Poker Cards Can Help Solve Crime

July 23, 2008

It is the saddest story there is – a missing child. Parents across this nation have felt the unexplainable terror and heartbreak of losing a child, and then never finding another trace of them. Many say the worst part is not knowing – walking around for years wondering if the adults that they are passing are their child, or if they are lying dead somewhere without a proper burial.

Some families will stop at nothing to find out what happened to their loved one, and they have come up with an idea of how they might be able to get themselves some closure. They are producing poker cards.

It seems like a strange mixture, but the cards have already proven helpful in several cases, and the latest group is hoping for similar results. Families create poker cards with the pictures of their loved one on them, and they are distributed to inmates in New York county jails.

This is not the first program of its kind as it has already worked in Florida, where the poker cards helped solve two cold homicide cases. Once police have exhausted all leads, many times the cases run cold. However, sometimes they just aren’t talking to the right people.

The cards get distributed in jails so that inmates have access to them. The hope is that as the prisoners are playing poker they will see one of the photos and read the narrative that goes along with them. As inmates like to talk, or to boast about information that they have, or crimes they have committed, they are hoping that someone will start talking after they have seen the poker cards and new leads will open in the case.

They offer a reward of up to $1,000 for any information that comes from the poker cards that helps resolve the case. States like Iowa, Missouri and Ohio are also looking to do similar programs.