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Homicide Investigation

The Impact Of Homicide Upon Public Confidence And Reassurance

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This research study investigates the impacts of homicides upon public confidence and reassurance. In particular it focuses upon how and why some crimes involving illegal death have a profound and widely distributed impact on how people think, feel and act in relation to their security, whereas other, ostensibly similar incidents, are far less consequential and cause less social harm. For the purposes of this study two key definitions are employed:

• Public confidence is conceived as a measure of perceptions, experiences and expectations of the police. • Reassurance measures broader levels of neighbourhood security.

The aim of this study is to provide an evidence base that can inform the development and improvement of current procedures for conducting community impact assessments. Based upon in-depth studies of community reactions following seven criminal homicides that varied in terms of their circumstances and situational contexts, the analysis identifies five ‘impact models’. These seek to capture the patterns present in relation to the breadth and depth..

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A Test of the Simultaneous vs. Sequential Lineup Methods

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Executive Summary

The significant role that mistaken eyewitness identifications have played in convictions of the innocent has led to a strong interest in finding ways to reduce eyewitness identification errors. Psychological scientists have been conducting laboratory studies on this problem for over 30 years and have proposed a number of possible reforms to the procedures used in conducting lineups. Most of the proposed reforms, including the critical requirement of double-blind administration (the administrator does not know the identity of the suspect), have not been considered controversial in principle and many jurisdictions across the United States have adopted them. The use of a double-blind (DB) sequential rather than a DB simultaneous lineup procedure, however, has engendered controversy, a controversy that has unnecessarily held back the adoption of non-controversial reforms in many jurisdictions. The sequential lineup shows lineup members to the witness one at a time and asks the witness to make a...

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Husband-Wife Homicide: An Essay from A Family Law Perspective

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Homicide traditionally has been a matter between family, acquaintances, and friends.' This fact is not particularly surprising, given the reasonable expectation that one would have more reason to kill an acquaintance than a stranger. It would seem to follow that spouses and other intimates would have the most reason of all to kill each other. Yet we recoil from the very idea, clinging to the belief that intimate relationships are characterized by tenderness and love. That they are not always so characterized is evident in the fact of spousal violence and homicide. Most homicides are committed with firearms, and these weapons also play a role in the more specialized group of homicides that occur between spouses. One goal of all gun control proposals is to reduce the overall number of homicides by reducing the number of homicides committed with firearms. A particularly poignant subissue, however, is how to keep people from killing...

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Homicide Scene Investigation | A Manual for Public Prosecutors

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CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION AND ANALYSIS

The analysis and “rebuilding” of crime scenes is a very specialized field. The expertise involves knowledge of crime scenes and crime scene investigation, bloodstain pattern interpretation, evidence analysis, and familiarity in reading and interpreting conclusions, particularly from an autopsy protocol. Often, in order to accurately evaluate a crime scene, the prosecutor or chief investigator is compelled to work with the medical examiner, the firearms expert, a serologist, and a trace evidence analyst, among others. No one person can formulate all the opinions necessary for an accurate reconstruction. Some crime scenes involve too much movement or too many events to lend themselves to a complete reconstruction. This is particularly true with cases of multiple injuries and multiple victims. Crime scenes that involve movement of both the victim(s) and the suspect(s) and a multitude of injuries may make it impossible to...

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Evaluating The Usefulness Of Functional Distance Measures When Calibrating Journey-to-Crime Distance Decay Functions

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Abstract

This research evaluates the usefulness of applying functional distance measures to criminal geographic profiles using mathematically calibrated distance decay models. Both the travel- path (i.e., shortest distance) and temporally optimized (i.e., quickest travel time) functional distance measures were calculated based on the impedance attributes stored within a linearly referenced transportation data layer of several parishes in Louisiana. Two different journey-to- crime distance decay functions (i.e., negative exponential, and truncated negative exponential) were mathematically calibrated for ‘‘best fit’’, based on the distribution of distances between homicide crime locations and offenders residences. Using the calibrated distance decay functions, geographic profiles were created for a localized serial killer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A probability score was calculated for every point within the study area to indicate the likelihood that it contained the serial offenders residence. A comparison between the predicted (highest probability score) and the actual residence of the serial offender determined the predictive value and procedural validity of functional distance metrics.

