Cold cases are hot these days, partly because recent forensic science breakthroughs offer ways to re-examine old crimes.  From criminal profiling to DNA, new insights can open up leads in homicides once written off as hopeless.  Frequently there's little funding for cold cases, so unless there's some pressing issue, they remain univestigated.

Now imagine a group of experienced forensic professionals - criminalists, psychologists, lawyers, police officers - who form a society to use their collective wit to brainstorm on past unsolved homicides—for free.  Sound like a novel? 

In fact, such a group exists and they call themselves the Vidocq Society.  Founded by William Fleischer (former FBI Special Agent), Frank Bender (forensic sculptor), and Richard Walter (forensic psychologist), the organization serves their common interest in using their extensive and varied experience to think through cold cases.  It grew from there and they now have representatives in seventeen states and eleven different countries. 

For over a decade they've been meeting for monthly luncheons in the Public Ledger Building, near Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  While dining in a refined, wood-paneled atmosphere, they listen to an invited guest present the details of a case and right then offer suggestions about how a case might be moved forward.  When the Society accepts a case, the members take it on as a public service and those with the relevant skills may volunteer input. 

For example, in the years-old stabbing death of a fast food restaurant night manager, someone asked whether anyone had checked the knife handle for DNA.  No, that hadn't been done.  Ten years ago, the technology was expensive and not always accessible.  Now they can have another look.  In the case where a murder victim was found barefoot, a suggestion to look for suspects with foot fetishes gave investigators a new direction.  They found a security guard with a compulsion about women's sneakers, and he turned out to be their guy.

The group has also led the effort to have a long-dead body exhumed for DNA extraction.  This was the case of an unidentified boy found in the woods in 1957.  He remained unclaimed and his killer was never apprehended.  Yet the case haunted the patrolman who found him, and years later when he joined the Society, he brought the case to the table.  They took it on and even purchased a granite marker for the boy's grave.

But why the "Vidocq" Society?  What kind of secret code name is that?

Eugene Francois Vicocq (CORBIS)

Most crime buffs know.  Eugene Francois Vidocq was a brilliant eighteenth-century French police spy who mingled so well with the criminal element that no one suspected how all these arrests were being made.  Once they caught on, he continued his work while in disguise.  His skills came, in part, from having been a criminal himself.  In 1811, he then became the founder and first chief of the Surete, an elite undercover unit that rapidly gained international fame.  Having influenced the development of many fictional characters, he's considered the father of modern criminal investigation.  Among his accomplishments is the introduction into police procedure the basic methods of criminalistics.  At the end of his stunning career, his Memoires was a bestseller.

He's quite a role model, but as inspiring as he may be to amateur and professional alike, it's not easy to become a member of the Society.  According to their Website, "The right to wear the unique red, white and blue Vidocq Society rosette has been bestowed on fewer than 150 men and women."  In fact, they cap "full" membership at eighty-two at any given time, because that number represents the years of Vidocq's life.  However, forensic professionals with something to offer can acquire associate membership through the sponsorship of an existing member.

Since the Society can't possibly take on every cold case that's out there, they follow a specific protocol: Only a family member of the victim or a police officer may bring a case before them, and the victim cannot have been associated with high-risk activities.  They also focus mostly on homicides, not missing-person cases.  While they have no law enforcement authority, the impressive array of expertise in this group gives them the force of perspective and experience.  Their suggestions have helped with leads in many cases that have resulted in convictions, but they've also helped to free the innocent.

Vidocq would be proud.