NYPD’s Finest: Inside Cold Cases with Detective Giacalone

o'ray after the assassination of doctor King. He went over to his apartment and he found the maps, so he knew he's headed a Memphis. He had that confirmed. He also worked on the Mary Michael case, the young woman that was put in the box with limited air and buried alive, the Emory University student. He was one of the ones that found her with the straw sticking up.

He also worked the Rosenberg spy case. But the reason I met with him was the Mary Shotwell little case out of Atlanta, and it was the case that he just could not let go. He said, you know, of all the things that I've done, Mary's case is the one that stuck with me. I even exchanged Christmas cards with her mother for forty years. Some cases you just can't let go. Our guest today, Detective Joseph Jackloney, spent

twenty years with NYPD. Now, y'all, I've had a lot of people on Zone seven, and there's a lot of people in my Zone seven that have a bio that will just knock your socks off. But I want you to know before I start listing all of his act glades and successes, this is a snapshot of this man. He won the Medal of Valor. He attained the rank of sergeant sergeant over the Detective Squad Bronx Cold Case Squad. He was the commandant officer over the one hundred and

tenth Precinct Detective Squad in Queens. He was the director of the New York Police Department Homicide School. He's a professor, he's an author. He literally wrote the Cold Case Handbook. I not only respect this man, but I tell you he is a decent and fine person. I want to welcome Joseph Jackaloney to his own seven. You know, you and I first met at Crime con and I was knocked out then. Just your way of approaching a case, the way you talk with people the way you work

a room. It's something to what And I often tell young csis and young detectives if you don't know how to talk to people, practice try to learn how to do it. But you do it with such ease.

don't you tell us about Charles Taylor and Steven Mason certainly.

two thousand, So here's where what we're dealing with. So this case came across my desk and it was like, there are certain things that attract you to something, and for me, it was, first of all, the victim's age. So you had a double homicide, a double stabbing, and you had two young boys, one was six and one was eight, so Charles was six and step brother Stephen was eight. And that was the first thing. Because in New York City we have the accordion file, so to speak.

So you have this big like banker's file or a box, and that's how we do our cases. So it's unlike the LPD who has like the murder book and everything nice and simple. We have a big, giant mess. And the issue that comes down to is that I would say the hardest thing is finding the case. So we came across this case and I saw the ages and right away I said, well, listen to this one is something that we need to look at. Like everything else, you try to find those solvability factors that get in there.

But this case was dated all the way back onto February twenty first, nineteen eighty five, and it happened in two thousand Valentine Avenue, and the boys were both stabbed. They were actually their throats were cut, and they had some other injuries that I won't go into detail on because there's only things that the killer would know. And the issue that comes down to is that this is still an open case. The boys were found at the

bottom of the staircase to the trash compactor room. To me, that was also another significant part of what the killer was probably thinking at the time, you know, using that location, the boys were supposed to be going to school, and they never made to school. Now, the school isn't too far from where the house is located. It's actually just through the apartment complex, make a left turn and it's like another block or two to the school, so they

had a very short distance to walk. The issue that comes down to is that they never make it there. And there was a big search going on for the police all hours of the night until they finally discovered the children at the bottom of the staircase of the trash compact the room. And as you know, Cheryl, when you're dealing with a missing person's case, whether it's an elderly or it's a young child, you always try to do a complete search of the location first because more

than likely that's where you find them. And unfortunately they found them. The hunt was on right. So here's where I also try to teach people who are looking at the cold cases to go back to the archives to find those old newspaper articles and newscasts because they tend to have so much more information than today's reporters. Right, today's reporters there's a twenty two second cycle. They need to get to the next story. Back in the day, the men and women that did this, they did long

form investigations. They were like detectives, and they had so much information that is in their reports and on the newspaper stuff. It's amazing what you can find on it. There's unfortunately only about two articles that are archived, one in the New York Times and one in the New York Post. They actually go into some great details. So they start naming names of suspects, and they start talking

