COLD-CASE HOMICIDE COPS NEVER QUIT NEW EVIDENCE, TECHNOLOGY CAN REVITALIZE A LONG-AGO MURDER CASE.

Byline: BRAD A. GREENBERG Staff Writer

After dropping off her toddler daughter at the sitter, Elaine Graham got as far as the parking lot at California State University, Northridge, before disappearing.

It was 1983.

Her skeletal remains were found later that year. Police quickly identified a suspect, but lacked the evidence to arrest him. The case languished until 2002, when two Los Angeles police detectives reopened the investigation.

Ten months later, they had enough evidence to arrest and convict Edmond Larr of Graham's murder.

``It's been a long 20 years since Elaine disappeared,'' her husband, Dr. Stephen Graham, said at the time. ``It's given me a lot of bad dreams thinking about what she went through prior to her death. I'm grateful to the cold-cases unit.''

Cold cases are contained in ``murder books'' held in archival dungeons. But detectives are constantly reopening some and developing hot leads.

Wednesday, authorities showed that some cases never die, with the arrest in Bangkok of an American schoolteacher suspected of murdering child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey in 1996.

On a daily basis, the seven detectives of LAPD's Cold Case Homicide Unit are digging through dusty files, tracking down aging witnesses and searching for new physical evidence.

They crisscross the country looking for new threads to connect unraveled theories. Headquarters is downtown, Room 503 at Parker Center.

``This squad is the most noble place in the building. A city that forgets its murder victims is a city lost. This is where we don't forget,'' reads a framed picture of L.A. signed by crime novelist Michael Connelly. ``We're the guys they bring in in the bottom of the ninth inning to win or lose the game. THE CLOSERS.''

On the light blue walls hang murder photos, circa 1930. Detectives' cell phones buzz with the themes from ``Hawaii Five-O'' and ``The Twilight Zone.'' Bookshelves filled with murder books line the walls; some cases fill entire file cabinets.

Los Angeles has 9,000 unsolved homicides dating back to 1960 and 3,000 more that have been closed without prosecution. That accounts for 44 percent of city homicides.

It's like digging out a mountain with a spoon. And the more progress cold-case detectives make, the more time they spend in court and the less time they have to re-investigate additional cases.

Cold cases are reopened for myriad reasons -- new physical evidence, old evidence that can be analyzed by new technology, a murderer's slip-up, a witness' overwhelmed conscience, a victim's inquiring family.

``Essentially, you are biopsying the case,'' said Detective David Lambkin, who heads the unit. ``Where are the gaps here we can fill in?''

It's tedious work. A detective might spend three days on the phone calling each of 350 John Smiths who might have lived at a specific address.

The unit -- recently authorized to hire six more investigators and fill a vacant position -- solved 14 cases last year.

A few miles south, on Interstate 5, the Sheriff's Department has its own Unsolved Unit. These are the guys who reopened Kimberly Pandelios' case 11 years after her death.

The 20-year-old aspiring model from Northridge was lured into the Angeles National Forest in 1992 on the premise of a modeling job. She was raped and murdered, her husband left to raise their 1-year-old son alone.

After a sergeant flipped through her file and saw some leads that might produce a suspect, he assigned two detectives to reinvestigate.

The sheriff's detectives got David Rademaker, and he got life in prison.

``A lot of times, you will go out and investigate these old cases and you don't get anywhere,'' said Detective Stephen Davis, one of the investigators on the Pandelios case. ``You go out and the witnesses have died or disappeared and when you do find them, you don't get anything.

``Most of the time, it is dead ends. But occasionally, there are instances when you find some new information to work with.''

For Davis and his partner, the new information came from two of Rademaker's former girlfriends, who testified that he bragged of killing Pandelios and that one of them was with him when he torched Pandelios' car along Angeles Forest Highway.

The Pandelios case had been dormant for almost a decade. But other cases, such as JonBenet's and that of CSUN student Graham's, the search for new clues never subsides.

Every March 17, on the anniversary of Graham's death, the original lead detective would call the forensic examiner and talk about any new possibilities for prosecuting the case. In 2002, a decade after the detective retired, he phoned an investigator for the newly formed Cold Case Homicide Unit.

The cold-case detectives dug in. ``It basically steamrolls from there,'' said Detective Tim Marcia.

Stephen Graham said he had mixed emotions about detectives reopening the case. He had picked up the pieces of his life, remarried and added a son to his family. He wanted justice, but was uncomfortable with the disruption it might bring.

It would be inaccurate to say Marr's conviction brought closure. Graham said nothing could rewind his life to March 16, 2003. But he is comforted knowing that Marr is locked up.

``Even though they were going forward whether I wanted them to or not, they acted as if it was my decision,'' Graham said of Marcia and his partner, Detective Rick Jackson. ``They were fantastic.''

brad.greenberg(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) LAPD Detective David Lambkin is in charge of the department's Cold Case Homicide Unit. With 9,000 unsolved murders, his unit is always busy.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(2) Elaine Graham is pictured with her daughter, Elyse, in this undated photo taken not long before the mother's death in 1983. Her killer was not caught and convicted until 2002, and is in prison, thanks to cold-case detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department.