Maury County Sheriff’s Department creates first-ever cold case unit
COLUMBIA, Tenn. (WKRN) – The Maury County Sheriff’s Department recently launched its first-ever cold case unit dedicated to bringing justice to victims of unsolved investigations.
“We have a lot of individuals that may go missing through time and every one of those matters,” said Maury County Sheriff Bucky Rowland.
Rowland said the new squad brings a wealth of knowledge and was strategically made up of retired law enforcement, former forensic examiners, and criminal justice majors.
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“This was an idea that we had of assembling a cold case team that could just focus on what was in front of them and not what was coming in from the day or night before,” Rowland said. “It just really weighs on law enforcement because you get so invested in those investigations and you want to bring closure, not only for the individual missing, but for the families.”
Since Rowland became the sheriff 10 years ago, he said the missing person case of Amber Cates, who was 16 years old at the time, has remained part of his workload. Authorities said she was last seen in the Columbia area on April 11, 2004. She was reportedly on her way to spend her spring break with a relative when she vanished.
“Just because Amber has been gone for now 20 years, that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t matter,” Rowland said. “I’ve spoken with family members and people who cared about Amber, and this is just one that haunts several of us here who have been here a while and want to bring closure and just bring Amber home. The hardest part, sometimes it’s just not knowing, and it eats at us.”
Lt. Roscoe Voss is the lead investigator on Amber’s case. He said his team has several cold cases they work on from time to time, but Amber’s is their main focus at this time.
“Any name that we hear that may have known her, we’ve tried to go talk to them just to see if anybody knows anything,” Voss said. “I spoke with officers that no longer work here and work at other agencies and FBI agents trying to get their information to put it all together, because we feel like there’s just something there, that maybe we’re missing, that’s going to be what we need to find where she’s at.”
(Courtesy: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children)
Amber would be 36 years old now. Her sister, Brenda Cates James, told News 2 she’s extremely grateful that authorities are not letting Amber’s case fall through the cracks.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t look at pictures of her,” James said. “We miss her a lot, and we’re still holding onto hope and faith.”
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Rowland said the cold case unit has made a lot of progress since its inception at the end of 2023. He said he has high hopes for this team and is excited to see how much more ground they’ll cover in the investigation into Amber’s disappearance.
“I truly believe in six months, we’ve made more headway than we did in 19 years, and that’s because of all the gifts and talents from that team,” Rowland said. “These are folks that are doing this on their own time that have privy to this information, and they’re just knocking it out of the park.”
Throughout two decades, Rowland said very few leads have come to light in Amber’s case, but he was excited to share that his team has sent in evidence for processing that may come back with significant findings.
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“We were able to retrieve DNA from this evidence and we’re waiting on that profile to come back,” Rowland said. “That’s a slow process, but this is the biggest break potentially that we’ve had in this investigation in 20 years.”
Description of Amber Cates
Missing Since: Apr. 11, 2004
Date of Birth: Feb. 3, 1988
Place of Birth: Columbia, TN
Hair: Light Brown (may have been dyed blonde)
Eyes: Green
Height: 5’5″
Weight: 100 pounds
Sex: Female
Race: White
Reward
According to the FBI, a reward of up to $25,000 is being offered for relevant information leading to the recovery of Cates or the prosecution of person(s) responsible for crimes committed against her.
Who to Contact
Anyone with information is asked to contact Voss at 931-375-6601 or rvoss@maurycounty-tn.gov.
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