Silvia Pettem – författare

Cases in which all investigative leads appear to be exhausted are frustrating for both investigators and victims’ families. Cold cases can range from those only a few months old to others that go back for decades. Presenting profiles and actual case histories, Cold Case Research: Resources for Unidentified, Missing and Cold Homicide Cases illustrates how investigators can successfully apply resources that will enable them to reopen and solve cases gathering dust in the file room.Today’s investigators have found that, to solve cold cases, they need to be internet savvy and make the best use of the rapidly changing methodologies of the twenty-first century, but they also have to be time travelers and open the door to the past. This volume weaves together the nearly forgotten skill sets of traditional historical researchers with the latest online tools, including TLO, a premier investigative system; and NamUs, the revolutionary database for missing persons and unidentified remains. Along with practical applications, Cold Case Research gives investigators the tools they need to save time and money and to jump-start their cold cases, while keeping others from going cold in the future.Topics discussed include: Implementing cold case unitsPeople searches and working with databasesOverlooked DNA in PKU cardsThe plight of the missing and unknownApplying historical and geographical contextOnline and off-line newspaper researchPublic and published recordsThe use of volunteersContact with co-victimsCold-case review teams and information-sharing resourcesTaking advantage of the mediaUsing a thinking-outside-the-box approach, this volume helps fill major gaps in traditional cold case investigation training and techniques, enabling investigators to confidently reopen and crack the mystery of cases long thought unsolvable. Silvia Pettem was quoted in a January 29, 2012 article on missing persons in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Boulder: Evolution of a City has captivated newcomers, tourists, and longtime residents for years with its dramatic visual and narrative presentation of the birth and development of Boulder. In this updated edition, 322 photographs - more than 90 of them current - capture landmarks, buildings, major events, and quiet moments from the 1860s to 2006. Photographs showing the same locations at several intervals in history reveal Boulder's continuum from past to present.Pettem devotes the first chapter to an introduction of the early photographers whose work appears throughout the book. Moving outward from the central business district as development did, each subsequent chapter focuses on a particular area in Boulder, with an introductory essay followed by historic and contemporary photographs with detailed captions.

Cases in which all investigative leads appear to be exhausted are frustrating for both investigators and victims’ families. Cold cases can range from those only a few months old to others that go back for decades. Presenting profiles and actual case histories, Cold Case Research: Resources for Unidentified, Missing and Cold Homicide Cases illustrates how investigators can successfully apply resources that will enable them to reopen and solve cases gathering dust in the file room.Today’s investigators have found that, to solve cold cases, they need to be internet savvy and make the best use of the rapidly changing methodologies of the twenty-first century, but they also have to be time travelers and open the door to the past. This volume weaves together the nearly forgotten skill sets of traditional historical researchers with the latest online tools, including TLO, a premier investigative system; and NamUs, the revolutionary database for missing persons and unidentified remains. Along with practical applications, Cold Case Research gives investigators the tools they need to save time and money and to jump-start their cold cases, while keeping others from going cold in the future.Topics discussed include: Implementing cold case unitsPeople searches and working with databasesOverlooked DNA in PKU cardsThe plight of the missing and unknownApplying historical and geographical contextOnline and off-line newspaper researchPublic and published recordsThe use of volunteersContact with co-victimsCold-case review teams and information-sharing resourcesTaking advantage of the mediaUsing a thinking-outside-the-box approach, this volume helps fill major gaps in traditional cold case investigation training and techniques, enabling investigators to confidently reopen and crack the mystery of cases long thought unsolvable. Silvia Pettem was quoted in a January 29, 2012 article on missing persons in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

The stories in this book focus on the victims –– some who are missing, some who have lost their identities, and some who have suffered from violent crimes. Even though these cases are considered “cold,” we learn from the evidence, and we need to listen to what the victims can tell us. Read on about cold cases that once made headlines including a man and his wife murdered in Victorian-era New England to an unidentified child found dead in a cardboard box in 1950s Philadelphia. Some have simply slipped into folklore and legend, while others have transcended evolutions of forensic science and still have a chance of being solved.

Beginning in 1933, Eleanor Jarman was sensationalized by the press as the "blonde tigress" and "the most dangerous woman alive." But a closer look at her life shows that she was an otherwise-ordinary woman who got caught up in a Chicago crime spree, then was convicted as an accomplice to murder and sent to prison. In 1940, Eleanor escaped and managed to live out her life as America's longest-running female fugitive. Follow along with the factors that led up to the murder of an elderly shopkeeper, then take a front-row seat for Eleanor's arrest, trial, conviction, and sentencing. With recently unearthed primary-source documents that include police records, court transcripts and prison files, readers will then follow Eleanor through her prison years. Woven in are comparisons and contrasts between Eleanor's and her escape partner's criminal histories, as well as speculation on their lives on the lam. Whether Eleanor deserved her sentence, or if it was too harsh, is left for the reader to decide. The Legend of the Blonde Tigress also includes Eleanor's grandson's unsuccessful plea, in 1993, in which he publicly advertised for Eleanor to come forward and apply for clemency. Most revealing at the time was Eleanor's alias. With that information (and given the fact that Eleanor, born in 1901, is obviously deceased) the author documents her search for Eleanor's remains –– right up to a visit to her likely grave under the name of Marie Millman..

In 1954, two college students were hiking along a creek outside of Boulder, Colorado, when they stumbled upon the body of a murdered young woman. Who was this woman? What had happened to her? The initial investigation turned up nothing, and the girl was buried in a local cemetery with a gravestone that read, "Jane Doe, April 1954, Age About 20 Years."Decades later, historian Silvia Pettem formed a partnership with law enforcement and forensic experts and set in motion the events that led to Jane Doe's exhumation and eventual identification, as well as the identity of her probable killer. The new Kindle version includes an Epilogue––with updated information on how the mystery finally was solved.

Mary Rippon was a pioneer woman educator in the male-dominated world of nineteenth-century academia. As the first female professor at the University of Colorado, she is believed to have been the first woman in the U.S. to teach at a state university. Mary received wide acclaim for her teaching, but Victorian society forced her to lead two very separate lives. "Miss Rippon," as she was always called, was both a professional woman and a mother in an era when these two roles could not be combined. In order to keep her job, she hid her husband and child behind a Victorian veil of secrecy that spanned two continents. Now, for the first time, the full story of the conflicts between this extraordinary woman’s public and private lives is revealed.Readers will follow Mary from her small midwestern hometown to the great centers of culture in Europe. In January 1878, after several years of education in Germany, France, and Switzerland, the soft-spoken twenty-seven-year-old was welcomed at the newly opened University of Colorado in the then-small frontier town of Boulder. The growth of her lengthy career paralleled the early growth of the university, where she worked her way up from first female faculty member to the university's first female professor, eventually chairing the Department of German Language and Literature.The truth of Mary’s separate lives was not revealed until nearly a century later, in 1976, when her elderly grandson revealed to a university librarian that he was Mary’s descendant. In 2006, Mary received a posthumous honorary degree from the University of Colorado, and a scholarship was recently endowed in her name. Silvia Pettem’s carefully researched biography weaves together the story of Mary’s private life with her professional career: not to tarnish Mary's well-deserved reputation, but rather to uncover the human side of a woman whose circumstances clashed with the mores of her times.