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Drug-Induced Homicide Laws: A Misguided Response to Overdose Deaths

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Background

Overdose death rates in the United States have more than doubled over the past decade, surpassing motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of injury-related death in the country.1 According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 47,055 people – an average of 128 people a day – died from drug overdoses in 2014.2 More than 18,000 overdose deaths in 2014 involved prescription opioids, such as hydrocodone (Vicodin™) and oxycodone (OxyContin™), while an additional 10,000 fatalities were attributed to heroin.3 Synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, claimed nearly 5,550 lives.4 Policymakers are understandably alarmed at the overdose crisis with which they are now confronted. The public is calling for help and solutions. Elected officials unfamiliar with, or resistant to, harm reduction, prevention, and treatment interventions, however, are introducing punitive, counter-productive legislative measures in a misguided effort to reduce overdose fatalities. In particular, some states, including New...

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Multiple Homicide Offenders Offense Characteristics Social Correlates And Criminal Careers

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Because investigations of multiple homicide offenders (MHOs) are usually case studies, there is limited understanding of the linkages between them and other criminal offenders. Using data from an exploratory sample of 160 MHOs and a control group of 494 single homicide offenders, this study examines MHOs from a criminal career perspective and finds that nearly 30% of them were habitual offenders before their final homicide event. Those with prior rape convictions, misdemeanor convictions, more extensive prison histories, and current involvement in rape and burglary are more likely to kill multiple victims. Curiously, nearly 40% of MHOs had zero prior arrests. Overall, arrest onset occurs later in the life course and is not predictive of offending. In conclusion, the study of MHOs could enrich the criminal career perspective, while posing some empirical and theoretical challenges to that paradigm.

Multiple homicide offenders (MHOs), defined as criminal defendants who murder more than one person during a criminal episode,1 occupy a peculiar place in criminology. Because of

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Interpersonal Homicide

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2.2 INTERPERSONAL HOMICIDE

Straddling the divide between the private and public spheres, much of this type of lethal violence is attributed to the very nature of coexisting with others. Central to its definition is the fact that interpersonal homicide is not instrumental to the accomplishment of a secondary goal, but is rather a means of resolving a conflict and/or punishing the victim through violence when relationships come under strain (including from friction due to social and cultural norms). Its two main sub-types, intimate partner/family related homicide and homicide related to other interpersonal conflicts are distinguished from each other by the nature of the relationship between perpetrator and victim. This means that in homicides related to intimate partners or family members, the relationship between victim and perpetrator is characterized by an emotional attachment, as well as other links, often of an economic or legal nature, whereas the perpetrator and victim in other interpersonal-related homicide may or may not...

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Crimes Against the Elderly 2003–2013

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For the period 2003–13, elderly persons age 65 or older experienced nonfatal violent crime victimizations at lower rates (3.6 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 65 or older) than younger persons ages 12 to 24 (49.9 per 1,000), persons ages 25 to 49 (27.6 per 1,000), and persons ages 50 to 64 (15.2 per 1,000) (figure 1). Nonfatal violent crime includes rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. Each year, the elderly accounted for approximately 2% of violence and 2% of serious violence, which equals 136,720 violent crimes and 47,640 serious violent crimes. However, the elderly made up about 21% of the population age 12 or older during this time period. The rate of property crime was also lower compared to younger persons.This report uses data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to provide detailed information on nonfatal violent victimization and property victimization against...

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Killing The Beloved: Homicide Between Adult Sexual Intimates

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When a couple marry and repeat their vows, often including the preceding lines, who would imagine that for some of them the 'death' that will sever the marital tie would be the result of the other's action? That one day, perhaps in a moment of rage, the once beloved partner will pick up a gun or knife and kill. Just in a nine-month period, a spate of these tragic acts, which included the suicide of the offender (and thus received a good deal of publicity), took place throughout Australia: October 1990, Sydney, man kills his wife, mother-in-law and himself; December 1990, Canberra, estranged husband killed wife, two children and himself; January 1991, Adelaide, woman and three children killed, husband missing; January 1991, Brisbane, estranged husband kills former de facto, father-in-law, his 11-month old baby and himself; May 1991, Adelaide, man kills his defacto and himself; June 1991, Tasmania, man kills his girlfriend and himself....

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Bleeding Time and Bleeding: An Analysis of the Relationship of the Bleeding Time Test With Parameters of Surgical Bleeding

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The bleeding time is currently the only clinically available comprehensive test to explore primary hemostasis. It is currently performed mostly as a screening procedure before surgery, to detect otherwise unknown defects in plateletvessel wall interactions, but its use in this specific setting has been seriously questioned by recent reanalyses of previously published literature. We studied the relationship of the bleeding time from a standardized cutaneous incision with other parameters of bleeding derived from the analysis of the bleeding time curve and prospectively investigated possible correlations of these alternative parameters, as well as of the bleeding time, with a number of indices of actual bleeding during or after coronary bypass surgery. Four parameters (bleeding time, total bleeding, peak bleeding rate, and time to peak bleeding) were derived from the analysis of bleeding time curves measuring blood losses from a standardized cutaneous incision at 30-second intervals in 118 subjects. Parameters from the bleeding time curve were subsequently obtained in duplicate as a preoperative assessment...

