Oxnard detectives launch new public website dedicated to solving cold cases

Detectives with the Oxnard Police Department are releasing information on homicide cold cases to the public in hopes to solve decades-old crimes.

“There are people that have lived in this community their whole lives and those people have information about these kinds of cases,” said Detective Jeff Kay.

There are 178 unsolved crimes in the city. Some of them date back as far as 1966, some as recent as 2012.

“We can go back and look at these cases from 1966 or 1976 or even 1996,” said Kay. “It comes down to talking to people. That is how we solve these cases.”

Most recently, Joseph James DeAngelo, also known as the “Golden State Killer,” was named a suspect of at least 12 murders and more than 50 rapes in California after detectives re-launched the cold case.

Oxnard detectives are hoping to do the same.

“I am going to be looking at any cases we have that might connect with the Golden State Killer but also, using that same technique that they used to identify the Golden State Killer, we’ll look at that on a case-by-case basis,” said Kay.

The site launched on Thursday and already, Kay says he has received phone calls from people with information to some of these cases.

Detectives released these cases to the public to try and bring closure to the families of the victims.

“I just want to get that nudge to start solving some of these cases,” said Kay. “If we can solve one based on this website, we’ve done a good thing.”

Please visit coldcase.oxnardpd.org for more information.