Oklahoma Senate advances bill to aid cold case investigations
By Jason Burger
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OKLAHOMA CITY (KOCO) — The Oklahoma Senate has passed a bill that aims to help families of cold case victims by creating a formal case file review process, allowing them to request further investigation.
Maggie Zingman, a trauma psychologist and the mother of Brittany Phillips, who was murdered in Tulsa in September 2004, expressed her support for the bill.
“Trying to help other people not go through what I’ve gone through, especially in the last eight years of our 21-year cold case,” Zingman said.
She has been seeking answers for her daughter’s murder for over two decades without success.
“In the last eight years, my requests for cold case assistance have been turned down, so that was part of my impetus for this,” she said.
The bill, known as SB 1636, would provide families with a new avenue to request further investigation into cold cases.
“It gives families a voice to request a review, then it sets up parameters how soon a response must be made,” Zingman said.
Once a formal request is made, law enforcement would have 30 days to confirm receipt, and investigators would have six months to determine if further investigation is warranted. The case file review would include all information, evidence, records, and testimonies related to the case.
Zingman recalled the challenges faced when Brittany’s case was first declared cold.
“Two things, one, the DNA analysis was just coming into the picture, but genetic genealogy was still very tentative, you couldn’t even use it in court yet,” she said.
Advocates for other cold cases, such as the State Fair murders involving Cheryl Genzer and Lisa Pennington, have also supported the bill.
“The Fairgrounds murders, that’s what, 40 years old? Mine is 21,” Zingman said.
Rocky Pennington, father of Lisa Pennington, emphasized the importance of keeping these cases open.
“I want to let everybody know, hey, this case is open. The murderers are still out there,” he said.
The bill specifies that case reviews cannot be conducted by the original investigators, and in some instances, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation would assist.
“For a lot of these small towns that don’t have big departments, and they want to do reviews, these reviews are going to go to OSBI — right now, OSBI can’t come in to our case, unless TPD asks for it,” Zingman said.
If investigators do not find any new information, the bill states that the case cannot be reviewed again for five years.
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