Uncovered

Crowdsourcing Cold Cases

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Uncovered is the largest public database of cold case information and a suite of tools that enable the massive true crime community to turn their interest into advocacy.
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Launch tags:Newsletters•Database•Community
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What do you think? …

Jim Brown
Maker
Hey Product Hunt! 👋 I’m certain each of you have a friend, family member, or colleague that won’t shut up about the latest true crime podcast or documentary they’ve been binging. But, did you know that since 1980, more than 200,000 cases have gone cold where either a murder took place, or a missing person was considered to have experienced serious bodily harm? And unfortunately, that number is going up by more than 5,000 cases every year. We built Uncovered to combine that interest in consuming content for the sole purpose of entertainment and shift it to a desire and willingness for community advocacy and help bringing peace to the families of these murdered or missing people. With nearly 50,000 cases in our database and almost 100,000 visitors coming to our site each month, we’re now seeing over 300 crowdsourced contributions submitted every single week. And, in January, our community solved its first case! 💻 Learn - dive into the timeline of events, see the map of relevant locations, and understand all the people important to the case 🔔 Follow - as you find people whose cases speak to you, follow them. You’ll be notified whenever there’s new information 🔗 Contribute - no one can do everything, but everyone can do something! Help us crowdsource the gaps and connect the dots in cases near you 🗞️ Read - The Citizen Detective newsletter gives you a run-down of what's going on in the true crime world, connects the dots on cold cases, breaking news, upcoming content, and advocacy opportunities 🗣️ Share - outside of DNA, what breaks cases open is sharing information and using your platform to bring awareness to the cases that don’t get as much attention 🙋 Join - when you raise your hand, you make a choice to be counted, and counted upon, as part of a movement that calls upon collective impact to uncover answers in unsolved cases We need more than just not-for-profits and government entities to solve society's biggest problems. That’s why we organized as a Public Benefit Corporation and donate 2% of our revenue to other organizations working hard on behalf of the families in these cases. So, head to uncovered.com/cases – zoom in on your hometown and when you find a case that speaks to you, follow it, and who knows, maybe you have information that could lead to it being solved? Together, we can make a difference.
Kevin Bailey
@jim_brown this product is so needed in today’s world. Let’s look out for each other!
Jim Brown
Maker
It is indeed, @kevin_bailey3! The single most important thing to solve this cases outside of DNA, is new information from the public.
James Paden
This looks fantastic, Jim! What does law enforcement think of Uncovered? How does that interaction work?
Jim Brown
Maker
This is a great @jamespaden. I want to preface by saying this is NOT a political statement -- but in our numerous conversations with law enforcement, we've seen a split in feedback. The more conservative members of LE believe this is *their* data and *their* case and tend to not want "help." The more progressive members of LE have expressed that this is the next generation of "community policing" and see partnering with us as a way to help teach the community how to do this work ethically and without interfering with justice. With this knowledge, we've chosen to build for the public first. In our community, we have retired law enforcement officers, private investigators, genealogists, librarians, and so much more. We sift through all the data we receive through a substantiation and verification process we created and provide relevant information to the correct agencies responsible for each case. In the near future, we want to allow each law enforcement agency to claim their profile on Uncovered and be able to connect directly with our members in their geographical area to ask for help, support, or anything else that is needed.
Rachael Rosselet
Maker
@jamespaden Great question! We have some great partnerships going with law enforcement. Two examples: we worked with one Sheriff's office to digitize a 62-yr old case file for them. Now it's out of boxes, organized, and in searchable PDFs. We also managed to provide the family assistance, securing partners to fund exhumation and DNA testing -- taking that burden off the county. In another case, we are working with a county coroner to make matches between their unidentified remains with missing persons in NAMUS.
Amy Volas
Finally, technology for good to bring peace of mind to so many people left wondering. Congratulations on the launch and this is incredible!
Jim Brown
Maker
Appreciate you, @amy_volas! Combining my personal interest in true crime with my tech skills has been a blessing. And being able to put a team of passionate people on the problem has been even more rewarding.
KGP
What types of training or resources does Uncovered offer to its members?
Rachael Rosselet
Maker
@kg_p Thanks for the question. We offer a variety of resources to our members. They range in topics from Digital Literacy (how to evaluate sources and how to do effective web searches) to our proprietary Digital Case File that allows users to organize and visualize their case. We also partner with experts to deliver topics that we know our users are interested in. For example, last year, we hosted a public records BootCamp with the NFOIC that taught our members what information they are entitled to from law enforcement and how to file FOIA requests effectively. We've also had world experts talk on subjects like Forensic Genetic Genealogy.
Mark Guyer
Really like the timeline and visual aspect of the database @jim_brown. Have you been working with any cold case podcasts or true crime publishing companies on leveraging Uncovered's tools?
Jim Brown
Maker
@markguyer Absolutely. In fact, it was Cults, Crimes, and Cabernet combined with John Lordan of LordanArts that led to our first community case being solved. We are now working with several to understand their needs as they grow their own audiences and seeing how we can build that into Uncovered, both for new discovery as well as listener retention.
Lexi Kakis
Congratulations on the launch -- Loving the contribute to a case feature. I was surprised to see how many unsolved cases are in my state. How often does Uncovered add new cases to the database?
Rachael Rosselet
Maker
@lexi_kakis Thanks for the question Lexi! We actually add cases every day. Though we have over 45k cases on our site, this is really just a drop in the bucket. Family members, advocates, and others have submitted over 2,000 cases to us. In addition, staff and community members are also scouring websites for victims to add. We are turning over every rock we can to get the most comprehensive database of cold missing and murdered cases.
Matt Hunckler
So cool! How is Uncovered plugging into all the cold cases and true crimes covered on all the podcasts, documentaries, and miniseries?
Rachael Rosselet
Maker
@hunckler Part of what makes Uncovered so special is the connections and partnerships that we are creating with content creators. This is important because when a family comes to us for help, we can reach out to our collaborators and ask them to share the family's story on their platform. In turn, they also share back with us cases that they've covered so that we can add them to the database/add another source to their case. We also actively follow media around cases. For instance, when the new Unsolved Mysteries season dropped on Netflix, our community very quickly helped us visualize those cases so viewers could follow along or dive deeper on the case.
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