Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is urging Iowans to call in tips to a new cold case unit in her office. Iowa briefly had a cold case unit to examine unsolved murders, but it was financed with a federal grant and closed down more than a dozen years ago. The legislature has provided Bird’s office with over half a million dollars and she’ll be hiring three investigators to review the more than 400 unsolved murders or missing person cases in Iowa.

Steve Ponsetto (pawn-SET-oh), a retired state trooper and Division of Criminal Investigation agent, will lead the office. He says they will review homicides and cases involving unidentified human remains as well as people who’ve gone missing under suspicious circumstances if local investigators have exhausted all leads. Bird says her office has prosecuted two cold cases in the past 18 months.

Zach Tomesch, News Director KFJB