In another example of the importance of background checks during the pre-employment screening process, an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution tells the story of a man who asked an Atlanta, Georgia-area police department to perform a criminal background check on him for a job application and then ended up being arrested as a suspect in the killing of a Missouri woman back in 1976.

According to the AJC, Johnny Wright, 63, was arrested for the 33-year-old murder of former University of Missouri student Rebecca Doisy, then 23, after paying Lawrenceville, GA police $15 to have a background check done for a prospective employer that turned up an arrest warrant dating back to 1985. When Wright returned to the police station to retrieve the background check results, police arrested him, the AJC reported.

This is the second time in recent months that a background check has helped solve a cold case by revealing secrets kept hidden by an individual. As reported by CNN, a background check done by two female campus police officers at the University of California at Berkeley helped reveal a kidnapper and crack the “cold case” of a girl kidnapped in 1991. Jaycee Lee Dugard, now 29, was abducted when she was eleven years old, and during her eighteen years in captivity gave birth to two daughters, now aged 15 and 11, fathered by her kidnapper.

As both of these cases clearly show, background checks can shine a bright light on the dark criminal pasts of people, and the pre-employment background check process can be instrumental in helping to solve even the coldest of “cold cases.”

Pre-employ.com is a nationally recognized provider of background checks and pre-employment screening for the government, health care facilities, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and Fortune 1000 companies. For more information about background checks, visit www.pre-employ.com, email info@pre-employ.com, or call 1-800-300-1821. To follow Pre-Employ on Twitter, visit www.twitter.com/PreEmploy.

tahearn@pre-employ.com

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