The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad

by Stacy Horn

A behind-the-scenes look into the careers of New York detectives charged with solving cold cases from the past half century follows their often exhaustive pursuits of leads and use of new technologies in the face of department politics. By the author of Waiting for My Cats to Die. 50,000 first printing.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, New York, History, Audiobook, Mystery

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

I've just finished up my seventh non-fiction book, the Killing Fields of East New York, followed by a very long subtitle. First I thought I was telling the story of why a particular neighborhood in Brooklyn had the highest number of unsolved murders in New York. Then I realized I was also telling the story of white collar crime and how it is more destructive than street crime. In the end, I saw that the core of the story went even deeper and was far more terrible.

Reviews

[Rose]

The material for this book is interesting enough, but the way it is written lets it down. It's disjointed because each case is split up into bits interspersed with bits of other cases. It goes into way too much detail at times, as if Horn feels compelled to share every scrap of data she accumulated. This gets boring, and it also confuses the poor reader who has not spent months getting familiar with the case. One is so complicated there is a whole-page flow diagram of how the people relate to each other, and it still didn't leave me much the wiser. This problem is only made worse when Horn feels the need to tell me about every person ever mentioned in a huge case file, plus their aunt's neighbour's ex-wife who is the closest person to the one mentioned that is still alive.

It also winds me up a bit that they (the detectives, and the author) spend sooooooooooo long on Jean Sanseverino's murder. She died back in 1950, every main suspect they had is long dead, as are virtually everyone connected with the case and all of Jean's family, bar a sister. Then, we have another looooong section all about budget constraints. I know there is no statute of limitations on murder, but there comes a point at which further investigation just becomes silly. Whoever did it is dead or soon will be. What a surprise - they finally conclude they can't work out whodunnit. There are higher priorities: as Horn reminds us, there are at least 9000 cold homicide cases in New York City.

One aspect of Horn's writing that I did like was the way she was able to convey the frustration of working cold cases, resulting purely from notes or evidence being misfiled/lost/never collected/incomplete/completely incomprehensible. It does make you want to reach back through the years and bitchslap some detective or property clerk.

[Eva-Marie Nevarez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not going to finish this- this is a good book but only truly interesting to me when I'm reading about the actual cold cases, of which there isn't much. This is much more about the history of the cold case squad in N.Y. and while I'm sure that's fascinating to some, it's just not what I wanted.
Jumps back and forth between some cold cases and between police working on them- you get what seems to be the entire history of the making of the squad. If that's what you're looking for then this is your book.

[C.S. Poe · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely incredible, in depth, thorough, and heart-wrenching look inside the Cold Case Squad of the NYPD from their genesis to the early 2000s. Stacy Horn's gonzo-esque method of storytelling makes this nonfiction title deeply compelling. Horn pulls the reader into the scenes, and it's as if we're alongside her as she first walks into the bullpen, when she's interviewing the detectives, studying their expressions, listening to the frustration she and they both feel from the research, the dead ends, the waiting, the waiting, the waiting that haunts this squad and these families.

I devoured this book. Every single page, from the copyright details to the final line of the appendix and acknowledgments. This book was every bit of the research I needed for a project of my own, a project focused on the Cold Case Squad, which unsurprisingly, is very difficult to learn about short of chatting with these detectives over a cup of coffee. So when I stumbled across The Restless Sleep, to see that Horn literally had the opportunity of a lifetime and took that bull by the horns, I ordered a copy so fast I almost sprang my index finger. I've noticed some folks weren't keen on the method in which she wrote the book—the timeline weaves from current interviews to past cold cases, all the way to the '50s, while pausing to include historical tidbits on how this squad came to be, why, when, and what they were up against, politically and financially. And it's fine, no book is everyone's cup of tea. But for me, this was so captivating that I stayed up far past my bedtime more than once!

