It’s been more than two years since state lawmakers granted Attorney General Peter F. Neronha’s request for a $300,000 budget appropriation to create a cold-case unit.
Since then, the General Assembly has continued to approve funding for the unit, which includes an investigator, attorney, victim advocate and part-time paralegal, and the attorney general’s office has been awarded a $500,000 federal grant to help cover the costs, too. But has it been worth it?
The unit recently announced its first breakthroughs – identifying suspects in two unrelated decades-old killings using forensic genealogy, among other things.
In both cases, the alleged perpetrators are dead, meaning no charges will follow.
For Sean Varano, a criminal justice professor at Roger Williams University, what counts as success goes beyond business-world metrics.
“In the private sector, we measure [return on investment] in dollars. In criminal justice, the ‘return’ is truth, justice and public confidence, even when prosecution isn’t possible,” Varano said. “Families still deserve answers.”
So far, the unit says it has documented more than 150 cold cases and 14 suspicious death cases, and has more than 20 active investigations.
Varano said it makes sense that only two cases would be cleared by the unit at this point.
“Cold cases are, by definition, the hardest to solve; evidence degrades, memories fade,” he said. “So, this level of productivity early on is significant.”
The creation of the cold-case unit in the R.I. Office of the Attorney General was controversial.
Neronha first inserted the $300,000 line item for the unit in his fiscal 2024 budget proposal, but Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s state budget proposal level-funded the AG’s office, citing economic uncertainty and noting cold-case work could continue through the state police’s major crimes unit.
Neronha turned to the General Assembly and persuaded lawmakers to include the appropriation, which the AG's office said was drawn from attorney’s fees the office received as part of Rhode Island’s more than $10 million opioid-settlement recovery.
House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi’s office confirmed that the $300,000 allotments have continued in fiscal 2025 and 2026. In a statement, Shekarchi signaled his support for the unit’s continuation. “I have great confidence this determined unit will solve other important cases in the months and years ahead,” he said.
McKee’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Lauren Lee Malloy was a vocal advocate for a cold-case unit in 2023, in part because her mother, Lori Lee Malloy, died under mysterious circumstances in 1993, a case she had fought for years to reopen.
“The state police are great, but they have no dedicated cold-case unit. It’d be too much of a workload for them,” Malloy said.
She remains supportive of the cold-case investigators but publicly has taken issue with how Neronha has handled the unit and some cases, including her mother’s.
Varano said that dedicated units matter, noting that cases rarely progress after detectives are pulled to new crimes, and that working with forensic genealogy and aging witnesses demands time and focus.
“Every homicide deserves to be treated like it still matters,” he said. “When we build systems devoted to the hardest cases … it sends a message to families and offenders alike: we haven’t forgotten.”
For families of victims, each case is more than a budget line item, Malloy said.
“Two unsolved murders in a year is certainly a start,” she said. “But the last thing families of these victims need is political peacocking over the cost of justice.”
(Updated to provide additional information about the source of the funding for the cold-case unit in the 12th paragraph.)
