The Palm Beach County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office plans to give inmates playing cards with photos and information about slain and missing people. Investigators hope the photos will prompt new leads about dead-end, years-old investigations in exchange for reward money, reports the Sun-Sentinel. “People have been sleeping on this information for 20 to 30 years. It’s been gnawing at them for years,” sheriff’s Capt. Jack Strenges said. “Now it’s their time to come forward.”
The Sheriff’s Office’s counts 273 unsolved homicides and missing persons cases dating back to the early 1960s. Organized by the Sheriff’s Office and the nonprofit Crime Stoppers of Palm Beach County, the cards will feature 52 victims — one for every card in the deck. The first batch will be handed out to inmates in the coming months. They’ll include toll-free numbers that inmates can use to call in information anonymously and potentially get $1,000 rewards. The use of playing cards to find people gained popularity when U.S. soldiers carried the “most wanted” cards of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and his associates.