Even though Amber Lundgren’s murder remains unsolved a decade later, the details surrounding her death remain fresh in people’s minds and on the Internet.
“She and her mother were very close,” said Ann Adickes, who rented an apartment to Lundgren. “I mean, like I told her uncle and them, I would have loved to have her as a daughter. She was that nice a person.”
Adickes’ own home contains all the makings of a cozy place: worn but comfortable furniture, various knickknacks in the living room and an ambiance of calmness that surrounds the house.
The seriousness of Lundgren’s murder, however, dissolves any illusion of becoming too comfortable with the story.
“So, she and her two friends that she was working with at the time over near the Biltmore Square Mall, if it’s still there, they all went out together,” Adickes said. “She didn’t go out an awful lot. These girls, all of them worked together.”
Adickes recalled when she came back to town after visiting her brother, Lundgren’s car was still parked exactly where she left it.
“So I went to see my brother in Bryson City, and when I came back, her car was parked there. I was concerned and about 20 minutes later WLOS came,” Adickes said.
Lundgren planned to do more cleaning on her apartment, but the girls she worked with wanted to go out, and so they did, according to Adickes.
Also, Adickes said she saw Lundgren as a daughter.
“Well, she was very nice, very quiet, and she was very dependable,” Adickes said. “She had some friends, but not an awful lot.”
While Lundgren worked full time, she attended college at night and dated, according to Adickes.
“Well, I guess she wanted to get into some kind of business for herself,” Adickes said. “But she liked crafts, and, you know, she kept a nice apartment, you know, she’d buy things from where she worked.”
Detective Kevin Taylor of the Asheville Police Department, one of the investigators on the case, leaned back in his office chair as he retold the story.
“It was June when it happened, June of ’97 I believe,” he said. “She was just wearing normal clothing for that time of year. Jeans, I think she had on a halter top of some sort and kind of just flip-flop shoes, not really sandals. Nothing really unusual, just dressed in normal attire to go out for the night club.”
Lundgren had an outgoing personality and liked to go out to clubs, according to Taylor.
“She was working at, I believe it was Pier 1,” he said. “I don’t think she really had a steady boyfriend at the time. I mean, she dated a few guys here and there in the recent past. (She) came from a good home.”
In talking about the murder, Taylor sat up in his chair and became more serious.
“I guess one thing that might have been untypical about it was it appears that she was killed other than where she was last seen,” he said. “You know, whether she went willingly or not is still undetermined.”
Lundgren’s body was found near Azalea Road the morning after she was last seen leaving the now closed Bar Code club, located downtown, according to police.
When the police released news of the murder, city residents became angry and the news put everyone on edge for some time, according to Taylor.
“Especially with some of the other females in town, you know, it really, (they were) leery about going out to the clubs and stuff.”
Attempting to solve the case requires more than just following procedures, according to Taylor.
“It’s hard to say, to give a specific step-by-step,” Taylor said. “I mean, each case is different. You got to kind of look at the whole totality of the circumstances I guess.”
Detective Yvonne Cobourn, Taylor’s partner, talked about how the media and Internet can both help and hinder the police’s ability to solve a case.
“There are a lot of cold case forums out there where people are literally taking everything the media puts out and dissecting it,” she said.
Sometimes releasing information to the media brings out people who obsess over cases and who also try to solve the cases from old media clippings and various Internet forums, according to Cobourn.
“Fortunately, we haven’t had too many,” she said.
The captain and the chief of the department generally handle any obsessive people, according to Cobourn. Most of the time, the detectives don’t know when obsessive people contact the chief or captain.
“The captain is typically aware of our cases and our investigative process and one of the supervisors will step in,” Cobourn said.
Despite this, police take everything written on Internet forums seriously, according to Cobourn.
“I know about the cold case forums because I’m paying attention to it,” she said. “We follow all the forums whenever we release something to the media. We’re not posting anything, but you can believe we’re ready.”
However, releasing information to the media helps the police because the media keeps the topic fresh in people’s minds, according to Cobourn.
“We all strive for that in a cold case. That’s why we like seeing the article that came out in the AC-T (Asheville Citizen-Times) about the anniversary of Zeb Quinn’s death,” she said. “We want people thinking, we want people talking. We don’t want people to forget that these cases do exist, and we are still working on them and so anything that may come up or arise from that, we’re reading, we’re monitoring.”
