Veteran investigator brings ‘Cold Case Live’ to Tampa Sunday

Do you know how to catch a killer? Joe Kennedy does.

For 28 years, Kennedy was a Special Agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). He actually co-founded the organization’s legendary cold case unit, and wrote the methodology and protocol for NCIS cold case investigations – used today by detectives all over the country.

Sunday at 3:30 p.m., Kennedy will appear onstage at Ferguson Hall, inside Tampa’s David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts, with a program called Cold Case Live.

Although he’s been seen on The Real NCIS and Wrong Man, Kennedy isn’t quite as TV-friendly as dramatic Keith Morrison (Dateline NBC) or stentorian Bill Kurtis (Cold Case Files), but then again, he’s the real deal. He doesn’t need a script.

“One in 20 cold cases will actually be charged by a prosecutor,” he reports. “One of 100 cold cases will actually be successfully prosecuted, with someone going to jail. It is very difficult. It is not for the faint of heart.”

It can be dirty work, ugly work. It can mess with a detective’s mind. The odds are clearly stacked against success. So why do it?

“How precious is life?” Kennedy retorts. “To me, life is precious. No one should be able to take someone’s life. And it’s the families is why we do it. The not knowing. These folks live in agony.

“That’s why we do it, to hopefully give the families some resolution. They don’t get closure, because that person’s not coming back. But can we at least hold somebody accountable?”

St. Pete Catalyst: Looking at the ID Channel, there must be 50 shows with the words “kill” or “murder” in the title. To what do you ascribe the national obsession with this kind of crime, and law enforcement?

Joe Kennedy: I think it’s really the thrill of the mystery. People get curious, and that curiosity leads to engagement. They want to try to figure it out; that’s why they tune into all the shows. There’s such a sensational appetite for it. That’s my personal opinion. I could be dead wrong.

With all due respect to you and what you’re doing, why take it on the road? These crimes are pretty sick and depraved.

Sure, but my whole motivation for doing this show is to solve a cold case. And it’s been amazing, the information we have developed on a couple of cases as we started this tour. It is entertainment, but what I do is simply lay out for the folks in the audience what it takes, how hard it is, to solve a cold case. What it takes to get one solved.

And then of course we talk about a couple of national unsolved cases, like JonBenet Ramsey, but my whole motivator was to get cases solved, and never more than ever before are we in law enforcement engaging the public to get them to help us solve cases.  

Is that what happens in your event? You take an actual case and say “Can you guys help me?”

We go over some cold cases that have been solved, and then we apply the methodology to solving a case: “I’ve taught you what a detective would be looking for, so who do you think did it?” We’ve got 340,000 unsolved murders, and it’s growing by 10,000 a year. You know, we only solve about half the murders in the United States today.

The big game-changer today for cold cases is Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy. How the Golden State Killer was captured. People submitting their DNA to direct consumer databases like 23AndMe, AncestryDNA.com. You’ll be surprised – that’s very expensive for a lot of small departments to do. It’s astronomical. So the public can sometimes help create GoFundMe pages, or crowdsourcing, and that’s what I’m trying to do in this show.

For me it was a unique opportunity to maybe get some cases highlighted – and then somebody starts thinking “Oh, maybe I know something about this case,” or maybe they can give their own police department a hand in solving cold cases.

Florida, of course, has got thousands of unsolved murders, and they’ve always been very good at the forefront of any cold cases solved. I worked out of our NCIS office from 2007 to 2010, up in Jacksonville. Florida has a very robust cold case presence.

But do you present an actual cold case to the audience?

No. But on the tour, I meet in the morning with local detectives about unsolved cases, helping them brainstorm and come up with ideas. If I have a department that comes to me and says “Hey, would you highlight this case?” we do. We have done that. I don’t have that right now in the Tampa area.

I’ll give you an example. We did a show in the last week, and afterwards I was contacted by a woman who says “Hey, I witnessed a murder nine months ago. And I was reluctant to come forward.” And now she’s not reluctant. So she’s actively providing information on that. Is that not crazy? That totally blew me away.

I’m not in the entertainment business. For me, it’s a hundred percent chance to re-generate more interest for cold cases. It’s an epidemic right now. And whether the case hasn’t been solved for a year, 10 years or 30 years, somebody out there knows something about that case. That was my motive for doing this.

Find tickets for Cold Case Live here.