Every night, Louie and his dad, a Filipino immigrant who worked as a laser mechanic, would move their cars out of the driveway so Louie’s mother and Victor’s wife, Lourdes, a nurse who worked a late shift at a Yonkers nursing home, could park closest to the house. The Atienza family home on Glenwood Avenue had a long, narrow driveway just a little wider than a car. It was shortly before midnight on November 26, 1996. Every time he tells the story, he feels numb and lightheaded, and it’s almost as if he is back in his car on that cold, rainy night. He forces himself to talk about the murder in the hope that publicity will encourage someone with information to come forward, but speaking of it is not easy. “I think about it every day,” Louie says. Atienza, in front of his family’s Yonkers home. Though nearly 20 years have passed since the night that changed him forever, time has neither lessened the impact nor dulled the agony of what he witnessed: the cold-blooded murder of his father, Victor J. Victor Atienza “I think about it every day.”įor Louie Atienza, the horror has never subsided. So if you’re one of those people who “knows something”-or if you think you may know something-please reach out to law enforcement. Investigators are hopeful that each of them can be solved. Here, we look at six cold cases in Westchester County. The wait is agonizing for them, but we don’t give up, and we do care.” But some cases just go unsolved for whatever reasons. And we want to get them those answers, and we want to get them that justice.
All they want is a little bit of justice, and they want the answers. “With everybody that’s killed, you feel bad for the family. With these cases, there’s never any closure, even if you lock somebody up,” Geiss says. Geiss rotates through these, keeping about 30 on his work board and actively investigating about 10 at a time.Įven when he solves a case, it’s often a bittersweet moment for the victim’s family members. In Yonkers alone, there are about 80 cold cases. Since being assigned to work exclusively on cold cases almost 15 years ago, Geiss has solved 14 cases. Cases long cold can heat up in an instant and be solved after years of mystery. It’s difficult, tedious, and, often, heartbreaking work, but it’s not altogether hopeless. They visit decades-old crime scenes, interview people of interest, and stay in touch with the families of victims, just in case an earlier investigator missed something or someone decides to share new information.
Investigators working cold cases reread case documents and look at gory photos. “Even if a number of years pass, it still remains open, and whatever investigator is assigned to the case continues to look into it.” It has to be actively investigated, and that’s monitored to make sure it happens,” says Investigator Timothy Gleason of the New York State Police Troop K barracks in Cortlandt. Though leads may run dry, cases are never closed unless they are solved, and, contrary to popular belief, all cold-case files don’t just sit in a storage section of police barracks collecting dust. But, a national organization dedicated to publicizing cold cases, reports that, between 19, there were 45,740 murders in New York State, of which about 65 percent were solved, leaving 16,104 unsolved. New York does not track cold cases by county or provide data on the total number of them in the state. These card decks are given to inmates in the hope that one of them might know something about a case. Westchester County Police also put together decks of cards with the images of murder victims whose cases have not been solved. That’s why police departments make frequent efforts to publicize cases, sending out photos with press releases. “What happens is someone who was very close to a person 10 to 20 years ago, now they’re not so close, and they give you some more information to follow up on,” says Cold Case Detective John Geiss of the Yonkers Police Department. That’s the refrain that’s repeated again and again by investigators working on cold-case homicides. But sometimes, the trail warms up again…. Despite seemingly strong evidence and witnesses, a trail can run cold and homicides remain unsolved.
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