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Ritual and Signature in Serial Sexual Homicide

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Since the early case studies of sexual murder by von Krafft-Ebing, offenders have been reported to engage in various crime scene behaviors that are unnecessary in the commission of the homicide. For example, several of the individuals von Krafft-Ebing cited not only killed their victims, but filled their mouths with dirt, pulled their hairpins out, pressed their hands together, subjected them to humiliation and torture, and often took something from them of little value. Authors of other early publications found similar behavior in sexual murderers. Many investigators concluded that these seemingly unnecessary activities (i.e., unnecessary for successfully accomplishing the crime) served a psychological purpose. The offender needed to engage in such actions to feel sexually gratified killing the victim was not sufficient.

Such crime scene behaviors, which more often than not are repetitive, have been found to be an outgrowth of the perpetrator’s deviant sexual sies, wherein the murder and the repetitive acts are parts of the offender’s sexual-arousal pattern.

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Staged Crime Scenes: Crime Scene Clues to Suspect Misdirection of the Investigation

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Abstract

In the course of their career, most detectives and forensic practitioners will come into contact with a staged crime scene; a scene altered by the offender to either mislead a police investigation or for other reasons understood only by the offender. Staged scenes are possible in nearly every type of criminal offense ranging from property crimes to violent crimes. To better understand the dynamics and general nature of “staging” this article introduces three new categories of staged crime scenes based on the motive of the offender’s scene alteration. The benefit of understanding these categories is to recognize that the offender’s staging actions can be identified through common findings that are often found when crime scenes are altered.

Introduction

After the preliminary screening of a cold case has been completed and a decision is made to reopen the investigation, one of the first steps is to sit down and read the file; paying particular attention to the autopsy and forensic analysis reports,

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10 Things Law Enforcement Executives Can Do To Positively Impact Homicide Investigation Outcomes

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Homicides are challenging events for communities and they are often complex from an investigative standpoint. Although the crime may be clear-cut, the multifaceted issues surrounding it (public perception of safety and police effectiveness, witness cooperation, media and political pressures, etc.) can be daunting to a police agency and, in particular, the executive. Careers are often made or broken by a chief’s response to and management of homicides. One of the standard benchmarks of police effectiveness is the homicide closure rate, which is a critically important figure that demands attention at the highest level of law enforcement leadership. However, focusing on the homicide closure rate alone can offer a limited perspective on public safety and police performance overall. In this report, executives are encouraged to consider additional activities and measures to supplement the closure rate in evaluating and improving performance in a homicide unit. Further, this shift should be made with...

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Staged Crime Scene California v. Charles B. Davis 2007

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This case involves a triple homicide in a small one-bedroom apartment. The victims were all stabbed to death and include Dana Beckmeyer, 44, WFA, who lived in the Oceanside apartment where the stabbings took place; Adrian Anthony Vanengalen, 55, WMA, of San Marcos; and Bruce Carriker, 57, WMA, of Vista, California. They were all either tweaked out on methamphetamine, high on marijuana, or drunk. The man suspected by police and ultimately put on trial was Charles B. Davis, 57, BMA, who had recently moved in with Beckmeyer. According to Mallory and Davis (2006): Charles Davis was calm and collected when he called police from a liquor store to surrender after a grisly triple murder in his home early yesterday, Vista sheriff’s officials said. The 58-year-old man called at 7 a.m. from a pay phone in Vista to say he knew why homicide investigators were searching for him and he was ready to cooperate. Oceanside police had been searching for Davis since 3:30 a.m., when...

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Exploring the Spatial Configuration of Places Related to Homicide Events

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Mobility and Homicide

Introduction

This research provides a comprehensive exploration of the spatial etiology of homicides in Washington, D.C. Three basic elements of convergence (victim’s home, offender’s home, and homicide location) and three associated measures the relative distances between the locations are analyzed. All six elements are explored both individually and jointly to increase our understanding of homicides. The initial analysis focuses on the patterns of the three locations separately and then examines the distances between locations. The second phase analyzes the spatial interactions among victims and offenders through the application of both traditional and distance spatial typologies. Finally, the third phase is a comprehensive exploration of techniques for visualizing the distributions and associated relationships. In sum, this research fills a gap in the criminological literature by (1) disaggregating homicides by motive to provide a more exact analysis of movement for each particular type; (2) exploring the distances to homicide for victims and offenders; (3) describing the relationships between victims,

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