step-by-step Citizen Detective Guide
We need more Citizen Detectives to join us at Uncovered. Refine your unique skills, test your expertise, and uncover new talents.
be part of a growing community
We truly believe collective impact will uncover answers in cold cases—you can help!
Consider this
More than 200,000 unsolved cases have gone cold since 1980, and murder clearance rates continue to drop. With equity for BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other underserved victims not prioritized in the true crime community—together we can do better.
Victims Deserve a Voice; Families Deserve Answers, and No One Should Be a Statistic.
Joseph Smedley
Joseph Smedley was last seen by his roommates on the evening of Sunday, September 27th, 2015 in Bloomington, Indiana. He left behind a suspicious suicide note and his family is still demanding justice.
Rita Hester
On November 28th, 1998, Rita Hester was found stabbed multiple times in her apartment building near Boston, Massachusetts. Rita’s story inspired Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Use your insights, actions, and awareness to help uncover answers in the more than 200K cold cases of the missing and murdered.
uncover answers
Join a Community of Citizen Detectives
We believe that together we can make a difference, by combining publicly available information with the ever-growing wisdom of the crowd, to do something that matters and find the intersection of justice, peace, and closure for the families of the murdered and missing. Using our collective superpowers in research, data collection, and our diverse backgrounds, we can help uncover answers in the thousands of cold cases that need attention. You can use your unique perspective to help.
Latest Citizen Detective Resources
A Checklist For How to Fill Out a FOIA Request
Don’t underestimate the power of your right to get government records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). But what does that mean for a citizen detective? Where are the resources, and how do you get started?FOIA at work in recent years Without the FOIA,...
What’s it Like to Have That Job: Forensic Genealogist
With criminal investigators increasingly relying on DNA to solve crimes—including cold cases like the Golden State Killer and Le Grêlé, two infamous serial rapists and murderers who went undetected for decades, the demand for the skills of forensic genealogists has...
What Cases Need To Be Uncovered
We believe that through collective impact, we can uncover information that might lead to the next big break
in a cold case. Help us build our
visualized case list.