Homicide detective offers “cold case” tips on Friday

Posted Sep 23, 2010 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Sep 23, 2010 at 02:02 PM

Chuck Massucci and Erin Kimmerle.

“An investigation is an investigation, whether it’s for a crime or a human rights violation.”

Tampa Det. Chuck Massucci said he learned that this summer when he and USF anthropologists traveled to Nigeria to help investigate a string of unsolved murders.

They’re also helping the Nigerians unravel the mystery of a massacre in Asaba in October 1967, during the country’s vicious civil war.

Little has been unearthed about the Asaba massacre. The details were largely buried with the dead, the 500 to 2,000 men and boys of Igbo ethnicity. (So little is known, they don’t even know how many people died.)

USF anthropology professor Liz Bird blogged about the summer trip.

Massucci will share what he learned in Nigeria at a lunchtime lecture on Friday, as part of a series on “cold case” investigations.

It’s at 12:30 in room 37 of the USF Social Sciences building. The USF Department of Anthropology Professor Erin Kimmerle put the series together.

Part of Massucci’s work involved finding techniques to determine if witnesses are credible, which is complicated when they’re talking about things that happened months or even decades ago.

Some of the interviews he conducted in Nigeria were like traditional interrogations, he said. In other cases, it was important to simply let the witnesses tell their stories, as they recalled them.

In the process, Massucci said he saw the links between anthropology and police work.

Friday’s lecture at USF is for anyone interested in either.

For information about past and future lectures, go here.