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 The
Playing Card Program: Missing Persons, Unsolved Homicide Victims
and Fugitives from Justice. A partnership with DA Murphy and the
Lyalls
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Power Point (PPS: 1.5MB)
Effective Playing Cards, which has partnered with the Lyalls and
the DA have this message: "Our Crime Stoppers, Law Enforcement
and Prison playing cards are custom designed cards unlike any other
personalized playing card produced. Each card in the deck portrays
another unique profile. These custom playing cards are providing
new leads for Cold Case Files, Unsolved Homicides and Missing Persons
in every area they are distributed. The remarkable excitement generated
by our prison playing cards will also bring incredible media coverage
and exposure to your specific program, unit or business".
Effective Playing Cards produced the first custom printed Unsolved
Homicide cards with Heartland Crime Stoppers of Polk County, FL.
Almost immediately after distributing these unique poker cards
to the 2500 jail inmate population of Polk County, Florida, fresh
leads into cold cases appeared. Special Agent Tommy Ray of the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement Cold Case Assessment Team
stated, "It is like interviewing all 2500 inmates about 52
different homicides all at the same time!"
"We have produced hundreds of thousands of custom card decks
for many Crime Stopper units throughout Florida and Texas. With
the support of Crime Stoppers throughout Florida, we are now producing
a statewide-customized poker card deck. This deck features unsolved
homicides from across the State. Each inmate in the Florida Prison
System will receive one of the 100,000 decks printed. We are in
the process of compiling a similar deck for the State of Texas,
and hope to expand this program throughout the United States.
We formed Effective Playing Cards, and our sister company, Effective
Magazines at the request of Law Enforcement and Crime Stoppers
units."
Custom Playing Cards
Custom playing cards are made precisely according to the Lyalls'
specifications.
The Lyalls, as parents of a Ballston Spa woman
who has been missing for nearly nine years, plan to create
playing cards with pictures
of missing people and victims of unsolved homicides from around
the Capital Region. The idea, Doug Lyall of Ballston Spa said Tuesday,
is to get the playing cards into the hands of inmates at area
county jails.
"
They play a lot of cards, they have a lot of time on their hands," Lyall,
father of missing University at Albany student Suzanne Lyall said. "When
they play cards, they will be looking at pictures of missing people,
victims of homicides, and unidentified deceased. We hope to spark
a memory or spark some conscience. People in prison talk, some
of them brag. Some inmate might have heard something."
People are able to call in tips anonymously by calling a toll
free number at 1-800-346-3543-ext. 2 or online at http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/missing/graphics/submitlead.pdf,
Lyall said.
Suzanne
Lyall disappeared after leaving her job at Crossgates Mall in
Guilderland March 2, 1998. She's known to have gotten on
a
CDTA bus back to the University campus and is thought to have
gotten off the bus at Collins Circle at about 9:45 p.m. She
hasn't been seen since.
State Police are investigating the case
as a homicide.
After Suzanne's disappearance, her parents Doug
and Mary Lyall became very active in helping other families searching
for missing
loved ones and getting laws passed to better deal with missing-persons
cases.
Doug Lyall said he and Mary got the playing card idea from a friend
who works in the prison system, but the Lyall's aren't the first
to think of it. Heartland Crime Stoppers, a not-for-profit that
covers three counties in Central Florida, has been doing this
since Sept. of 2005, Wayne Cross, Heartland Crime Stoppers executive
directors said by phone Tuesday.
"
It kind of came from those playing cards they had for the Iraq
War a few years ago when they were looking for Saddam and his henchmen," Cross
said. "It's our program and we're very proud of it."
Heartland Crime Stoppers is on its third deck of cards and has
solved four homicide cases, Cross said."We have four more
that are in various stages of being presented to grand juries
down here," he said. Heartland distributes cards to 2,400
inmates a month, he said. There are similar programs in nine
other parts of Florida, four places in Texas and one is just
starting in San Diego. Cross said he hopes to start distributing
the cards
in Florida's state prisons.
Doug Lyall said the organization he
and Mary have founded, the Center for Hope, can finance the
first run of cards: 7,200 52-card
decks for $1.75 a deck. Besides meeting with Cross in Florida
last week, the Lyalls have enlisted the help of Saratoga County
District Attorney James A. Murphy III and they've sent letters
to area police agencies looking for cases to profile on the
cards.
Lyall said he won't include a missing person without that
family's permission.Saratoga Springs police are going through
their files and hope to get at least one case, the 1980 killing
of Shelia Shepard,
included in the deck, Police Chief Edward Moore said."
1980 isn't too long to solve a homicide," Moore said. "This
case is something we still look at, something we still work on."
Shepard,
then 22, was found tied loosely to her own bed, gagged with
her own blouse and stabbed with a steak knife in her Church
Street apartment.Ballston Spa Police Officer Dave Bush said
he wants a photo of Douglas Philips included. Philips, 52, of Milton
Avenue
in the
village, has been missing since Sept. 23. Police know that someone
used his ATM card Oct. 10 in the village, though, and fear foul
play. Col. Richard Emery, the administrator at Saratoga County
Jail said inmates there buy cards through the commissary and every
jail in
the state basically uses one of two commissary suppliers. All
the Lyalls have to do is hook up with those firms, he said. He
would have no problem distributing cards like the ones the Lyalls
want to distribute, he said.
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