INDIANAPOLIS -- IMPD’s homicide clearance rate is topping 70% for the first time in several years, well above its recent level of 40-50%.
Police Chief Chris Bailey attributes the higher clearance rate to a young generation of detectives utilizing cell phone tracing technology, social media analysis, evidence gleaned from license plate readers, surveillance cameras and DNA tests along with fewer cases for investigators to probe and more killings ruled as justified, self-defense or accidental.
Now, IMPD has entered into a pilot program with an ad hoc group of volunteers to take a run at solving a cold case homicide from more than 20 years ago by means of Artificial Intelligence.
Ron Brumbarger, at that time of Apprentice University, and a handful of students took a run at another case in 2019 utilizing a non-AI problem-solving system.
”We got this close, Russ, we were this close to a circuit. All we could get was a spark,” said Brumbarger, holding his finger and thumb less than an inch apart. ”IMPD came to me a year-and-a-half ago and said, ‘We have another case. Would you be willing to try? Would you be willing to take a swing at it?’ I didn’t pick either but this one is described as a ‘doozy’ by IMPD.”
Brumbarger said the unsolved homicide from decades ago is unremarkable but that it's complicated and solvable.
”In both cases, IMPD has their #1 suspect and they don’t share with us who that is by design,” said Brumbarger. “We want to arrive at the same name or couple of names independently of them.”
Brumbarger and his team of, “seven uber bright people,” have met twice in the last month and finished digitizing 3,000 pages and documents and put their AI system to work.
”We digitized everything. We took handwritten notes and ran it through the AI and got a 90-some percent accurate document, close enough for most of our work,” he said. ”We still have some interviews we’d like to do with IMPD detectives to try to capture their thoughts that may or may not be in the documents that they can give us that have developed since the case was discussed.”
While Team Monocles is offering its expertise gratis and confidentially, Brumbarger is hopeful the investigation will build a template that can be applied to future IMPD homicide investigations.
”There’s plenty of these and there’s plenty of these around the world and there’s plenty of these right here in Indiana for sure,” he said. ”There’s some people we have talked to who have said, ‘Anything you create won’t be admissible in court.’ Well, you’re missing the point. We want to help IMPD say, ‘Wait a minute…there are two red pick-ups? I thought there was only one.’ That’s a tip.”
Brumbarger’s volunteers have 90 days to investigate, and maybe another 30 days if the inquiry shows promise before it needs to return the case to IMPD.
Team Monocles has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help defray some minor costs of its investigation. That can be found online here.