In July 1976, Mr. Michael Carmen was shot at point-blank range with a .12 gauge shotgun in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He died four hours later on an operating table without being able to make a dying declaration. Mr. Greg Mac Aleese was a detective working on that case who realised six weeks later that he was no closer to solving the crime than he had been on the night of the murder. Out of sheer desperation Mr. Mac Aleese asked a manager of a local New Mexican television station if he could reenact the crime on one of the station's newscasts. Mr. Mac Aleese felt that someone in the city might have seen part of the crime committed but not understood what they were seeing at the time. The reenactment aired on September 8, and the next day a young man telephoned Mr. Mac Aleese to tell him that on the night of the murder he had been walking in the area of the gas station and had heard a large bang.

Immediately afterward the man said he saw a car with two men inside leaving the gas station at high speed. The witness said he recognised the car as one belonging to a resident at a nearby housing complex. Seventy two hours after receiving the caller's tip, the two criminals were caught and it was discovered they were also responsible for six other armed robberies. After the success of the reenactment, the Albuquerque Police Department used the programme on a regular basis. A Board of Directors made up of civilians was put into place and someone was appointed to make the reward payments. The media agreed to lend assistance and the programme started. The first success of the programme came the day after the reenactment of Mr. Carmen's murder.

The first informant to call the Crime Stopper's phone number had information regarding a different crime. The caller had information regarding a gang rape and was relieved that Crime Stoppers had given him an opportunity to do something about it. An arrest was made the following week and the suspect entered a guilty plea. The programme was not all smooth sailing, however, and the importance of maintaining the informant's anonymity was made clear in October, 1976. An informant in a murder case asked to receive his reward in a face-to-face meeting with a detective. And during the meeting he told the detective his name. When the detective took the stand during the trial, the defence lawyer asked about the Crime Stoppers programme and asked the detective to name his informant. The detective refused and could have gone to prison if the judge had not ruled to protect the identity of the Crime Stoppers informant. Since then the programme makes a point of telling their informants that if they want to give a tip, they cannot mention anything that will lead the Crime Stoppers organisation to discover their identity. By 1979 the programme had grown into Crime Stoppers -USA. By 1983 the programme had become Crime Stoppers International and to date there are more than 1,000 Crime Stoppers programmes in 22 countries that have solved at least 425,000 crimes and have recovered $2.9 billion worth of stolen property and narcotics.