Dr. Rachel H. WaltonRachel H. Walton has more than thirty years of California law enforcement experience as a deputy sheriff and district attorney investigator, and 14 years of college-university level instructional experience in criminal justice and forensics. In 1968, while attending then-Humboldt State College, she joined the Arcata, California, Police Department as a reserve police officer and spent approximately 3 years in this position until graduating with her baccalaureate degree in Natural Resources in 1969. In 1971, she joined the Humboldt County, California, Sheriff’s Office, where she served as a deputy sheriff for the next 15 years. During this period, she gained extensive experiences in many aspects of law enforcement, including patrol operations, drug and major crime investigation, white collar/fraud investigation, and more.
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Walton earned her Master’s Degree in Education from the University of San Francisco in 1978, writing her thesis on what is today considered ‘community policing,’ and promoted to the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office in 1986 as an investigator. During this period of her career she gained extensive experience and expertise in homicide, arson, white-collar crime, elder abuse, and fraud investigations.
During a casual conversation in the fall of 1983, Rachel Walton received hearsay information that a woman had died and in the years before death recanted her accusations of rape against a young Native American cowboy, who served more than 40 years in prison and on parole for this and other crimes. With nothing more to go on, as no records remained in the files of the sheriff’s office or other county offices, Walton began reconstructing, on his own time and expense, a series of events that unfolded during the heart of Prohibition in 1925. The next 6 years were spent travelling thousands of miles to conduct interviews, discover and research newspaper reports, state and federal archives, original crime scene reports and laboratory records, photographs, and more.
In addition to the discovery of significant period records and documents, she conducted more than 400 interviews, more than half of which were with persons between 65 and 94 years of age. She identified and located many people from the original investigation more than 60 years before, and others with direct, personal knowledge of specific events. Their revelations were significant, and Walton came to identify-albeit she did not recognize it at the time-what we today consider the primary solvability factors in cold case homicide investigation: changes in technology and changes in relationships.
In 1988, her efforts resulted in the official review and re-activation of this case. She had identified surviving killers and proved that the young Native American was legally and factually innocent of the crimes for which he was forced to plead guilty, and that his wrongful incarceration was the result of political expediency by a corrupt prosecutor who himself later went to federal prison. She fought and overcame bureaucratic hurdles, and in 1991, the California Board of Prison terms, citing her work as “…one of the finest investigations this board has ever seen…,” recommended to the Governor of California that a full pardon on the grounds of innocence be posthumously awarded to the now deceased cowboy. The California Supreme Court agreed, and in 1996, the governor so awarded what is believed to be the first such pardon of its kind.
Walton returned to the University of San Francisco in 2001 to earn a doctoral degree in Organization and Leadership, knowing upon admission the topic for her ultimate dissertation, “Identification of Solvability Factors in Twenty-First Century Cold Case Homicide Investigation.” Her research involved, in part, the opportunity to work and study within one of the nation’s oldest and largest cold case homicide investigation units. Hers is believed to be the first such academic research in this field and has being utilized by law enforcement and academic researchers internationally.
Walton has presented on the topic of reinvestigation of cold case homicides to law enforcement and forensic venues for more than three decades. Such presentations have included the FBI Academy, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the National Institute of Justice, the Mid-Atlantic Cold Case Homicide Investigators Association and other state homicide investigator conferences, the California Criminalists Institute, the International Association for Identification, the Vidocq Society, and others.
Dr. Walton is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and member of the International Association for Identification and Vidocq Society. She authored “Cold Case Homicides: Practical Investigative Techniques,” (CRC Press, 2nd ed 2017), and co-wrote and edited the NCJ publication “National Best Practices for Implementing and Sustaining a Cold Case Investigation Unit (NIJ252016) as well as numerous journal and professional articles.
She is a professor in the criminal justice program at Utah State University Eastern in Price, Utah.
During a casual conversation in the fall of 1983, Rachel Walton received hearsay information that a woman had died and in the years before death recanted her accusations of rape against a young Native American cowboy, who served more than 40 years in prison and on parole for this and other crimes. With nothing more to go on, as no records remained in the files of the sheriff’s office or other county offices, Walton began reconstructing, on his own time and expense, a series of events that unfolded during the heart of Prohibition in 1925. The next 6 years were spent travelling thousands of miles to conduct interviews, discover and research newspaper reports, state and federal archives, original crime scene reports and laboratory records, photographs, and more.
In addition to the discovery of significant period records and documents, she conducted more than 400 interviews, more than half of which were with persons between 65 and 94 years of age. She identified and located many people from the original investigation more than 60 years before, and others with direct, personal knowledge of specific events. Their revelations were significant, and Walton came to identify-albeit she did not recognize it at the time-what we today consider the primary solvability factors in cold case homicide investigation: changes in technology and changes in relationships.
In 1988, her efforts resulted in the official review and re-activation of this case. She had identified surviving killers and proved that the young Native American was legally and factually innocent of the crimes for which he was forced to plead guilty, and that his wrongful incarceration was the result of political expediency by a corrupt prosecutor who himself later went to federal prison. She fought and overcame bureaucratic hurdles, and in 1991, the California Board of Prison terms, citing her work as “…one of the finest investigations this board has ever seen…,” recommended to the Governor of California that a full pardon on the grounds of innocence be posthumously awarded to the now deceased cowboy. The California Supreme Court agreed, and in 1996, the governor so awarded what is believed to be the first such pardon of its kind.
Walton returned to the University of San Francisco in 2001 to earn a doctoral degree in Organization and Leadership, knowing upon admission the topic for her ultimate dissertation, “Identification of Solvability Factors in Twenty-First Century Cold Case Homicide Investigation.” Her research involved, in part, the opportunity to work and study within one of the nation’s oldest and largest cold case homicide investigation units. Hers is believed to be the first such academic research in this field and has being utilized by law enforcement and academic researchers internationally.
Walton has presented on the topic of reinvestigation of cold case homicides to law enforcement and forensic venues for more than three decades. Such presentations have included the FBI Academy, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the National Institute of Justice, the Mid-Atlantic Cold Case Homicide Investigators Association and other state homicide investigator conferences, the California Criminalists Institute, the International Association for Identification, the Vidocq Society, and others.
Dr. Walton is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and member of the International Association for Identification and Vidocq Society. She authored “Cold Case Homicides: Practical Investigative Techniques,” (CRC Press, 2nd ed 2017), and co-wrote and edited the NCJ publication “National Best Practices for Implementing and Sustaining a Cold Case Investigation Unit (NIJ252016) as well as numerous journal and professional articles.
She is a professor in the criminal justice program at Utah State University Eastern in Price, Utah.