Mathis Honored as Voice for Victims

COLD CASE UNIT LEADER RECOGNIZED FOR GIVING VOICE TO VICTIMS

April 7, 2017
​
The DA’s Cold Case Unit Supervisor, Mike Mathis, received the 2017 Voice for Victims Award at Hamilton County’s annual Victims’ Rights Week ceremony.
 
Mathis was honored for his diligence and perseverance in providing a voice to homicide victims, those who can no longer speak for themselves. Mathis joined the DA’s Office in 2014 when District Attorney General Neal Pinkston created a Cold Case Unit to review the county’s more than 200 unsolved homicides and missing persons cases.
 
Mathis retired as a Captain with the Chattanooga Police Department and worked with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children before agreeing to take the lead role at the CCU.
 
As DA General Pinkston notes, “For three decades, Mike Mathis has worked tirelessly on behalf of those who have been silenced by violence. I can think of no one more deserving for this recognition.”
 
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the state Board of Parole, the Tennessee Department of Correction and Tennessee Rehabilitative Initiative in Correction (TRICOR) coordinate observance of National Victims’ Rights Week in cities across the state each year. 
 
Each ceremony ends with a tree planting, to symbolize the memory of lives lost. Following Friday’s event at the Hubert Fry Pavilion, victims’ family members picked up shovels to plant a willow tree along the Tennessee Riverwalk.
 
 
 
####