DaCoda Stangel

My name is DaCoda Stangel, and I am currently working to achieve my bachelor’s degree in behavioral sciences and then after that I am hoping to apply to the FBI as a special agent. I am applying for this internship with The Cold Case Foundation because I know how difficult it can be to not know what happened to a loved one, or someone from the community. I am an Indigenous woman and for my people and our culture we have an organization called Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women that is trying to shed light on members of our community that have gone missing or have been murdered with their case never being solved.

Working with The Cold Case Foundation felt like the right fit for an internship, because the foundation holds the same values that I do. I believe it is necessary to be able to give these victims a voice when they no longer have one for themselves. The victims need someone to advocate for them and their families. No one deserves to not know what happened to a family member. However, it is not just people with families that matter, there are unidentified victims that have not had their case solved that also deserve justice and closure, those victims deserve to have a name and a story when it was so carelessly taken away from them.

I believe it is incredibly important to give these cases attention so that the victim can have the justice they deserve and so that their family can finally gain some closure. I believe that having an unsolved case can cause generational trauma through a family, and that solving a cold case can help to heal that family and patch the cracks that losing a loved one can cause.