Oregon Public Broadcasting

Multnomah County Sheriff Bob Skipper promised last fall to create a “cold case” unit to investigate homicides and suspicious deaths that occurred more than two years ago.

“We all have cases we can remember that didn’t get solved,” says Skipper.  “And you know if they haunt you, they definitely haunt the family.”

So Skipper announced Monday that he has created a cold case unit staffed by eight retired detectives from the sheriff’s office.

The unit has identified 35 unsolved murders since 1973 to focus on.  They’re also featuring them on the sheriff’s website .

One of those cold case investigators is Jim McNelly.  He retired three years ago.  But during his 30 year career in law enforcement, McNelly investigated a number of murders.

He says all investigators want to solve every homicide they are assigned, but that’s not always possible.

“In other words, you’d be working on one case and you’d get another one—it takes priority and sometimes you just never get back to the original case,” says McNelly.

McNelly is now working two cold cases, including the 1978 murder of Gary Hanberg.  

Hanberg was murdered by a stranger outside a bar on Southeast 82nd Avenue on December 12, 1978.

“It’s been investigated quite extensively,” says McNelly about the case.  “But no concrete leads have ever developed.”

Now McNelly hopes new technology and time will crack the case.  He’s re-submitted evidence from the crime scene to the state crime lab for DNA analysis.  This technology did not exist thirty years ago.

Investigators are also re-checking fingerprints found at the scene and hoping advances in technology and databases will help them find a lead in the case.

Investigating a homicide is rarely like cop shows on television, says McNelly.  On those shows, witnesses usually call in tips that lead police to their suspects.

“That doesn’t happen all the time so you have to be patient.  And you don’t solve it in an hour like they do on CSI,” says McNelly.

Solving old homicide cases, says McNelly, can help bring closure for the families and friends of murder victims.

“There’s a hole in your heart that never goes away,” says Margueritte Hanberg, the mother of murder victim Gary Hanberg.

She says the murder of her son of has weighed heavily on her for the past three decades.

But she only has one question for the person -- or people -- who killed her son.  

“Why did you kill my son just for an evening of recreation?” she wonders.  “I mean, what goes through these people’s minds?”

Hanberg is worried the suspects in her son’s murder have committed other violent crimes over the last 30 years.  But she says no matter what, she’ll never give up trying to find who killed Gary.

“You just don’t give up,” she says, her lower lip quivering.  “You just don’t give up.”

Multnomah Co. Sheriff's Cold Case Unit