about different things. They name the name of cops and the detectives that are working these things, which is all important for your investigation. But getting back into what we were doing, so for years, for a couple of years, we had one suspect narrowdown. It's unfortunate that most of the evidence in the case was destroyed and we really were left with nothing to go on other than if we brought this person in and question them and then

you hope that they make a confession, which is never in a good spot to be. And so we had shows at the time to do that and continue started looking for We went to every police facility that we have that stored evidence in and we couldn't find this. I mean, we're talking about a case that was, you know, twenty twenty years old plus by the time we were

looking into it again. And unfortunately a lot of things happened. Look, the NAPD just had another big fire not too long ago that a bunch of evidence from cold cases were destroyed. So when you're dealing with situation where you have so many cases of the likelihood of this happening is probability, and the issue that what we also look into is that and this is for the people who are out there investigating cases, whether in your law enforcement or you're

a civilian looking at these things. Most of the time the suspect is named somewhere within the case file. It's a phenomenon that you just can't explain. At one point, the detectives had this person on their radar and it was just like everything else that missing that one piece to establish the probable cause in order to make an arrest.

This is something very similar to what we had faced, But we came from the school of looking at cases without reading the files first, right, So if you had an active homicide, you wouldn't go into a filebox and start reading all or booths. They don't exist. So we would do things such as the crime scene walk through

with the photographs. But the other bonus that we had in the Bronx was that during the eighties, the district attorney had a program that they videotaped every crime scene, so this crime scene was actually included, so we were able to actually watch the crime scene in living color

twenty something years later, which was a bonus. And there's something that I've been preaching to police departments and DA squads everywhere I go, that every homicide that happens should be videotapes, especially now when things are so cheap you could do it with an iPhone.

extended crime scenes. This is how you find areas where the suspect could have escape from, and you could find all the different things because evidence could be all along that path that the person has fled. I mean, it's as simple.

because they all long term investigations. But I tell you, with the two new federal laws that passed last year, they're in trouble if they don't have a cold case squad.

They're going to have so many requests. So I agree with you that you've got to do it beforehand, and you've got to get ready or before something like that becomes enacted, because I mean, buddy, you're going to be overrun pretty quick. Going back to Charles and Stephen, now

they had a two year old younger brother and lived with their mama on Valentine Avenue. Was there anything that stuck out to you from the beginning about the address or any similar transactions, anything that made you say, hey, wait a minute, I know something about this. You know two thousand Valentine Avenue, or I know something about this general area.

one that you're investigating. So we did all of that right, so you figure with being you would look at We went through FBI's BYICAP right, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, to identify other types of incidents where children were stay up at death and you know, left and kind of you know, staged in the way that they were, and unfortunately it's not it wasn't. It didn't come up with any other hits, so we knew we were dealing with somebody who this might have been their first time dealing

with maybe children at this point. Because in the Bronx back in the eighties and nineties, it was a very violent place and I think we had about eight or nine thousand open homicides just from ten years prior, so there were a lot of cases and you weren't dealing with situations where you had you know, drug on drug crime, drug dealers killing each other, at gang killing each other, or when you had instances of where prostitutes were picked up and found murdered. I mean, you're dealing with two

small children. So this was an outlier from the type of homicides that we were looking at, and that's what really attracted our attention to this.

and get out. And the ironic part of this is if he was able to do it, that staircase led directly into the courtyard where somebody would available to hear its screams. For sure.

chance there could be DNA own their clothing.

or five copies. It's not ideal. We had a special place where we would open up these cases because you never know what you were going to find in some of these boxes. I mean, we found boxes with bloody shirts of them. I mean, you name it. Because policing was much different back in the eighties and even the nineties, it was.

enough training. And that's why things like your new book, the Cold Case Handbook, is so imperative, and a lot of the interviews that you do because here's something else I noticed. And maybe it's because you're a professor and you're a teacher at heart, but even as you do interviews on the national news, you're teaching and you're training at a very basic level. I mean, I love the way you talk and the way you form, like, here's

the scene, this is what law enforcement has done. And then you gradually go into and this is what they could do and this is what they should do to me. And I just want to be very very clear. You can't overstate the way you deliver a message.

