How Unsolved Cases Are Kept

THE KEEPERS OF THE LIST, 1993–2026

The unit that was: For most of three decades, homicides in this city and county were worked by one joint body, the St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Unit, created in 1993 and staffed by the county's departments together. Its releases were the county's public word on its killings, and several of the cases in this section passed through its hands. In October 2021 the South Bend Police Department withdrew its officers from the unit, and the unit was dissolved; Mishawaka has investigated its own homicides since, through its Major Crimes Unit, and the county police work the county's ground — including the ground this section's oldest open case stands on.

The squad that was tried: Once, the county built a mechanism for exactly the cases in this section. In 2002 the St. Joseph County Prosecutor, Chris Toth, announced a Cold Case Squad that would focus on old, inactive homicide cases, staffed by Craig Whitfield — a retired Mishawaka detective who had been a homicide investigator for nine of his twenty-four years on the Mishawaka department — and a South Bend lieutenant, James Clark. The families of the unsolved stood in the room when it was announced; the Tribune's photograph shows Kathy Pennington, whose sixteen-year-old daughter had been killed in Mishawaka in 1988, talking with Whitfield, who had worked her daughter's case since it occurred. The squad's own later history is not part of the public record this section rests on; what the record shows is the work being picked up again, case by case, by the Metro Homicide Unit in the years after — including, in 2010, the daughter's case itself. Her name is Theresa Burns, and her file is the close of this section.

The working routes: The Mishawaka Police Department's own releases route information on its open investigations to its Detective Bureau at 574-258-1684, or anonymously to Michiana Crime Stoppers at 574-288-STOP or 800-342-STOP and online at michianacrimestoppers.com, with cash rewards for tips that lead to an arrest. The State Police take information on their listed cases at the Bremen District, 1425 Miami Highway, Bremen, at 1-574-546-4900 or 1-800-552-2959. Those are the doors the record itself leaves open, and they are printed here at the size the record prints them.

Sources:

1. South Bend Tribune (2002), "Toth announces Cold Case Squad; Victims' families hope for answers in long-unsolved murders" — Prosecutor Chris Toth's announcement; Whitfield's Mishawaka service and his work on the Burns case since 1988; Clark's appointment; the Pennington photograph and caption.
2. South Bend Tribune, reporting on the Metro Homicide Unit's dissolution (October 2021), as carried in the South Bend record of this history — the unit's 1993 creation and its end.
3. Mishawaka Police Department press release (December 2025), as carried by the South Bend Tribune — the Detective Bureau number, 574-258-1684, the Crime Stoppers numbers, and the Major Crimes Unit's name, in the department's current practice.
4. Indiana State Police, Cold Case Investigations — the Bremen District's address and telephone numbers.