The Athens County Sheriff’s Office has 176 open cases remaining from 2014
Each year, The Athens County Sheriff’s Office receives about 6,000 police reports — with a small portion of those remaining active years later.
With thousands of reports filed in 2014, 176 still remained active and under investigation, according to data from the sheriff’s office.
The department saw a success rate of about 97 percent in regards to closing its cases, with each report being subject to an extensive process.
That process begins with either a call or walk-in report to the department — with no cost to the victim or sheriff’s office.
Calls go straight to dispatch, where a deputy is assigned to go to the scene of the call. The report is given a case number, which is recorded in the department’s computer system. This leads to the investigative process.
“Sometimes it takes a long time. It can take six to eight months to solve a case, and sometimes we solve them in a day,” Athens County Interim Sheriff Rodney Smith, said.
In 2014, 6,479 reports were filed with the sheriff’s office. By the end of the year, 6,303 reports were filed as closed, cleared by arrest or unfounded, and 176 still remained active.
On Dec. 2, 2014, the sheriff’s office released a report regarding a handful of cases it had closed and sent to the Athens County Prosecutor’s Office for presentation to grand jury.
The report detailed one particular assault case that was investigated for three months before it was closed.
On July 10, 2014, Jerry Noble stabbed Donald Cusic after getting involved in a physical fight at Cusic’s home.
Noble was then found in Jasper, Alabama, in early October 2014. He had felony charges against him for fleeing and looting, according to the sheriff’s office.
Among the other closed cases, one woman reported an ex-roommate allegedly put sugar in the gas tank of her vehicle in August. The woman also reported that the suspect, Bobby Rae Blackburn, had asked her to purchase ammunition for him.
An investigation of the gas tank incident led deputies to find that the offender had previous felony charges that excluded him from possessing firearms.
With Blackburn’s permission, deputies searched his home and Blackburn gave them the firearms in his possession.
“(Cases) can range from mailbox damages to murder,” Smith said.
Once a call is put into the department’s computer system, it can be classified as active, closed, cleared by arrest or unfounded.
A closed case refers to a case where deputies have gone through all possible leads, and have hit dead ends.
“We can’t work on it until we get additional information,” Sheriff’s Office Captain Bryan Cooper said.
Cases classified as “unfounded” result from deputies arriving to a reported scene and not finding anything.
While unfounded cases account for a portion of the police reports, Cooper said they are very low compared to the other calls.
“When you have violence, breaking and entering and domestic (dispute cases). Unfounded (cases) won’t outnumber the other calls,” he said.
Smith said at any point, a closed case could be reopened.
“If you say ‘I have a witness’ … we can open that back up,” Smith said.
Smith said that as new evidence presents itself for each case, the department adds supplemental narratives to the appropriate case number.
Supplemental narratives are short paragraphs detailing any new evidence. As the case goes on, more narratives are added.
With multiple police reports coming in every day, Smith believes the most common calls are related to domestic problems — with an average of five coming in per day.
“Whether it’s family or neighbor domestic issue, (it’s) one of our more day-to-day calls,” Cooper said.
Cooper said that if a deputy feels a situation requires further action: they will issue either a summons or a citation.
A summons is issued when the deputy wants the offender to appear in court, while a citation is used to keep track of events, without a court appearance.
“We decide what the best route for the victim would be,” Cooper said. “We allow our victims to have a lot of input in the outcome.”