my experience. If it's something that is basically, you know, this is what scientific experience or scientific experimentation, now we'll call that out too. I have seen a lot of things lately from other individuals. I won't name anybody, but sometimes when they go on television, I kind of question, like, you know, what are you doing? It's just there's a time and a place for everything, and I try to make sure that you just be real. I call it like it is too. I don't sugarcoat any I tell

people I'm not a bakery. I don't sugarcoat anything. It is what it is. And I kind of speak my mind, which has been probably my doubtful in my lifetime too, because certain people don't want to hear the truth. Well, I always tell people that they don't ask me. But I've had a couple of arguments with people or other experts on TV too, which some of them are kind of fun.

about the kids, but you know, against the mother of the kids. It's definitely something that needed to be explored. I mean, like you said, a million things could have happened. It could have been kidnapped, this for ransom, It could have been anything. But this was something shortly where they left the house too, And this wasn't like, you know,

they were coming home from school. Now, this happened on the way to school, within a matter of minutes from them leaving the house, because from when they come out of their apartment. And unfortunately, back in the eighties, we didn't have surveillance videos, So if God forbid, this happened today, it'd be video surveillance of that courtyard like there is today. If you go over the two thousand Valentine Avenue, there's

not only security, there's gates you can't get in. There's all kinds of crazy stuff that happens over there.

walk by. I mean, we know access control is really important, but unfortunately sometimes people get lazy and you see the same person every day they come visit, and then it becomes an automatic like oh, here he comes, and just hit the buzzer and with the person in.

I know you worked Queens and I know you worked the Bronx. When you work a case, no matter what it is, homicide or missing person, do you work different in those different neighborhoods.

which is the Bronx. You have Queens, you have Staten Island which is Richmond County, and you have the Bronx. So I was the CEO of the NYPD's Bronx Cold Case Squad. However, because there was only three supervisors to cover five boroughs, I used to cover Queens and Brooklyn also,

so we were spread pretty thin. But like everything, else you have detectives that you can trust, right, And that's one of the things that if any chief of police out there listens to this podcast and they're looking to put people in this unit, besides their ability to be able to investigate cases, you also have to have the ability of being trustworthy and that they could be left alone for time, for a long time, sometimes without supervision, and they're going to do their job and do their work.

That's an important aspect of picking people to work in a cold case squad is trust. That's critical, yes, trust and so yeah, we had one policy and procedure for everything. So for instance, our definition of a cold case was just no more active leads. It didn't have a time frame on it, so I know a lot of places you know it has to be a year old or

three years old before it could be declared. The nice thing about what we dealt with is we had a good relationship because we all worked at detective squads, so we knew a lot of people, including the supervisors that when we would go look at cases, they would actually throw cases at us and say, here, Joe, take this case because we know who, we know who the purpose I just don't have time, drowning and grand larsities. Just do it, clear it. We don't care who gets the clearance.

That was a good part of it that helped us do well in our job, so to speak, and be able to be recognized from the work we did. But a lot of times it was detectives giving us good cases that they just didn't have the time to work on. Because New York City we have a homicide squad, but they don't work really catch active homicides per se. They're

more of a supplemental group. They will investigate some cold cases or other things out there, but it's not like La right where there's a homicide and the homicide squad does everything. We run it by each detective squad, and we have seventy seven precincts, so we have seventy seven different detective squads, but everyone works and does the same thing.

what I was asking, Like, in other words, this neighborhood, you might could do a you know, neighborhood canvas pretty quick whereas over here they're not going to respond to a canvas. You're wasting your time. If there was another way to kind of do it, That's what I was. You know, the.

each each town has its own thing. So when I worked in Brownsville, their model was never run never will you know, bedsty do or die. I mean that's the kind of stuff that you're dealing with. Yeah, that's the kind of Yeah, the mentality that you're dealing with too. And things have gotten probably i'd say worse over the last couple of years because of all of the mass eatier about the cops so how bad they are and

everything else. So I'm imagining that it's even tougher today than dealing with it than I was going back in that timeframe.

if you're in Chinatown or Wall Street. You should be able to maneuver and get people to talk to you, and even.

you'll hear the whistles and the thing. You know, all kinds of crazy stuff that's going on and it's a certain point you're like, listen, I'm not here for any of that stuff. I don't care. This is what we're here for, you know. And a lot of times, as you know, right, I mean, how you approach people. I don't care if they are gang members, they're drug dealers.

