News Sentinel Staff | Thursday, August 18, 2011

SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. -- In an effort to further combat crime, the Sevier County Sheriff's Office is now using an online investigative system that enables detectives to search for suspects and stolen property across secondhand stores, scrap-metal dealers, pawnshops and Internet drop-off stores nationwide.

The system, LeadsOnline, equips criminal investigators with the ability to instantly solve crimes and to return stolen items to their owners, according to a news release from Sheriff Ron Seals.

Property can be searched using information including serial numbers, a suspect's name and item descriptions, the release states, and most searches are completed within seconds.

Seals said "investigators are using it to solve crimes ranging from burglaries to homicides by instantly searching for missing items in the transaction records of businesses across the area and the country."

Without LeadsOnline, investigators previously had to undertake a time-consuming process of visiting stores in the area, collecting paper tickets and computer diskettes, and manually filing the tickets into a database. Keeping up with the volume of information was costly and overwhelming, according to Seals, and detectives were limited to searching for stolen property within the city.

With the new system, information is automatically collected from businesses each day, the release states. Sevier County businesses that accept merchandise from the public throughout the area -- including pawnshops, gold and precious metal buyers, and coin shops - are now being encouraged to report electronically via the new system.