I'm in love with the minute details Horn unearthed and included in this book. The unsolved murder of a young man who returned to the city after WWI. The priceless pistols meant for the MET that somehow almost got melted down. The homicide data dating back to 1900 (anything close to the 1800s has me perched on the edge of my seat!) All of these incredible tidbits interwoven with the descriptions of the detectives relentlessly pursuing justice and closure for the downtrodden, forgotten dead of the city, it really was an incredible gift in book form and I cannot thank Horn enough for the three years of work she poured into it.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for true crime and am really interested in cold cases. Restless Sleep, as the title indicates is a look into the men, women and workings of the New York City Cold Case Squad. It was fascinating to learn how this department developed and how it has changed over the years. It's a compliment to the department that I was surprised at their cold case numbers. I thought they would be higher. Still the author states that in NY you have a 50% chance of getting away with murder. At the time of this writing DNA tests waiting frustrates detectives and unlike TV, fingerprints cannot be compared by pressing a button. Once a possible match is found, it a real person must do lots of work to assure that it is truly a match. I have a high regard for people who do this job and will not let the victims be forgotten. Take for instance Bessie Jean, one of the cases featured here. Her killer was never found but she comes alive on the pages of this book. Here's a young girl who with her sisters walked four miles to the town of Glencoe for entertainment. The author states "Bessie, this young country girl, with her hair washed from a pump, setting out with nothing but anticipation for all the possibilities a "city" offered. This passage goes on to give us a vivid picture of Bessie Jean, a small town girl who follows her husband to NY and ends up dead of strangulation, her life dreams forever ended.

The determination to find a killer and bring them to justice hopefully provides satisfaction in a often horrible job. Stacy Horn's enthusiasm for her subject shines through. She takes us on a journey into several open cases while providing an absorbing history.

This would be a good read for fans of TV's Cold Case or The Forgotten.

[Patrick O'Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

NYPD's cold case squad tackles those ancient murders no one cares about. They get the drug deal gone bad, sick child rapist kills victim, 1940's call girl murder, all that old shit. It's crazy to even think of these detectives solving such old crimes – but sometimes they do. Stacy Horn's The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad is pretty damn cool.

[Grada (BoekenTrol) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was certainly an interesting book.
It gives an more or less inside view on how cases, cold cases more in particular are worked. How politics, office politics and lies/dislikes of the officers who work the cases have their influence on how well a case is investigated.
What struck me was, that archives are not in order. That files, evidence are disposed of, destroyed. I thought governmental organizations need to have their archives accessable and, depending on the file, they need to preserve it for a certain amount of years (sometimes even permanently).
That finding a killer (or any other person who was filed because they did wrong) depends on files, evidence kept in good condition. That the people who worked in archives didn't realize that (or even worse, didn't care) is absolutely beyond me.

The manner of writing/chaptering in the book I didn't like much. Three times the same case with only a bit of new information was a bit too much for me.

[Gabi Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn’t the best read. Pretty slow and a lot of different timelines at once. Very interesting though

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of good research and writing here, but I can't say it was my favorite.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up at Half-Priced Books in the true crime section, which I always carefully creep towards, looking for my next page-turner that will have me sleeping with my bedroom door locked. I've always been especially interested in cold cases and unsolved crimes, so Restless Sleep caught my interest right away.

I admire Horn as a writer, first of all. She's the sort of writer I aspire to be. She studied a topic she was interested in and did tons of research, observation, and interviews to put out a book she'd want to read, which is great. This book follows members (current and previous as of about 2004, I think, so all of them are retired now) of New York City's Cold Case Squad, a group of experienced law enforcement officers who work tirelessly and often thanklessly to solve the city's unsolved murders. They face an immense amount of pressure since their job works slowly and often leads to dead ends, which isn't good for a system that relies on numbers of solved crimes per month.

After an introduction to these members (who, honestly, blur together after the first 50 or so pages), the book separates into four sections that intertwine chapter-by-chapter. These cases are the unsolved murders of drug dealers Linda Leon and Esteban Martinez, police officer Ronald Stapleton, 14-year-old Christine Diefenbach, and the oldest case, a young woman named Jean Sanseverino, dating back to 1951. It's tireless just reading about the process of trying to solve these crimes...the paperwork, the travel, the layers and layers of people they have to go through, and the waiting are just excruciating. And unfortunately, by the end of the book (and currently, I think, after seeing the author's blog), only 2 of the 4 crimes have been solved.

I think this book could've been shortened a bit. The information about the booking system in prisons came off as a bit odd to me, especially since it didn't have much to do with the book's central topic. It felt like it belonged in another book. As we all should, I remained most interested in the cases themselves, but I feel like Horn got very close with the officers and agents she interviewed, so she took up a lot of time defending them and trying to get us to love them. I didn't not love them, I just wasn't as interested in them as I was in the cold cases.

