The Deck of Cards That’s Solving Crimes

Read em and weep boys. All reds.

Aug 13, 2021

Mystery Mob!

How does one solve a cold case? The leads led nowhere and the success rate of finding missing persons or solving crimes goes down the longer the case goes on so… what to do? Play some poker?

But before we go all in, you probably want to know the answer to this week’s riddle... It’s at the end of this post. So read this wonderful cold case tale and then you’ll get your answer!

Now, time to ante up…

Five years later, the case was solved.

Twenty year old Derrick Comrie from Hartford, Connecticut was killed after a high school basketball game in January 2006. Sitting in the passenger seat of a friend’s car, an unidentified man walked up to the window and shot Comrie in the face.

The only details about the murderer were braids in his hair and dressed in a puffy black coat. The case went cold.

In 2010, Connecticut authorities received a tip from someone serving time in a Connecticut prison. And in July of 2011, justice was brought to Comrie’s killer with a sentence of 37 years in prison.

How’d it happen?

With a deck of cards.

It’s not magic, it’s detective work.

In 2003, the US government developed “personal identification playing cards” to help identify the most wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s government. The idea was to print decks of cards featuring the names and images of those individuals thereby increasing the likelihood of soldiers recognizing them in the field.

Polk county law enforcement officer Tommy Ray thought this idea could extend to cold cases.

Featuring the portraits and names of victims, a short description of the crime, any reward offered and a telephone number to the tip line, these decks became known as Cold Case playing cards and were sold in prisons for $1.75 a pack.

The gift of gab

According to the Chief Inspector in the Connecticut Office of the Chief’s State Attorney, the reason the cards work comes down to boredom, loose lips, and the potential for reward. Gossip travels, inmates brag about past exploits, and the moment someone realizes they have information that could be worth money or help get time knocked off their sentence, the choice to call in the tip becomes a no brainer.

A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement explained,

“It’s kind of like interviewing 93,000 inmates for new leads and it has worked wonders.”

While national data on the success of the playing cards isn’t currently available, there have been a handful of cases closed because of them. Authorities in Florida solved three murders in three months after the cards were introduced. Nine Connecticut cases have been solved because of them. And as of April 2015, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has received more than 60 tips from inmates using the cards.

Versions have been distributed in more than a dozen states & Australia, while places like the Netherlands have opted for cold case calendars for inmates rather than playing cards whereby police received 160 tipoffs after a trial run of the calendars.

Need a deeper dive?

Check out the two resources below:

The short documentary that led us to this story.
Learn a little more from the Cold Case Talk podcast.

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That riddle tho?

What breaks yet never falls, what falls yet never breaks?
Hint: it’s two different, yet related things.

Answer: Day and night. (Daybreak and nightfall)

How’d it go? Easy? You’re a genius? Well you’ll really get to show off your smarts as we plan to release our very own interactive mystery episode… for FREE! So stay tuned!

As always,

Stay ‘spicious

-Andy & Mark

Mystery Nibbles