Although the police currently investigate 23 cold cases, Taylor noted the department works with people and not just case files.
“You see it so many times, but still it’s disturbing,” he said. “I just think that Amber didn’t deserve this. She didn’t do anything to anybody. I mean, nobody deserves anything like that. Just someone, a young female like that, basically defenseless. It’s troubling.”
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Cold Case Unit in Asheville, NC
Although television plays up police work with sex appeal and fast action, real life police work involves plenty of research and even more patience.
“There’s somebody that knows something,” said Detective Yvonne Cobourn of the Asheville Police Department. “It’s just them, at some point, they’re recollecting their memory, guilt. Perhaps they think, ‘Well, you know, I think I saw this that night, but, you know, it’s pretty horrifying, and I don’t want to get involved or I really don’t want to think about that.’”
Cobourn works in the cold case unit. The APD started the unit in July 2008. The unit focuses on both unsolved murders and active homicides.
“Well, our youngest cold cases are 2007,” she said.
A case becomes cold depending entirely on the available evidence, according to Criminal Investigations Division Capt. Tim Splain.
“There’s no timeline,” Splain said. “It’s just that when there is no longer any workable evidence, any leads that can be followed, any contemporary work that can be done, then it’s considered cold.”
Currently, Cobourn and partner Kevin Taylor investigate 23 cold cases. But in reviewing the case files for further investigations, Cobourn said they started looking at old cold case files.
“We just started reviewing cases and as we reviewed the cases, and found that there were still things to follow up on and things to do, we started actively doing those things,” she said.
Splain further elaborated on how the unit started.
“Some of the ones that went back 20 years or more were in file boxes and were somewhat disorganized. That was their (the detectives) first job was to take all that information in and catalog it and put it together,” he said. “After that, there was a look through, and start looking at the cases based on solvability factor. You know, what did we know about the victims, what did we know about potential suspects. You know, did we still have people involved in that case that were still living that we could talk to.”
The third person in the unit, Frances Morris, deals with the forensics side of solving the cases, according to Cobourn.
“And then that’s where Fran Morris comes into play, where we will tend to locate the evidence that we may have and look at it, process it with new techniques if it hasn’t been done,” Cobourn said.
After that, the detectives decide whether or not to send the evidence to the lab, which includes the SBI and FBI, according to Cobourn.
Working with forensics since 2001, Morris said her job involves more than just collecting DNA.
“It’s our job to document by photos, video or sketches, to preserve physical evidence through careful packaging, to collect physical evidence and to process,” she said.
Forensic technicians collect fingerprints, impressions from tires and shoes, as well as various types of DNA including blood, semen, hair, fiber and touch, according to Morris.
“I see the use of technology becoming an important tool in forensic analysis, such as DNA, fingerprints, shoe/tire tread impressions,” she said. “The biggest problem I see is computer incompatibility. For example, there (are) multiple companies that produce software for fingerprint databases, but if different agencies have different systems and they aren’t compatible, that’s extremely limiting in the amount of information one can access.”
Processing DNA can take a lot longer than what many television shows portray, according to Splain.
“That’s one of the things that works against us. There’s a big public perception now with the media that we can do all these great and wonderful things, and the reality is if I send any evidence off to be analyzed, it will probably be a year before I hear about the results. That’s just because of the backlog from the State Bureau of Investigation,” Splain said.
Although DNA helps solve cases, the detectives usually do not know how the case will end, according to Cobourn.
“We never know what’s really going to solve it, you know, until we get into it and we start working on it. It could be DNA, it could just simply be time,” Cobourn said.
Additionally, at least one person knows something about the crime, according to Cobourn. This information, Cobourn said, solves the cases.
“Not if or who, we know there is somebody out there,” she said.
“There’s somebody that knows something,” said Detective Yvonne Cobourn of the Asheville Police Department. “It’s just them, at some point, they’re recollecting their memory, guilt. Perhaps they think, ‘Well, you know, I think I saw this that night, but, you know, it’s pretty horrifying, and I don’t want to get involved or I really don’t want to think about that.’”
Cobourn works in the cold case unit. The APD started the unit in July 2008. The unit focuses on both unsolved murders and active homicides.
“Well, our youngest cold cases are 2007,” she said.
A case becomes cold depending entirely on the available evidence, according to Criminal Investigations Division Capt. Tim Splain.
