In the early hours of April 6, 1979, my 20-year-old brother John Donaldson was murdered while sitting in his car outside our home in Harvard. My brother Jim found him in a pool of blood, slumped over the steering wheel, a few meters from where my parents were sleeping. The car was riddled with bullets from a .22 caliber rifle; one killed him instantly. Police found shell casings at the scene, but the gun was never recovered.

The trauma of Johnny’s still-unsolved death set off a cascade of events that have haunted my family for the past 45 years: clues that led nowhere, infrequent updates from authorities, and a rollercoaster of emotions. Every time state police thought they had a suspect and then went silent, hope turned to despair.

In 1984, a former Harvard officer, the last person to see Johnny alive, was briefly arrested for being an accessory to the crime. But since the local police had bungled the case by not following protocol and their evidence was circumstantial, the case was dropped. The officer sued the city of Harvard for false arrest and won, further complicating the case.

It is estimated that 330,000 homicides remain unsolved throughout the country, according to statistics from the Murder Accountability Project. Johnny’s murder is just one of 10,130 that took place in Massachusetts from 1965 to 2022. Of those, 6,139 (only about 60 percent) have been solved. The state has one of the lowest solubility rates, along with Alabama, Michigan and Illinois.

Even with advances in technology like forensic genealogy, breakthroughs in cold cases are rare, according to a report in The New York Times. Resources are limited, detectives juggle cold cases and active cases, and officers assigned to cases change over time.

Globe reporter Emily Sweeney has admirably highlighted many of the state’s unsolved murders in the series. “Cold Case Files”. Law enforcement authorities often overlook victims’ families and are frustrated by a judicial system that only provides support in a case brought to trial. They are prohibited from seeing police case files, even if those files have been gathering dust for decades. These families, whose cases account for more than a third of all homicides in Massachusetts, deserve more transparency and accountability.

“Every case draws our attention,” the Worcester County district attorney insisted. Joseph D. Temprano Jr.., who created the Worcester County Cold Case Team in 2007. But, he told me last year, “if we put information in the hands of families and it comes to the public’s attention, it can jeopardize the investigation. We must protect the due process rights of suspects as we examine them.“

Loved ones lost to unsolved homicides are not the only victims. Their families are thrown into an emotional purgatory. They experience a unique type of pain, one that we know well: the complicated grief of never knowing who killed their loved one or why. Studies show They are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The tentacles of his pain destroy family relationships, faith in law enforcement, and his physical well-being. Psychologists say that healing from the trauma of a violent death is achieved by facing the pain head-on. But how is that possible when families are forgotten as murder cases become colder and colder?

For the past 45 years, our family has seen a revolving door of lead investigators assigned to our brother’s case. Many of them are detectives in training, soon promoted from the cold case team and replaced by rookies who need to be brought up to speed. At a meeting with state police and the district attorney’s office in 2023, we were greeted with empathetic nods, but still no answers to our most basic questions: Was our brother’s murder accidental or intentional? Do police have any theories or main suspects? And have there been any recent developments in Johnny’s case?

The most difficult thing for human beings to face is the unknown. Whenever there is trauma, we want to have a narrative, an idea of ​​what happened and why. For the families of the victims, it is an unfinished story and complicates their grief. Better communication from law enforcement would go a long way in helping families deal with decades of uncertainty and pain and giving them a narrative and some kind of peace.

If Johnny’s case is truly unsolvable, as we suspect it might be, collecting cobwebs at State Police headquarters, open the files and show us what you’ve got.

Susan Donaldson James is a former ABC News and NBC News reporter.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to the Worcester District Attorney at 508-453-7589 or [email protected].