All in all, this was a high-quality read with careful research and a tactful, non-exploitative approach. A good book for any true-crime lover.

[Melinda Worfolk · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I did not like about the book:

The writing style. Breathless, melodramatic, heavy-handed, inappropriately chatty and informal for the subject matter--it seems like an unrevised, unedited first draft by a bright and capable first-year composition student:

Whenever people describe [Cold Case Squad pioneer] Jack Maple, they invariably talk about what an amazing dresser he was. But I've seen pictures. The man dressed like a pimp, for God's sake. Outlandish, inelegant, it's just plain embarrassing how badly he dressed. Didn't the man have friends? The kind of friends to pull him aside and say, "Jack, dude. Look in the mirror." Someone told me he smelled. Then someone else told me this: "If Jack Maple didn't know about something on Friday, he read every book he could get his hands on over the weekend, and he was an expert by Monday." It turns out, this incredibly bad dresser might be the reason thousands of us aren't dead right now. (p. 14)

The structure. The author skips back and forth with no transitions between descriptions of NYPD politics, profiles of various detectives involved in the cold case squad, crime statistics, and a few interesting cold cases. It disrupts the narrative and makes the book seem very disjointed.

The tedious bits about the history/politics of the Cold Case Squad. They make the narrative grind to a halt, usually just as it is getting interesting.

What I liked:

The cold cases themselves. Usually when I dislike this many things about a book, I stop reading it, but I wanted to find out how/if the cold cases were ever solved, so I read until the end.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good non-fiction read. Started a little slowly because author Stacy Horn provides a lot of backstory for the NYPD, the Cold Case concept and squad creation, and the detectives who were investigating the four specific cold cases Horn follows with the cops. Like Sue Riseling's book on the Wisconsin Capitol protests, this is the part of law enforcement that most of us don't see. The book was published in 2005 and references the cop who found the murdered child who came to be known as "Baby Hope," and whose murder was just solved.

This book has a lot of critical reviews and the structure of it makes it disjointed and confusing at times. I think I was about a third of the way into it before it really jelled. There is a lot about the NYPD structure, internal politics, jurisdictions, etc. which is boring and yet this is what so many folk's work life is like: a job you love if the office politics don't make you quit. I liked the book enough that it makes me want to read more on the subject, though probably not more books by Stacy Horn.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book even though I thought it could have been improved as far as style of writing goes. I read complaints about Horn's language before I read the book. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was. I think she was trying to sound like a NYC cop. Or at least the ones she had been talking to. I didn't mind how she skipped around and jumped from case to case because the chapters were always clearly labeled. I think some of the asides could have been further separated into different chapters. Like her descriptions of the logistics behind the whole shebang. It was disappointing to have the Diefenbach case still unsolved when it seems obvious who did it. It's a shame that things can get to a certain point and then not go forward because it would cost too much money to try a case when the DA is not sure of the outcome. They've got the one bartender confession. How terrible that so much evidence was lost because no one understood its value.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the subject matter, but found the book a little hard to read at times. I was over halfway through the book before I really felt I meshed with it, and could read without feeling a bit confused.
The cases jump around a lot, which in and of itself I didn't find difficult to follow, but new people were constantly being introduced, and sometimes I was hard to remember which Detective was which, and which cop was which...
There were times at the beginning of the book where I felt like I was reading a poorly written term paper. That being said, I still enjoyed the book overall.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good read. Traces several NYC Cold Case Unit detectives as they work on clearing up old, unsolved homicides. The detectives are as interesting as the cases themselves. The author also goes into how the Cold Case Unit was formed and what a hassle it is to even get through the day as an officer in the NYPD. Be sure to check out the appendix -- it has some very bracing figures on how violent crime has declined since the NYPD started handling things differently.

[Motorcycle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing special. It seemed unbalanced. Stilted narrative arc and poor organization of what seemed like information inadequate to support a book of it's scope made this feel like it set out to go somewhere, didn't, then ended with a stymied shrug.

[Aria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting material. I found it a bit hard to keep track of certain facts/evidence because it jumps back and forth between cases. Not to mention all of the names. She does a great job of capturing the detectives frustration with how certain things are handled and the motivation behind their work.

