Spokane County Sheriff's Office Launches Cold Case Units - Spokane, North Idaho News & Weather KHQ.com

Spokane County Sheriff's Office Launches Cold Case Unit

SPOKANE, WASH. - The Spokane County Sheriff's Office will again be forming their cold case unit where two detectives primary responsibility will be looking into unsolved stories going back to 1948.

Detectives Jim Dresback and Lyle Johnston will focus mainly on the cold case unit, but they will also have to work on some other major crimes as well.

"We've made great strides in DNA and we've made great strides in how we collect and preserve information in the computer age," Detective Lyle Johnson said. "Now is a better time (to launch the unit) because we can get the same DNA information with a much smaller sample."

This unit launches just one week after investigators made significant strides on a murder spree in 1990. They now believe they have a strong lead that Donna Perry may have committed the killings. Detectives said last week that they were able to develop this indication with the help of new science and technology.

"It wasn't that the DNA wasn't there it just took some time for the connection to be made," Johnson said. "I think that's what we're probably looking at with other cold cases as well."