Eighteen years after her death, a Marshall University student’s legacy continues to influence legislature in West Virginia.
Leah Hickman, a 21-year-old Marshall journalism student who was found murdered underneath her apartment on Eighth Avenue, is the inspiration for a new bill.
Since 2007, local authorities and her family have been looking for answers but havecome up unsuccessful. To help find answers to the case and cases like it across the state, Mason County Rep. Jonathan Pinson proposed the Leah Hickman Memorial Bill, which would establish a cold case task force in the state of West Virginia.
Pinson said he wanted to do something to help make a difference.
“Several months ago, I started to realize that there was something we could do,” he said. “That something was a symbol, a team of West Virginia’s very best investigators, for the purpose of looking into cases like these.”
Pinson said the bill is in support with Leah’s father, Ron Hickman, and they hope the creation of the task force will help. Pinson, former police officer, said he knows what it is like to be involved in multiple investigations.
“I know what it feels like when leads begin to run dry and cases begin to turn cold. I also know the value of just having additional eyes on cases looking and combing through a case file,” Pinson said.
There have been a quarter of a million unsolved homicides in the United States since 1980. Pinson said cases like Hickman’s can be seen all over the state.
“I have received dozens and dozens of calls and messages from folks,” he said. “Folks have stopped me in the hallway at the Capitol and said, ‘Hey, when you get that cold case started up, you know, I’ve got a case.’”
Pinson said the reason he believes the task force is so important is from what he learned on the police force.
“In my time in the State Police Academy, there are three reasons for punishing crime: number one, the victim deserves retribution; number two, the perpetrator deserves punishment; number three, society needs to have deterrent to not do it again,” Pinson said. “I want to bring justice to bad people who have done bad things.”
Pinson also said the reason cases like Hickman’s need to be noted is so they don’t happen again in the future.
“We see a rape that happened 10-20 years ago get connected to other rapes, and what we learn is that the initial rape [that] went unsolved ties to several other cold case, and perpetrators have been arrested in West Virginia recently tied to decades old cases,” Pinson said.
The task force won’t be funded by the state, but can be raised through grants and private donors. Currently, the State Police and its DCI Bureau of Criminal Investigations have a handful of their best detectives doing the work, but the bill could increase cooperation, Pinson said.
“The bill asks for their effort to be turned into a multi-jurisdictional task force, so instead of just the State Police working on it, let’s partner with other excellent detectives from police departments and sheriff’s departments throughout the state,” Pinson said.
The bill is currently sitting in the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Tom Willis, and the session ends March 14.
Jimmy John Jacob can be contacted at [email protected].
