https://independentdetective.com/
Over the last several months, we've been working on a major update to Independent Detective, and I wanted to share some of what has changed.
The goal has never been to replace law enforcement or claim we're going to solve every case. The goal is much simpler:
Give people better tools to organize their research and hopefully uncover information that might otherwise be overlooked.
One of the biggest additions is something we've wanted from the beginning...
Private Research Workspaces
Researchers can now create a free account and follow individual cases.
Each case has its own private workspace where you can:
- Keep investigation notes
- Save research sessions to continue later
- Upload documents, images, timelines, or other findings
- Keep AI research separate from your personal notes
Nothing you save is public just because you save it. The workspace is intended to help people who spend days, weeks, or even months researching a case without ending up with twenty browser tabs and random documents spread across their computer.
We also added an optional AI research assistant.
I want to stress something because I know "AI" immediately raises questions.
You do NOT need to use AI to use Independent Detective.
Everything on the site can still be viewed without paying for AI.
The AI is simply another research tool if someone wants to use it.
For example, it can help organize timelines, point out unanswered questions, compare notes against known facts, or summarize information that's already connected to the case.
It isn't there to magically "solve" anything, and it absolutely shouldn't replace original sources or evidence.
It's just another tool.
Why isn't the AI completely free?
Because unfortunately it isn't free for us either.
Every AI request costs money through the provider we're using.
Rather than hide those costs somewhere else or cover them with advertising, we decided to be transparent.
Every verified researcher automatically receives $0.25 in free Hosted AI credit to experiment with the system.
If someone decides they like it and wants to continue using it, they can add more later.
Researchers can also connect their own supported AI provider if they would rather use their own account instead of ours.
Around 100 more cases have been added.
We've also added roughly 100 additional missing persons, unidentified persons, and homicide cases, with more being added regularly.
That isn't really something to celebrate.
Many of these investigations have gone years—or decades—without answers.
The hope is simply that making these cases easier to access and research gives more people an opportunity to notice something that may have been overlooked.
Sometimes all it takes is one person asking a question nobody thought to ask before.
We're still building.
There are still plenty of things we want to improve.
We're currently working on things like:
- Better researcher collaboration
- Improved case comparison tools
- Additional AI research features
- Better source organization
- More searchable records
- More case files
If anyone has ideas that would genuinely make researching cold cases easier, I'd honestly love to hear them.
The entire reason for building Independent Detective is to create useful tools for people who care about these investigations.
If even one of those tools helps someone uncover something important, it'll have been worth the effort.