Metro State is on the case. Members of a recently organized cold case club have been assigned the early 1960s Boston Strangler homicides, and will receive their first official case overview at a conference this weekend. The conference is free and open to the public.

Presented by Delta Gamma Xi-Criminal Justice Honor Society and Delta Phi Omega, the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Conference will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday in TIV 320. The joint effort between the two student groups and Georgia-based (CCIRI) was established last summer and announced in The Denver Post.

The conference kicks off with a welcome from President Stephen Jordan, followed by a talk from Sheryl McCollum, the institute’s founder and director.

“She will give a case overview and provide logistics to help us as we plan to work a full calendar year on this case,” says Noah Fritz, assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology. “It will be like a training conference for the Boston Strangler case, which is a famous but relatively old case.”

Featured speakers include: Howard Morton, director of Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons; Tim Relph, a Wichita, Kan. detective on the BTK Killer case; and Audrey Simkins, a criminal intelligence analyst with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations. Additional speakers are noted on the schedule.

The conference also offers sessions on how to use open source tools such as Lexus-Nexus and video libraries. The1968 movie “The Boston Strangler” will be shown as well.

“Students of any major can participate when they join either one of the student groups,” adds Fritz, who serves as faculty advisor for the honor society. Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology Jenn Capps serves as faculty advisor for Delta Phi Omega.