PHOENIX — Rachel Glass says her daughter, Nicole Glass, would have turned 40 years old this year.
"Pretty tough,” Rachel said. “I'll never be [a] grandmother from her. And never get to see those milestones."
Nicole Glass and her roommate were murdered on December 3rd, 2010, at their home in Phoenix.
Thirteen years later, Nicole’s case has gone cold.
Rachel Glass has been actively working with Sergeant Brian Bower with the Phoenix Police Department, who works as the coordinator for Silent Witness.
"Detectives will reach out to us and say, ‘Hey, we've exhausted all efforts in this case. Can you please help us out and try to get a little bit more community support, community involvement with these tips?” Sgt. Bower said.
Since Silent Witness became a nonprofit in 1979. Since then, roughly 8,200 arrests have been made, 13,000 felony cases solved, and 41 arrests were made through Silent Witness in 2022.
As of today, 722 homicide cases remain unsolved across Arizona.
This week, 29-year-old Lauren Heike was found murdered on a popular hiking trail in north Phoenix.
"It's a high-profile case where we have really good images, we have really good information, and we want to keep it as fresh as possible," Bower admitted.
He continued, “Lauren's case is very unique because it was in an area of a hiking path. Those are certain circumstances that you don't see these types of crimes occur very often."
ABC15 asked Silent Witness why Heike’s case could get more attention than the hundreds of other unsolved cases.
"Unfortunately, we just don't have a lot of viewership to look at those cases,” explained Sgt. Bower. “There's just not a lot of interest sometimes with media with people out there on social media that want to know these cases. My job as the Coordinator for Silent Witness, though, is to try to highlight a lot of these cases try to make them important for the sake of the family for the sake of the loved ones."
As for the Glass Family, they've put out a $13,000 reward.
