This story was corrected on May 14, 2009

Judy Forrest has been searching for answers since Aug. 28, when a gunman shot and killed her 28-year-old daughter, Kanika Powell.

Though there are suspects, no arrest has been made. The Mitchellville resident says she has thought about hiring a private investigator to pursue the case. At a meeting of crime victims this spring, she realized she wasn't the only one waiting for answers.

"There were 20 of us there, and I thought, ‘All these parents lost someone, and they're just waiting,'" Forrest said.

According to the Prince George's County Office of Audits and Investigations, county police solved 27 percent of the violent crimes from January to November 2008, lagging behind the average 50.3 percent solve rate for violent crimes of similar metropolitan and large population counties nationwide.

Violent crimes include homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults.

Less than 8 percent of property-based crimes such as theft, car theft and burglary led to an arrest or confirmed suspect, according to the report by county auditors issued last week during budget deliberations.

Except for closing rape cases, the county's success rates trail behind other similar jurisdictions, which closed an average of 16.2 percent of property crimes in 2008, according to FBI data.

In Prince George's, investigators closed 51 percent of 131 homicides reported from January to November 2008, about 9 percentage points below the national average for metropolitan counties.

The worst closure rate was for motor vehicle theft, where police solved 5.3 percent of the county's 8,673 stolen vehicles cases, or about 459 cases.

County police attribute their closure rates to a mixture of factors, such as high crime and manpower challenges.

"It's hard to say why. Every jurisdiction is different," said Maj. Andy Ellis, spokesman for the department. "Certainly, we police in a suburban and urban environment … that's slightly different from other jurisdictions."

In the report on the county police department's $244 million budget for next year, auditors noted that plans to cut back on overtime, lay off up to 80 police officers and require 10-day furloughs of all employees could hinder efforts.

"The budget reductions and furloughs create a challenge," Auditor William M. Hunt wrote in the May 4 report.

The department's force of about 1,600 officers is about half that of major metropolitan police departments. Prince George's has about 850,000 residents, and in many cases, a larger area to patrol.

In Washington D.C., the police force numbers 3,800 officers for a population of 591,000. In Baltimore city, the 637,000 residents have a department of 4,000.

"If we just look across the Potomac to D.C., their staffing rate is much higher," Ellis said.

Ellis said the department will continue to give extra pay to detectives pursuing cases in the days after a homicide or other serious crime, a crucial time period.

"We keep them working until they pull up every exhaustible lead," he said. "That's where we are not cutting back."

Ellis said the department has shifted resources to handle case loads and streamline investigations since 2007. In the last year, the department set up a "Fusion Center" of crime analysts who work with detectives to track crime trends, run down leads and staffed officers specializing in carjackings and robberies for individual districts.

Police Chief Roberto Hylton also created a new team of detectives to pursue cold cases in the county that are several years old.

One of the cold cases that has been reassigned is the homicide of 17-year-old Stacey Seaton, shot while walking home on a park trail in Bowie on June 1, 2005. It's a mystery that continues to haunt her mother, Gale Seaton.

Her daughter's homicide has made simple tasks take on a new meaning, she said.

"It can be bitter. Like when you're saying the Pledge of Allegiance: ‘And justice for all," she said. "Really? Where's the justice for my daughter?"

Seaton said she was pleased that the department is taking another look at the investigation.

"I want to be careful about what I say. And I will say that it never hurts to have a second eye," she said. "But I don't want to get my hopes up."

Russell Butler, executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center, a nonprofit organization with an Upper Marlboro office that provides resources for victims and their families, said he understands the strains on police but feels more should be done.

"This is always troubling. Of course, we realize that the system can only do so much," he said.

Ellis said police are limited in what they can say to victims' families to preserve the integrity of investigations.

"There are so many things we can't talk about that we would like to," he said, saying detectives often flag suspects for questioning, run extra lab reports, revisit leads and do other work long after a crime has happened.

Community cooperation also plays a role, said Ellis, noting that a fresh arrest on an unrelated crime can match up a stale fingerprint or bring a new witness forward. Police offer rewards for information through the Crime Solvers hotline at 866-411-TIPS and follow up on every call, Ellis said.

"We all know that ultimately, somebody out there has something," he said. "The question is, can we get somebody to pick up the phone and call us?"

E-mail Daniel Valentine at dvalentine@gazette.net.