A Cold Case Day crime event is coming to Capital Region to address the growing mountain of unsolved crimes.

It’s all part of a new forensic investigation program at Siena College that is rapidly growing.

The numbers of unsolved crime cases in the state of New York are staggering. More than 1,000 people are missing, close to 1,500 human remains are unidentified, and there’s a gigantic backlog of more than 84,000 open cases with DNA.

Siena College instructor Tobi Kirschmann is working to solve the problem. As a forensic investigative genetic genealogist, she’s teaching a new generation of crime solvers. Kirschmann and her growing class of interns and students are working to take on the mountain of unsolved cases.

Many police departments around the country have more cold crimes than they can realistically catch up on. Kirschmann is teaching her group how to use many of law enforcement’s same techniques, and even some new ones. The goal is to breathe new life, and hope, into these old, unsolved cases.   

“There are a lot of different cold cases. It could be a homicide, it could be a sexual assault, missing persons,” Kirschmann said. “The longer the case stays cold, people retire, people pass away, and there’s this forgetting that happens. Every year, these cold cases are growing. And the agencies, I don’t think they know what to do. We can’t pay for this, we don’t have the staff to assign to even try some new things. So it’s totally a crisis.”

The Cold Case Day event taking place Thursday, Sept. 26 on the campus of Siena College. It starts at 4 p.m. and goes until 6 p.m. It is being held at the college’s Roger Bacon Hall inside the Key Auditorium.

 Cold Case Day is free and open to the public, including families and friends of missing persons and unsolved cases.