KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knoxville Police Department Captain Ryan Morrow wants to find answers to families' heartbreaking questions.
He hopes a new team dedicated to solving homicides will make that possible.
"We had 11 investigators that worked everything from a simple assault to homicide and everything in between," he said. "[Homicides] take a considerable amount of time and resources to work the cases, let alone solve them, so we decided to dedicate eight full-time investigators to nothing but homicides, non-fatal shootings and some death investigations of suspicious nature."
KPD is investigating seven homicides so far in 2023, so investigators are revisiting older cases, like the murder of Terry Lynn Kirkland in 1984.
"I wish you I could tell you it was some kind of new whiz-bang technology, but what we're doing is we're going through these cases," he said. "The Assistant District Attorney agreed there was plenty of evidence back then to charge, so we were able to close it out."
He hopes they'll be able to bring those answers to other families as well.
KPD has solved 23 of 37 homicides from 2020, or about 63%.
The solve rate is slightly lower for 2021 with 23 of 41 homicides closed, or about 55%.
They've solved roughly 64% of homicides from 2022, Morrow said.
"With the evolution of the DNA technology, if there's something we can send off, then we could send it off," he said. "In some cases, witnesses at the time of homicide were reluctant to speak to us. Maybe with a little bit of time separation, we may be able to start going back to these witnesses and move the case that way."
There have only been seven homicides in 2023 so far. KPD is using that lower number as an opportunity to revisit older cases.
"We're going to get to your case," Morrow said. "No promises that we can get any movement on it, but we're going to do our best to give the families some closure."