[Ginny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't finish this one. There was just too much about the politics of the NYPD and not enough about solving the cases.

[Dorraine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slogging through pages and pages of data and police politics to get to information about the cold cases makes this a tedious read.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

They need a star rating for "meh". An in-depth look into a cold case unit that while interesting is poorly written and completely disjointed. Disappointing.

[Sonny Percival · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at university and it had been on my shelf since. For some reason I associated the book with a more true-crime, dramatised, exploitative angle than was justified and I think those expectations stopped me from reading sooner.

I was surprised to discover an account with meticulous detail about the Cold Case Squad, and the human components of the detectives, suspects and witnesses involved. I had expected the cases to be glanced at or skated over fairly superficially for some reason, and instead the accounts are gripping and painstakingly laid out. Somehow Horn actually inflates your own delusion that you too could be a detective on this case, such is the effort to show you the case's progression.

Another great strength of this book is it's attention to context. All the pieces matter (and Wendell Stratford definitely reminded me of The Bunk). Horn uses the variety of cases to give a full picture of the challenges of different time periods in the Cold Case's history: organised crime, fingerprint and DNA technology, departmental politics (alot of it), 9/11 and the prioritisation of counterterrorism, not to mention district attorney's and prosecuting concerns, and even the holding system for inmates prior to their hearing. You feel the slog of the DD5-laden journey that has brought the case to its current standstill.

Many details stand out in Horn's pursuit of historically-congruent journalism. "In 1951 a women's housekeeping made a greater impression on her guests." Inferences about Joe Moore being black and gay in the Navy. The politics of who is a priority for the department - for New York City. A small moment on page 309 says that the DD5 states an event happened in 1950, but given everyone's movements and countless testimonies, either Ray said the year wrong or the detective wrote it down incorrectly. Even the incorrect details make it! You feel the decision making and the pacing of what the detectives are going through live ain the writing.

Horn's ability to combine those human moments which paints the perseverance these detectives have day in and day out, with the deep workings of the administrative side of police work, almost seamlessly, is its crown achievement. I also admired the book's commitment to a demanding structure which revolved around four cases continuously.

It is morbid and fascinating without ever putting the humanity of the victims in the backdrop. Her mindset seems to have been that readers will reap what they sow in the investment that this book asks for. And that commitment feels deserved when exploring the lives of those sleeping 'restless' as the book so ominously describes.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no statute of limitations on murder. In New York City, there are 8,894 unsolved murders or "cold cases" (as of the writing of this book in 2005, there's probably more now). Author Stacy Horn writes about the special squad of the New York City police department which is devoted specifically to the investigation of cold cases. She got to know several detectives while researching this book and all about the NYCPD. She profiled 4 unsolved homicides: the murder of a husband and wife in a drug-related case, the stomping death of a 14 year old girl on a lonely stretch of railroad tracks, the murder of a cop who was killed with a meathook and his own weapon, and the strangulation of a woman in her apartment. Some of these cases will be solved by the end of the book, some will not; one case will give answers to yet more unsolved homicides.

I am a true-crime fan and I really liked this book. The author wrote about some aspects of police work that I had not read about or seen discussed before such as the "property room" which is something of a misnomer. It's really more of a job title than a place. The place where property accumulates can be refrigerated (for biological evidence), or a warehouse, or occupy multiple spaces in a police station. She also writes about how to speak certain police lingo which I did not know, like the 76th precinct is not called that, it's just called "the 7 6." (The seven six).

There were some boring places in this book, like one of the homicides she profiled got rather deep into organized crime and racketeering and the RICO stuff and I didn't care for that, so that was sorta boring. But otherwise, I really liked this book so I am giving this 4 stars!

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up on a whim when I was ordering stuff from Better World Books. For whatever reason, I was expecting it to be more about the forensic aspects of crime and the medical examiner's office. It was instead focused on the invesitgation of cold cases with an explanation of what a cold case is, how the NYPD cold case squad came to be, and the personalities of the men who were doing the work. This was started around 9/11/2001 and goes up through about 2004 and therefore it is now considered dated. And yet the homicides are well explained and the detective work is laid out clearly and the cases are still interesting. I have seen one of these cases on a television show about old murders, but only one of them, and that only one time.

