The first 48 hours in any investigation is critical. This is the time span in which a person’s memory is freshest and before any potential evidence is destroyed or contaminated. Within these hours the authorities will interview those close to the victim and also seek the public’s help with any small detail that might relate to the crime. 48 hours to assess the crime scene, collect evidence, interview witnesses, get information out to the public, retrace steps, learn about the individual(s) and their habits and so much more. Forty-eight hours. In Kem’s case the police had roughly 12 hours. You have a case where no one realized she was missing for 36 hours, a police department ill-equipped to handle something of this magnitude and a crime scene contaminated in those vital hours once she was reported missing. Looking at what we know now it is not surprising that this case remains unsolved this many years later.
It is said that approximately 100,000 active missing person cases are reported each day. Of those cases a large majority are “solved”; meaning the person ran away on their own accord, the person was displaced due to mental or physical capacity or the person was never really missing at all. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 90% of female homicide cases the assailant is someone the victim knows whether it be a family member, friend/acquaintance or a significant other. That leaves only 10% of female homicides committed by a stranger.
