# CrimeBase.org

> AI-powered cold case investigation platform — a free public database of unsolved homicides, missing persons, and unidentified remains. AI continuously resurfaces new evidence from public records, court documents, and news archives. New findings are surfaced weekly.

## About

CrimeBase.org is a public-interest platform that applies AI research to cold cases. Every case is cross-referenced against court documents, police records, FOIA releases, news archives, and government databases (NamUs, FBI, NCMEC). Cases include structured timelines, victim profiles, suspect information, evidence summaries, confidence scores, and source attributions.

The platform is investigative in nature — not speculative. All claims are sourced. Confidence scores reflect the quality and quantity of verifiable evidence behind each assertion.

## Case Database

- Browse all cases: https://crimebase.org/cases
- Search cases: https://crimebase.org/cases?search={query}
- Browse by US state: https://crimebase.org/cases/states
- Individual case URL format: https://crimebase.org/cases/{slug}
- Machine-readable sitemap: https://crimebase.org/sitemap.xml

## Case Categories

- Unsolved Homicide (`homicide`): murders where no perpetrator has been convicted
- Missing Person (`missing_person`): individuals who remain missing, including NCMEC and NamUs cases
- Unidentified Remains (`unidentified_remains`): Jane/John Doe cases cross-referenced with NamUs UD database
- Other Cold Cases (`other`): cold cases that do not fit the above categories

## Case Status Values

- `open`: recently reported, active investigation
- `cold`: unsolved, investigation stalled (typically 3+ years inactive)
- `active`: currently under active investigation
- `solved`: perpetrator identified and/or convicted, or victim found alive
- `closed`: investigation concluded without resolution

## Confidence Scoring

Each case has a 0–100 confidence score reflecting data quality:
- 80–100: High confidence — multiple corroborating official sources
- 60–79: Medium confidence — some official sources, partial corroboration
- 0–59: Low confidence — limited sources, AI inference only

## Data Sources

Cases are sourced from:
- NamUs (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System)
- FBI Wanted API (missing persons, kidnapping)
- NCMEC (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children)
- The Doe Network (volunteer unidentified persons database)
- CourtListener (court records)
- GDELT (global news event database)
- Chronicling America (historical newspaper archive)
- AI research across public web archives

## Content Policy

- No speculation without citation
- Suspect information is only published when supported by official records
- Victim photos require high confidence attribution
- All AI-generated content is flagged as such and reviewed before publication

## Contact

Site: https://crimebase.org
Request a case investigation: https://crimebase.org/request-search
About: https://crimebase.org/about
Ethics policy: https://crimebase.org/ethics