“There’s no timeline,” Splain said. “It’s just that when there is no longer any workable evidence, any leads that can be followed, any contemporary work that can be done, then it’s considered cold.”
Currently, Cobourn and partner Kevin Taylor investigate 23 cold cases. But in reviewing the case files for further investigations, Cobourn said they started looking at old cold case files.
“We just started reviewing cases and as we reviewed the cases, and found that there were still things to follow up on and things to do, we started actively doing those things,” she said.
Splain further elaborated on how the unit started.
“Some of the ones that went back 20 years or more were in file boxes and were somewhat disorganized. That was their (the detectives) first job was to take all that information in and catalog it and put it together,” he said. “After that, there was a look through, and start looking at the cases based on solvability factor. You know, what did we know about the victims, what did we know about potential suspects. You know, did we still have people involved in that case that were still living that we could talk to.”
The third person in the unit, Frances Morris, deals with the forensics side of solving the cases, according to Cobourn.
“And then that’s where Fran Morris comes into play, where we will tend to locate the evidence that we may have and look at it, process it with new techniques if it hasn’t been done,” Cobourn said.
After that, the detectives decide whether or not to send the evidence to the lab, which includes the SBI and FBI, according to Cobourn.
Working with forensics since 2001, Morris said her job involves more than just collecting DNA.
“It’s our job to document by photos, video or sketches, to preserve physical evidence through careful packaging, to collect physical evidence and to process,” she said.
Forensic technicians collect fingerprints, impressions from tires and shoes, as well as various types of DNA including blood, semen, hair, fiber and touch, according to Morris.
“I see the use of technology becoming an important tool in forensic analysis, such as DNA, fingerprints, shoe/tire tread impressions,” she said. “The biggest problem I see is computer incompatibility. For example, there (are) multiple companies that produce software for fingerprint databases, but if different agencies have different systems and they aren’t compatible, that’s extremely limiting in the amount of information one can access.”
Processing DNA can take a lot longer than what many television shows portray, according to Splain.
“That’s one of the things that works against us. There’s a big public perception now with the media that we can do all these great and wonderful things, and the reality is if I send any evidence off to be analyzed, it will probably be a year before I hear about the results. That’s just because of the backlog from the State Bureau of Investigation,” Splain said.
Although DNA helps solve cases, the detectives usually do not know how the case will end, according to Cobourn.
“We never know what’s really going to solve it, you know, until we get into it and we start working on it. It could be DNA, it could just simply be time,” Cobourn said.
Additionally, at least one person knows something about the crime, according to Cobourn. This information, Cobourn said, solves the cases.
“Not if or who, we know there is somebody out there,” she said.
All colleges need a medical amnesty policy - Commentary orignally appearing in The Blue Banner
Although medical amnesty policies remain a controversial topic in society, it’s something every university should consider to maintain student safety.
Medical amnesty policies, also known as good samaritan policies, let students call medical services without campus repercussions for a person overdosing on alcohol or drugs, according to the Higher Education Center, a group sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.
Amnesty does not, however, prevent legal consequences. Nonetheless, every university should consider an amnesty policy.
Opponents of amnesty policies say such policies encourage alcohol and drug abuse on campus, according to the HEC. How much encouragement students need to take drugs and alcohol, especially with permission from a policy, remains subjective.
But this means, of course, that opponents perhaps envision dorm rooms turning into heroin dens and students turning empty soda cans into homemade pipes. It’s the same paranoia showcased in Reefer Madness.
If students simply wait for a policy to come into place as their “Get Out of Jail Free” card, then they probably didn’t need much encouragement to take drugs or drink alcohol in the first place. But, we’re talking about when moderation turns into extremes.
It’s well-known and championed in American culture that college is a time of experimentation. Drugs, sex, alcohol – anything’s game. Expecting a policy to solidify this message seems redundant.
Students visiting the emergency room hopefully only need to go once to understand what constitutes too much.
Really, somebody over the limit on, say, painkillers, most likely only needs their stomach pumped once to realize drugs aren’t a game.
Maybe the student with brain damage after a massive alcohol binge can serve as a reminder of what students should consider moderation.
Although drastic, such examples show that the emergency room should be the last resort.
The HEC recommends preventative programs be in place to discourage alcohol and drug abuse on campus. Sure, some exist, but a medical amnesty policy offers an excellent time to re-focus on prevention.
