• About ME

    Best-selling author, professor, television producer, consultant & subject matter expert

    michaelarntfield.com

    I've spent nearly 20 years working and consulting for law enforcement, think tanks, universities, & media outlets on the topic of cold cases, unsolved crimes, & uncovering the names and personal stories of unidentified remains. Now, in partnership with Ellipsis Digital in London, Ontario, I've developed a suite of interactive packages specially designed for corporate retreats and civic groups that allows participants to undertake simulated investigations in a collaborative team environment. The objectives are twofold: build and fortify the innovative and collaborative teamwork of your workplace; and, help catch a killer.

     

    With group exercises that reflect real-world unsolved cases I've either researched, written about, or actually investigated and consulted on, participants will develop transferable "hard" and "soft" skills that range from deductive reasoning and critical observation to associative memory, time management, and negotiation.

     

    Cases and workshops are determined in advance and in consultation with the client. They are also custom-designed to suit the existing skill set, industry knowledge, technological aptitude, age, and experience of the group participants. No two groups receive the same case or outcome of a given investigation. The sessions are ideal for team-building, practical skills training, ongoing professional and personal development, to screen potential managers and leaders, or simply to break the ice among new employees.

     

    On top of what you'll take home and back to work from the experience, the reality (and hope) is that your uniquely skilled and diversely multi-talented staff may very well solve a real cold case. Escape rooms are one thing - real crimes with real stakes are another thing entirely.

  • my Experience & expertise

    Below are some of the highlights of where I've been and what I've done. Please also check out my professional website and LinkedIn profile for additional details.

    broken image

    Western University

    -Globally Noted Professor of Criminology

    -Founder & Director of Western Cold Case Society

    -Two-Time Winner of "Great Ideas in Teaching" Award & Recipient of the University's 2017 Humanitarian Award

    broken image

    Vanderbilt University

    -Visiting Fulbright Chair, 2015-16

    -Noted Homicide Scholar Invited at Request of University & US Department of State

    -Worked with Nashville Metro Police & Tennessee Bureau of Investigation While Living & Working on Location

    broken image

    Murder Accountability Project

    -Invited Member of the Board of Directors

    -Washington DC-based Think Tank on Multigenerational Trends in Homicide & Unsolved Crime

    -Featured in the acclaimed A&E series, The Killing Season

    broken image

    Producer & Consultant

    -Co-Executive Producer & Technical Consultant for New Drama Series Modelled on my Career as a True Crime Writer Specializing in Cold Cases & Unidentified Remains

    broken image

    Host, Producer & Consultant

    -Host, Producer & Technical Consultant for True Crime Reality Series (To Catch a Killer) Modelled on my Cold Case Society at Western

    -Now in International Syndication

    broken image

    Expert & Consultant

    -Previous Consultant for The National & Technical Advisor & Expert Panelist for The Fifth Estate on Missing Persons

    -Recurring Guest & Expert Commentator for CBC News Outlets Across Canada on Unsolved Crimes

    broken image

    Police Officer & Detective

    -Law Enforcement Career Included Multiple Areas of Investigative Expertise & Spanned Nearly Sixteen Years

    -Keynote Speaker for the 35th Anniversary of the Canadian Police College in Ottawa on the Future of Criminal Investigation

    broken image

    Investigator & Consultant

    -Investigator & Consultant Specializing in Search Warrants, Cognitive Interviewing, & Multi-Jurisdictional Investigations into Financial Crime for the Ontario Public Service (Financial Services Commission)

    broken image

    Senior Consultant

    -Ongoing Senior Investigative Consultant for One of Canada's Leading Third Party Investigators Into Workplace Misconduct, Theft & Corporate Espionage

    broken image

    Author

    -Murder City is the Best-Selling of the Eight Books I've Published to Date. It is Also the Basis (Both the Book and its Creation) for the Forthcoming CTV Series, Unsolved.

    broken image

    Author

    -Mad City is the Forthcoming & Highly Anticipated Follow-Up to Murder City, and Which I am Now Touring the US to Support. Also Available as an Audio Book in Several Languages.

    broken image

    Author

    -Murder in Plain English is Another Top Seller of the Eight Books I've Authored & Currently Has an Associated Television Series in Early Development.

  • "The world is full of obvious things that nobody by any chance ever observes."

     

    Sherlock holmes, the hound of the baskervilles

  • your cold case workshop

    WHAT CAN A SIMULATED COLD CASE INVESTIGATION TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR EMPLOYEES - AND YOURSELF?

     

    Who will be the first in your group to solve the case and, just as importantly, how will they do it? Will it be a collaborative team effort or a partisan survival of the fittest? Who will naturally take charge and maximize the group's human resources in search for a solution and who will wait to be assigned a task? Who in your group will look at crime scene photographs and see what they want to see versus what's actually there? Where would you begin dissecting a ransom letter or objectively making sense of a strange clue left near a crime scene and determining its value? Can you calculate where an offender likely lives based on the location of the crime scene? (hint: you can) - better yet, who will be the first to determine how?

     

    These are but a handful of the questions that corporate leaders may be curious to see answered in one-of-a-kind dynamic group exercises I've designed to accurately simulate the real-world steps of an ongoing investigation into a crime with equally real human and intellectual stakes. The interactive and multimedia scenarios I offer also simulate the work done by my Cold Case Society team members at Western University in partnership with the Murder Accountability Project in Metro DC, and where tasks that range from digging through and contextualizing big data to identifying indicators of deception in interviews can fundamentally improve non-linear thinking and approaches to everyday problems in the participants' own workplaces - and their own lives.

     

    Each session consists of a full day workshop where groups are divided into teams and assigned a common case to investigate. New clues, changing priorities, and instructional tutorials on investigative techniques and analytical strategies are interwoven over the course of the session as teams work under pressure toward an accurate resolution. It is not intended to be a competition; however, bragging rights will obviously be bestowed upon the team that correctly solves the case first. That is, until the next time when the stakes are elevated and the difficulty level increased.

     

    Take a look at the specific workshop genres below to see a sample of what each one has in store and contact my team for further details.

    Unsolved

    A Conventional Whodunnit Cold Case from the Past (Beginner/Novice)

    Unidentified

    A Jane/John Doe Body with a Name and Personal Story to be Discovered (Beginner/Novice)

    Sudden Jeopardy

    An Unsolved Case Goes From Cold to Red Hot Overnight; It's Now a Race Against Time With an Assailant on the Loose (Intermediate)

    Choose Your Own Investigation

    Customized Cases & Outcomes for Specialized Groups (Advanced/Experienced)

  • contact

    Sound like something you and your corporate team might be interested in or benefit from? Even if you're not necessarily interested in cold case investigations, consider that cold case investigations might be interested in you...

    Please get in touch...