At present, the issue of policing in this country is fairly controversial because of the clear bias that exists within the system against minorities and because of the sheer number of mostly young black men that are murdered by cops for no reason with no repurcussions. Nevertheless, investigative work like the cold case squad has its value and its place in society and if more money went to dealing with the most violent crimes and less to arresting nonviolent individuals associated with the production, sale, and use of drugs, most people would feel safer (and would actually be safer, based o statistics). A good and honest loook at the work, the book includes information on cops who were corrupt and cops who lied and the problems of "the black guy did it" which can come back to haunt the notion of justice at trial.

[Mary Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Working on my next novel, I needed this book for research and wasn't sure what I would make of it, but it turned out to be an incredibly well-researched piece as it followed several cold case murders through the New York City's Cold Case Squad, some of those murders dating back fifty years. Chapters following the cases are split up so the reader gets them in bits and pieces, which actually ends up relieving some of the sadness involved in the murders, serving at the same time to build the tension in walking through the solving process with the detectives. My only problem with the book was the author's narrative voice: she seemed to choose to use a voice that was supposed, I think, to sound a little hard-boiled, and like the detectives she was following. Not until I got to her acknowledgments and read the author's authentic voice did I think to myself, "Where was that voice this whole time?" If you're interested in cold cases and how a major city police department deals with solving them, this book is fascinating and informative.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cold-case detectives have a hard job. That is what I learned from this book. It would be so frustrating to run into dead-end after dead-end, or to hit up against bureaucratic obstacles that keep officers from arresting the guy they are pretty sure did it, because prosecutors are reluctant to bring charges when evidence is so old. I do have to wonder, though, if money and time couldn't be better spent on cases that are newer than the 50-year old murder that is one of the case-studies from this book. If pretty much everyone involved would be dead by now anyway, shouldn't the detective be putting his energies to finding a killer who might still be out there being evil?

Parts of the book were pretty dull, and if I had been reading instead of listening I may have skimmed a lot more, but mostly it was interesting.

[James E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may be in the minority but I found this book engrossing. The portraits of the members of the Cold Case squad are fascinating. These are ordinary men with ordinary lives who somehow must spend countless hours trying to find answers to murders that occurred years (even decades) ago and that other cops were unable to solve, all the while realizing the odds are stacked against them. The four cases examined are a cross section of the grisly murders that are committed in any big city, from a drug dealing couple killed in front of their children to a shy fourteen year old girl murdered on her way to the store. I also found discussion of the history, methodology, and politics of the Cold Case unit interesting. The book is not for everyone. Some of the details of the murders are perhaps more graphic than needed. Otherwise, I enjoyed every page of the book.

[Carissa Ratosky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not hate this book. I did not either love this book. It was a tough read for me. The jumping around on cases made it difficult to follow and the completely in-depth figures were unnecessary in my opinion. This is most certainly a book for college students and those already looking into the detective profession. The cases were interesting, but some were absolute let-downs when being wrapped up in the end. It just wasn’t exactly what I had anticipated when selecting it to read, and that on me. If you’re interested in detective work, currently in the field, or studying to become a detective, this will help you get a look into the New York cases that have been studied. But it’s not a leisurely read.

[Libby Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting insight into New York’s Cold Case Squad. The book examines four unsolved cases in depth. The author takes us through the difficulties in retracing evidence and the shortcomings of DNA testing on old material. The book highlights how different the real world is compared to movies and TV series. In the real world it takes months for tests to come back and cost is always an issue. Of the four cases examined for this book, two remain unsolved.

[Tessa Bolon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a huge fan of this book. It’s clear that a lib* wrote it because the book tries to keep a neutral stance on the bad things cops have done, and doesn’t go into the racist history of the NYPD. I will say that the book was written in 2003 which was a very different time when it comes to the National discourse on racism.

Overall I gained new insight into why the police take forever to do things, and can tell that police people want to do good work.
*insult

[Nick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't even finish the book. The topic is very interesting, but the author continually inserted childish and crude internal thoughts, that in no way contributed to the narrative. The comments were so random and unhelpful it felt like a conversation where someone constantly interrupts to add snide remarks, except in this case the author was interrupting herself.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject matter is interesting enough but the book is so disorganized. The chapters are titled with a case and detective, but there will be pages and pages of generic procedural information, not talking about the case at all. She also really abuses parenthetical statemens, making it even more disorganized.