Betting the deck, police try to crack 52 'cold cases'

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MINNEAPOLIS -- Thirty-four years after their two young daughters were found stabbed to death in a quarry outside of St. Cloud, Minn., Fred and Rita Reker have seen the cold case vetted by experts from Minnesota to Pennsylvania, and received no justice.Frustrated? "We're probably past that," Fred Reker said.But "we're hopeful," Rita Reker added. "Always hopeful." And, so, they went to St. Paul, Minn., along with son Marty Reker, to back state and local authorities in a new effort to crack 52 cold cases by turning to prison and jail inmates to help solve the mysteries, and by employing a deck of cards to generate the tips.Susan and Mary Reker, ages 12 and 15, are the "two of hearts" on playing cards highlighting unsolved homicide, missing person and unidentified remains cases. The cards were put in the hands of 9,400 state inmates after they were locked in for the night, said Joan Fabian, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.The cards, more than a year in the making, were inspired by a similar program in Florida, which Fabian said "solved two cases from the deck ... (and) just seemed like a really good tool."High-profile cases included in the Minnesota cards are the disappearances of Jacob Wetterling ("king of hearts"), 11, of St. Joseph, and LeeAnna (Beaner) Warner ("ace of hearts"), 5, of Chisholm; the fatal shooting in 2000 of Kevin Brewer ("jack of hearts"), 11, of Minneapolis, and the discoveries between 1999 and 2007 of three unidentified infants in the Mississippi River near Red Wing, Minn.Rita Reker said that whoever murdered her girls probably had an accomplice and that the path to the suspects could begin behind bars.Each of the state's prisons has two to three investigators who handle in-house incidents and who also glean intelligence leads to share with outside law-enforcement agencies, said Cari Gerlicher, director of the Office of Special Investigations for the Minnesota Department of Corrections.She said that it was that inside-outside teamwork that helped bring about a conviction in 2004 of the man who fatally shot a Brink's guard during an armored car robbery in Bloomington in 1998 -- a case that gained a national profile as the years passed before the arrest.Jeff Hansen, special agent in charge of the homicide unit of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), said that the agency had the choice of 75 to 80 cold cases to feature in the deck. After local agencies provided possible candidates, authorities went through cases to find those that still had evidence on file and witnesses who were alive, he said. Families also were contacted to give consent, Hansen said.Tips are to be gathered by the BCA.As he left the site of a news conference, Hansen nodded to Gerlicher."We'll be in touch," he said."Yes, we will," she replied.The cold-case initiative is being funded through private sources and has cost about $20,000 to date, Hansen said.Within the deck, the "eight of hearts" spotlights the case of Georgia Smith, 76 (reported incorrectly as 77 on the card), who disappeared in 1999, apparently while driving her 1984 Mercedes Benz from Champlin, Minn., to her Wisconsin cabin about 125 miles away.Police have found no trace of Smith or the car, said her daughter, Pam DeKok. She hopes, she said, that the initiative not only spurs witnesses behind bars to talk, if they know something, but also results in car-parts dealers double-checking records for any sign of the blue-gray Mercedes.In the eight years since Smith disappeared, police have seen two of the initial investigators on the case retire, said Chief Dave Schwarze."We're all looking for closure," he said.. "But this is not about us -- it's about the families."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)