Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list inclu...
A new social media program from the Association of Crime Stoppers Programs of Saskatchewan is designed to get confessions in historical missing persons cases by appealing to the emotions of the perpetrators.
Cst. Ryan Ehalt, police coordinator with Saskatoon Crime Stoppers, joined CKOM/CJME’s John Gormley on Tuesday to discuss the initiative, called To Those Who Took the Missing. The program will see Crime Stoppers posting letters to social media appealing for information in cold cases, and urging anyone with information to come forward and – if they were involved in the disappearance – confess their guilt.
Ehalt said he got the idea after speaking with a convicted inmate who had confessed to a historical missing person case. The individual said their strong feelings of guilt motivated the confession, which was when Ehalt realized the Crime Stoppers program could help bring forward even more confessions.
“I really wanted to show how Crime Stoppers could be relevant to policing,” he said. “Not just an opportunity for P.R.”
To Those Who Took the Missing will be a province-wide campaign, Ehalt noted, organized through the provincial association encompassing the Crime Stoppers programs in Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw, and Prince Albert.
Ehalt said the initiative will use “carefully chosen words” in order to emphasize their message and make perpetrators feel “as uncomfortable as possible.” There is only one way, he said, for a perpetrator to truly relieve feelings of guilt over something they have done.
“The only way to truly be free – not free of consequence but to be free or the potential to be free of that guilt or that burden you have – is to come in and confess,” Ehalt said. “There is no other way.”
In addition to targeting the perpetrators directly, Ehalt said the initiative will also appeal to anyone who might have peripheral knowledge related to a historical missing person case but has not yet come forward.
The program is expected to get underway in the coming months.
Anyone with information on a crime, historical or current, can make a report to Crime Stoppers by calling 1-800-222-8477.
