MARION COUNTY, Fla. — Marion County officials are hoping that a new deck of playing cards might get inmates to help police crack unsolved cases.
The Marion County Crimestoppers program is set to hand out 10,000 decks of playing cards with unsolved crimes on each card.
“We’ll give them all the cards they want. Surely they will be coming across — with 52 cases — they’ll be coming across cases they have information on,” Crimestoppers spokesman Robert Hauck said.
Program officials even said they’ll find a way to get any reward money to the inmates if a solid tip comes through. Inmates don’t have to give their names, either.
WESH 2 News talked with four inmates, most of whom seemed to think tips will be hard to come by.
“Some people out there, money rules them, but some have a higher moral standard, higher morals, more pride than that,” inmate Anthony Quinello said.
All of the cards in the deck have unsolved crimes specific to Marion County; including unsolved homicides, armed robberies and missing persons cases.
Crimestoppers has handed out the cards in many central Florida jails for some time, and while they can’t look at one particular case where the cards have solved it, they feel it’s always worth a shot.
Republished with permission from WESH.com