Also, students who don’t receive direct repercussions from campus administration for calling when a fellow student overdoses should be required to attend an abuse class to dissuade the behavior.
Ideally, the students only attend the class once and learn their lesson. This shuts out the revolving- door types who don’t know when to quit and probably shouldn’t be in college anyway.
The same idea applies for the legal aspect, too. If the campus allows amnesty, then the law should, as well. Not doing so might hold some students back from calling the E.R.
Rather than allow students to simply leave the hospital after the ordeal, the law could require students to take a class to reduce abuse.
It’s important to note here that medical amnesty should only be reserved for emergencies.
Students who get caught with drugs can’t be allowed to claim amnesty. The same goes for underage drinkers.
To do so negates the purpose of the amnesty policy.
Treating medical amnesty policies as some kind of gate-opening encouragement for students to engage in drug and drink alcohol abuse makes about as much sense as throwing an occasional, unearned A grade to a consistently D student. It won’t change behavior.
Acting as though college students, who are adults, need administrators’ permission to begin drug and alcohol use is comical at best.
Here’s the skinny: If students wish to do drugs and alcohol, they will. If they don’t, they won’t. If a policy pushes someone into drinking and drugging, the student probably would have given in to peer pressure anyway.
Medical amnesty offers more than protection for students. It offers, above all else, guaranteed medical services because no student will have an excuse for not calling.
Medical amnesty policies, also known as good samaritan policies, let students call medical services without campus repercussions for a person overdosing on alcohol or drugs, according to the Higher Education Center, a group sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.
Amnesty does not, however, prevent legal consequences. Nonetheless, every university should consider an amnesty policy.
Opponents of amnesty policies say such policies encourage alcohol and drug abuse on campus, according to the HEC. How much encouragement students need to take drugs and alcohol, especially with permission from a policy, remains subjective.
But this means, of course, that opponents perhaps envision dorm rooms turning into heroin dens and students turning empty soda cans into homemade pipes. It’s the same paranoia showcased in Reefer Madness.
If students simply wait for a policy to come into place as their “Get Out of Jail Free” card, then they probably didn’t need much encouragement to take drugs or drink alcohol in the first place. But, we’re talking about when moderation turns into extremes.
It’s well-known and championed in American culture that college is a time of experimentation. Drugs, sex, alcohol – anything’s game. Expecting a policy to solidify this message seems redundant.
Students visiting the emergency room hopefully only need to go once to understand what constitutes too much.
Really, somebody over the limit on, say, painkillers, most likely only needs their stomach pumped once to realize drugs aren’t a game.
Maybe the student with brain damage after a massive alcohol binge can serve as a reminder of what students should consider moderation.
Although drastic, such examples show that the emergency room should be the last resort.
The HEC recommends preventative programs be in place to discourage alcohol and drug abuse on campus. Sure, some exist, but a medical amnesty policy offers an excellent time to re-focus on prevention.
Also, students who don’t receive direct repercussions from campus administration for calling when a fellow student overdoses should be required to attend an abuse class to dissuade the behavior.
Ideally, the students only attend the class once and learn their lesson. This shuts out the revolving- door types who don’t know when to quit and probably shouldn’t be in college anyway.
The same idea applies for the legal aspect, too. If the campus allows amnesty, then the law should, as well. Not doing so might hold some students back from calling the E.R.
Rather than allow students to simply leave the hospital after the ordeal, the law could require students to take a class to reduce abuse.
It’s important to note here that medical amnesty should only be reserved for emergencies.
Students who get caught with drugs can’t be allowed to claim amnesty. The same goes for underage drinkers.
To do so negates the purpose of the amnesty policy.
Treating medical amnesty policies as some kind of gate-opening encouragement for students to engage in drug and drink alcohol abuse makes about as much sense as throwing an occasional, unearned A grade to a consistently D student. It won’t change behavior.
Acting as though college students, who are adults, need administrators’ permission to begin drug and alcohol use is comical at best.
Here’s the skinny: If students wish to do drugs and alcohol, they will. If they don’t, they won’t. If a policy pushes someone into drinking and drugging, the student probably would have given in to peer pressure anyway.
Medical amnesty offers more than protection for students. It offers, above all else, guaranteed medical services because no student will have an excuse for not calling.
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