Project Pinpoint set to solve cold cases

January 28, 2009 It was developed in Philadelphia and this week the FBI used it to help solve a cold case out of New Jersey

It's called Geospacial mapping.

"What this is is taking a tactical approach to intelligence which doesn't happen a lot .The military does it, but in law enforcement, we don't always do it," Bill Shute of the FBI said.

On Monday, FBI agents and Gloucester County detectives gathered to try to solve the 2005 murder of Juan Cuevas.

The father of four was killed inside his Washington Township home. Four masked men stormed the house, tied up Cuevas' four children, and waited.

"When the father came home they took him upstairs into the master bedroom and beat him to death," Stacie of the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office said.

Cuevas owned an auto body shop in North Philadelphia, but detectives believe the suspects are from nearby Kensington.

So here's where Project Pinpoint comes in.

All available crime data is plugged into a computer, it spits out a mapping image and the darker the color on the map, the more problematic the area.

Using Project Pinpoint, investigators narrowed in on the most crime ridden area of Kensington.

The on Tuesday, they served nearly a hundred arrest and bench warrants in the mapped area.

Agents and detectives are hoping to develop more informants.

Detectives say they gathered good information going door to door and believe they're close to cracking the Cuevas case.

The FBI is now implementing Project Pinpoint in other cities across the country.

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