Douglas County approves AI evidence tool for sheriff's investigators

Douglas County commissioners voted unanimously to keep an artificial intelligence tool in the sheriff’s investigative toolkit, betting that faster searches through body-camera video, 911 calls and old paper records are worth roughly $100,000 a year.

The decision, taken at the April 15 board meeting, moved TimePilot from a yearlong trial into a paid subscription for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. The system is meant to help investigators digest the kind of evidence that now piles up in major cases, from digital files and photographs to older paper reports that can be hard to sort by hand.

Michele Kennedy, the sheriff’s office crime analysis supervisor, said the platform helps detectives work through large, complex investigations more efficiently, especially homicides. Investigators upload case files as they get them, then add crime scene photos and body-camera video so the software can organize material, generate timelines and summaries, and make details searchable.

That speed matters in Douglas County, where the sheriff’s office says it has resolved seven previously unsolved cold cases over the past seven years. The clearest local example is the Rhonda Marie Fisher homicide, reopened in early 2025 by the Cold Case Unit and solved in late October 2025 after a case-to-case DNA match through the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS.

Fisher, who was 30, was found dead on April 1, 1987, down an embankment in rural Douglas County in the 3500 block of South Perry Park Road south of Sedalia. Investigators said DNA from paper bags placed over her hands matched evidence tied to three 1979 homicides linked to Vincent Darrell Groves, whom the sheriff’s office describes as one of Colorado’s most prolific serial killers.

The promise of TimePilot is not that it solves cases on its own. The sheriff’s office says the system is a support tool, not an automatic suspect finder, and that detectives and analysts still have to make the calls. Access is limited to the agency, a safeguard that is meant to keep data confined to individual cases.

That is where the public test begins. If TimePilot can help investigators get to the right document, video clip or interview faster, it could shorten the path from evidence to arrest in cases that might otherwise bog down for months. If it misses something, misreads context or becomes a shortcut in a high-stakes investigation, the consequences would fall on real cases, real suspects and real victims.

For Douglas County, the purchase signals a wider shift in local law enforcement: AI is no longer a distant experiment, but a paid tool now being folded into the daily work of solving crimes.