Patrick Welsh

Patrick Welsh is a Sergeant with the Dallas Police Department. For more than 30 years, Sergeant Welsh has been an untiring advocate for crime victims. Currently, he serves as supervisor of the Sexual Assault Unit, where he established the Sexual Assault Cold Case Program (SEACAP). 

SEACAP focuses on assaults that occurred between 1970 and 1996, due to the statute of limitations for prosecuting crimes during that period. In creating SEACAP, Sergeant Welsh believed that while identifying previously unknown assailants would not result in their prosecution, solving those crimes might provide the victims with knowledge that may assist in their recovery. Using DNA from evidence left by an unknown attacker and establishing the national Combined DNA Index System, many stranger-on-stranger sexual assault crimes can now be solved. 

In 2009, Sergeant Welsh and a number of victims of sexual assault representing SEACAP traveled to the Texas State Capitol to offer testimony in support of a bill under consideration by the Texas legislature. The bill became the precedent-setting law known as the DNA Notation Law, which now requires the State of Texas to enter into the criminal history of an individual the fact that his or her DNA was linked to a sexual assault for which that individual can never be tried. While justice cannot be served perfectly, victims of those previously unsolved cold cases know they were not forgotten.