Countywide Law Enforcement Unsolved Element

The Countywide Law Enforcement Unsolved Element (CLUE) was a special cold-case unit formed to process a sudden influx of new leads. Beginning in January 1997, its members searched old case files, returning attention to crimes whose investigations had stalled. The unit’s significance in the account lies in that renewed examination: cases that had sat unresolved were brought back into active investigative work, though the evidence here does not establish that CLUE solved them.

Formation and Case Review

The Sheriff’s Department created CLUE in response to new leads and assigned its members to dig through earlier files. The work was archival as well as investigative: the cases had gone cold, and the unit’s task was to look again for information that might now matter. In parallel, Mary Hong faxed a DNA profile linking the Harrington, Witthuhn, and Cruz cases to hundreds of crime laboratories across the country. No laboratory responded. The account presents this outreach alongside CLUE’s file review, but does not identify Hong as a member of the unit or attribute the fax campaign to CLUE.

Larry Pool’s Assignment and Approach

Larry Pool transferred into CLUE from the sex-crimes unit in February 1998. A twelve-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department, he was relatively new to homicide investigation. The work suited his temperament: he preferred cold cases, where investigative problems could be worked through patiently, and he would keep a challenge in mind until a possible answer emerged. He described his intention as launching commands until he found the person responsible.

Pool received a cardboard box containing three cases: the Harrington, Witthuhn, and Cruz murders. He regarded the files as four stolen lives connected to one unidentified killer, and made finding that person his objective. The cases therefore gave CLUE’s review a concrete focus: not simply reopening old paperwork, but trying to discern whether separate deaths could be understood as the work of the same offender.

A Lead Across Jurisdictions

While reading the Harrington file, Pool noticed a Ventura Police Department case number written in the margin. He called to ask about it and learned that it referred to the murders of Lyman and Charlene Smith, a notorious Ventura case. That call shows how a detail embedded in one file could direct an investigator toward another jurisdiction’s records and widen the scope of his inquiry. The account establishes the connection as a lead Pool pursued; it does not say that CLUE itself took over the Smith investigation or that the reference resolved the cases.