Everybody has information that they can help you with. Yeah, some don't want to Some don't want to talk to you in public, and that's why you have a business card. And that's why on the back of those business cards you should have the crime Stoppers information, so that anonymous tip line. So that's somebody who is verbally in the street saying get away from me, I don't want to talk to you, get out of here, blah blah, and

you hand them a card and they take it. Right after all that whole big show, then you know exactly what it was all about. Sure, So it's an important aspect of it. And you have to it's like being a comedian and you have to work the room sometimes and you have to know your audience. And like you said, going.

This is what I still remember. And you know, people would say, well, it's a case that you can't solve and you just need to let it go, and no, you just can't let these things go. So you still try to, you know, encourage those that are in charge now to keep on, you know, with the fight because we have a strong indication, we have a name, We pretty much feel that this is the person, but we don't have enough evidence to establish powerble cause it's as

simple as that. And unfortunately that happens an awful lot in these cases.

they do business. And if they solve ten percent fifteen percent more cases, if they have better video or flat have video to show a jury, you're going to have better conviction rates because you're given the jury more So, what you're doing maybe is not solving their case, but because of them and through them, solving hundreds more that would not have been.

years later that yet put everything in paper. So like you said yes, every time you every time you talk about something or you know, you learn from it and you can improve things. And also in a case like this, if you're saying, yeah, why are you still bothering whether you're never going to find it, well, because there are things that can happen, right, Sometimes somebody can get religion, or somebody's on their deathbed and they want to now you know, talk about it, and there are things that

can happen. Maybe this individual or individuals told somebody and or confided in somebody and now you know what, somebody down the road gets arrested and now they want to get out of jail free card. And that's just for this case. This is for any cold case. You know, Hope.

I always say hope is not a plan, but sometimes when you're dealing with cold cases, it's all you have and you just have to just keep on hammer and away and like everything else, the harder you work, the luckier you get.

a good choice, you know, you know, and she goes why, and I said, because detectives are Italian. So I wanted that last name. So to me, where I got that from, of course, was like TV and movies, Like all of these New York City detectives, they all had those names, right, and so I wanted that last name, which my maiden name was not Italian, so I thought I got to go get that through marriage. And then I was sound, you know, like a detective. And of course I'm married

a scontsman. But it's okay. But every time I hear like you and other NYPD homicide detectives specifically speak, that childhood understanding comes back. But I will tell you sometimes I hear people say arguably or perhaps well, I will flat tell you that New York City homicide detectives are

the best in the world. You spending any time with us today is a gift, and I just want you to tell us any last thing you want us to know, or tell us about y'all's training or your homicide school, anything you want us to know, to really showcase just what y'all are about because it's more than nine to eleven, and it's more than this brotherhood, and it's more than this training. This is not something new. I think it's always been this way for NYPD.

pass on that experience. And then over time where we see people retiring just after twenty years and then you know, the resignations are up now because all the stuff that's happening, you lose that experience. So the only thing that you can help replace that is with training. So we spent a lot of time developing courses and getting them accredited

for people too, so that they can go to these classes. Specifically, we have the Death Investigations Course, we have a Criminal Investigations course, that every detective who gets promoted has to go through it. And it's about trying to learn how to solve the toughest cases. And I would say dealing with cold cases is not only the toughest cases, but they are America's toughest cases. They're open for a reason. If it was that easy, they would have been closed already.

So it's they needed to visuals who will not get deterred by anything. No matter what obstacle you put in front of them, they are going to try to, you know, go over it, go under it, or go around it. And it's that's the bottom line about how you do it. So it's about tenacity, it's about persistence. And New York has that has the reputation of being, you know, the dog eat dog world, and I think that has a lot to do with that.

things to be spoken of because they actually happened in this World John Walsh. I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is Zone seven