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 — several are cited in this section — were the county's public word on its killings. In October 2021 the South Bend Police Department withdrew its officers from the unit, and the unit was dissolved; South Bend has investigated its own homicides since, through a Violent Crimes Unit of its own. The county police now work the county's cases, including at least one in this section that began as the Metro unit's.

The count, in dispute: How many of the old cases remain open is a question the authorities answer in public with different numbers, and the disagreement is part of this record. In October 2026, after a triple shooting on Bissell Street, the city's and the prosecutor's figures for the Metro unit's last years were set against each other in the South Bend Tribune. The city stated that the unit investigated 103 South Bend homicides from 2016 through 2021 and cleared 56 of them, and that the city police had since cleared 80 of 88 cases, leaving eight currently open. The St. Joseph County Prosecutor's Office stated that the unit investigated 107 homicides in the same years and solved 73 — counting as solved a case in which charges were filed, a killing ruled justified or accidental, or a case closed because the perpetrator had died. Both sets of figures stand here as their offices published them; this section does not average them, and it names no individual case from either count that the offices themselves have not named.

The working list: The named public record of this county's open cases reaches the public chiefly through Michiana Crime Stoppers. The Crime Stoppers coordinator who presents the appeals, Kayla Miller — a lieutenant in the segments cited here, and a South Bend police captain by the fall of 2026 — states each case with the investigating department, and the department's own releases route tipsters to the same desk: Michiana Crime Stoppers, 574-288-STOP or 800-342-STOP, and online at p3tips.com/203, with cash rewards — $2,500 in the standard appeal — for tips that lead to an arrest or solve a case. WNDU's Michiana Unsolved series, reported by Christine Karsten, has carried those appeals case by case since 2022; the entries below drawn from it are the appeals as the Crime Stoppers office states them. The county police keep their old evidence: Captain Aaron Santa of the St. Joseph County Police Department's investigative division told Notre Dame Magazine that his staff had recently gone through the stored boxes of decades-old unsolved cases looking for any in which new technology might lead to a solution, that three cases were reopened on that review, and that under his watch the department never gets rid of homicide evidence. 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, and on the state hotline at 1-800-453-4756.

Sources:

1. South Bend Tribune, reporting on the Metro Homicide Unit's dissolution and the disputed clearance figures (October 2026) — the city's figures, the prosecutor's figures and definition of "solved," and the eight-open count as the city states it.
2. South Bend Police Department releases, as carried by the Tribune and Michiana news outlets (2026) — the Detective Bureau number, (574) 235-9263, the Crime Stoppers number, 574-288-STOP, the p3tips.com/203 route, and the standard reward of up to $2,500.
3. St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Unit press releases (2020–2021), St. Joseph County DocumentCenter — the unit's own releases cited throughout this section.
4. Ken Bradford, "A Life Lost, a Mystery Unsolved," Notre Dame Magazine — Captain Aaron Santa's statements on the county's stored evidence and the three reopened cases.
5. Indiana State Police, Cold Case Investigations — the Bremen District's address, telephone numbers, and the state hotline.