a 14-year-old girl who was a straight-A student and a talented violist, was murdered on May 27, 1994, by a suspect who entered her family’s home on Pineville Circle in Castro Valley.
–Jeff Shuttleworth, Bay City News
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–Jeff Shuttleworth, Bay City News
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