As a Hunt A Killer player you’ve honed your detective skills month after month—now it’s time to try your hand at investigating an active, real-life case. CrimeCon included Hunt A Killer in their awesome holiday gift guide “True Crime Gifts that aren’t Mugs with Ted Bundy on Them,” (this title gets all the “clapping” emojis, so good). Check it out because we’re closing in on Christmas 2019 and the guaranteed ship dates for Christmas Eve are sneaking up fast! There are also some great gift options featured on the guide to include tickets to CrimeCon’s upcoming CrowdSolve event in Chicago, along with tickets to their annual event in Orlando in May of 2020, true crime merch, a Patreon membership, and more!
Now, if you’re a true crime aficionado, you’ve probably heard of CrimeCon from listening to your favorite true crime podcasts or maybe you’ve seen something about it while scrolling on social media, but we wanted to highlight their upcoming CrowdSolve events because, and let me whip out my virtual megaphone, it’s a chance to actually work on and solve a real cold case with other citizen detectives like you.
The Chicago CrowdSolve takes place from February 21st to the 23rd and will cover the Kurt Sova unexplained death case. The whole idea of the CrowdSolve is to bring together people of different ages, backgrounds, and expertise to get fresh eyes on a case that’s gone cold.
Here’s some helpful background information on the case:
Sova, a 17-year-old boy from Newburgh Heights, Ohio, left his house on Friday, October 23, 1981 to attend a Halloween party with a friend at a duplex. When he didn’t come home on Saturday, his parents were worried, and then registered him as a missing person on Sunday. A man named Franco reportedly saw Kurt while driving down the street on Monday. However, by that Wednesday, six days after Kurt was last seen, three little boys found his body in a ravine near the duplex. Kurt’s father, Ken, said he had already searched this same ravine on Monday but Kurt’s body wasn’t there. As you can tell, the timeline is important in this case so the day-to-day details will need extra scrutinizing if you attend the CrowdSolve.
As a CrowdSolve attendee, you’ll have access to the full un-redacted case files never before seen by the public and will work with a bevy of trained investigators as well as the victim’s family to turn up new leads. It’s possible attendees may even have a chance to question an actual person of interest in the case. To kickoff the weekend, you’ll head to the preliminary briefing on Saturday morning, February 22nd lead by Former U.S. Marshal Art Roderick, who has been working on the Maura Murray case for years.
After discussing the evidence in groups and with detectives, you’ll fill out a Case Action Report (CAR) that will highlight your personal theories regarding the case and recommend next steps for law enforcement. In the evening, groups will all come together for a Q+A session with detectives to discuss theories and lead developments.
If you want to get ahead and learn more about the Kurt Sova case, check out this podcast episode by the Trace Evidence Podcast.
To learn more about CrimeCon’s upcoming CrowdSolve and to buy tickets, click here.