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Homicide Investigation

PARTNERS IN CRIME A Comparison of Individual and Multi-Perpetrator Homicides

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Homicide is a heterogeneous crime associated with diverse contexts, motives, offender– victim relationships, and offender characteristics. Although cleared at a higher rate than that of other violent crimes likely because of the resources channeled into such investigations (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2007) homicide remains poorly understood, and stranger homicides in particular can be challenging for investigators (Dauvergne & Li, 2006). In 2006, the United States experienced an estimated 17,034 homicides, only 60% of which were cleared by police investigation and, most typically, the arrest of at least one person (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2007). In Canada, 70% of solved homicides between 1991 and 2005 were cleared within 1 week of the incident, with the likelihood of success dropping drastically after that time. Given the urgency associated with a homicide investigation and the temporal constraints associated with a positive outcome, a valuable asset to investigators would be the ability to predict perpetrator characteristics based on the crime scene and the victim left behind. If specific

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Homicide Scene Investigation

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Introduction

Solving crimes is an easy thing to do in most cases; proving them is sometimes not. Trying the criminal case is the hardest of all lawsuits. Why? Because convicting a human being of a crime means that there are dire consequences for that person. No one, even the hardest hearted judge, wants to put someone in jail or have them, in the worst scenario, executed, unless they are absolutely sure that the persons who are the target of the investigation and trial are guilty. For that reason a criminal case has a much stricter burden of proof than a civil case. And for murder cases, because of the dire consequences to a defendant, a criminal homicide can be the most difficult case in the criminal lexicon to prove. However, this is not necessarily the case. If the police and the prosecutor do their job, investigate the cases as they should, know what has to be proved, and how to prove it, a

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Homicide Process Mapping

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Since 1990, the number of homicides committed in the United States has dropped over 30 percent. While this is a positive trend, it is somewhat counterbalanced by another trend: in the mid-1970s, the average homicide clearance rate in the United States was around 80 percent. Today, that number has dropped to 65 percent—hence, more offenders are literally getting away with murder. The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), a component of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP), recognizes that the problem of violence in the United States requires a multifaceted approach. In a coordinated initiative of projects, BJA has examined the manner in which trends in violence are identified by law enforcement for tactical purposes,3 reviewed how cutting-edge analysis and the integration of resources can disrupt trends in violent crime, and examined two decades of violence-reduction initiatives to determine what works.

Based on lessons learned, new initiatives are explored, such as the Law Enforcement Forecasting...

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An Examination of Homicide Clearance Rates: Foundation for the Development of a Homicide Clearance Model

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Introduction

Homicide rates around the country show that many individuals choose murder as the ultimate means of conflict resolution. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, 65 percent of homicides are cleared. Unfortunately, consistently high homicide clearance rates are not the norm for departments around the country. To help departments raise their clearance rates, it is important to discover which aspects of homicide case management and investigation produce the best results. First it may be useful to review definitions of “clearance rate.” Bottomley and Pease state, “[A]n offense is said to be cleared up if a person has been charged, summonsed or cautioned for the offense, if the offense is admitted and taken into consideration by the court, or if there is sufficient evidence to charge a person, but the case is not proceeded with...” (1986:44). However, Rinehart (1993) points out that Greenwood, Chaiken, and Petersilia (1977:32) define a cleared case to exist “when police have identified a perpetrator, have sufficient...

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Serving Survivors of Homicide Victims During Cold Case Investigations:

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INTRODUCTION

Statement of the Problem

Advancements in DNA technology and other forensic investigative tools have enabled law enforcement agencies to reopen cases left dormant for years. Although the number of cold cases investigated by agencies on a nationwide basis each year is currently not tracked, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) does track the number of offenses cleared. In 2009, 66.6 percent of the 13,242 murder and non-negligent manslaughter crimes in the United States were cleared by arrest or exceptional means.1 While this is a significant clearance rate, it leaves many homicides unsolved each year. In response to the advances in forensic technology, many law enforcement agencies have established cold case units with the hope that reexamining evidence will help solve more crimes. As cases are reopened, investigators are contacting survivors of homicide victims. Although survivors may be grateful that their loved one’s murder has renewed attention, the reopening of a

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Drug Policy Alliance Fact Sheet | Drug-Induced Homicide

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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 York (AB 8616), Ohio (HB 270),..

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Cultural Differences In Responses To Real-life And Hypothetical Trolley Problems

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Trolley problems have been used in the development of moral theory and the psychological study of moral judgments and behavior. Most of this research has focused on people from the West, with implicit assumptions that moral intuitions should generalize and that moral psychology is universal. However, cultural differences may be associated with differences in moral judgments and behavior. We operationalized a trolley problem in the laboratory, with economic incentives and real-life consequences, and compared British and Chinese samples on moral behavior and judgment. We found that Chinese participants were less willing to sacrifice one person to save five others, and less likely to consider such an action to be right. In a second study using three scenarios, including the standard scenario where lives are threatened by an on-coming train, fewer Chinese than British participants were willing to take action and sacrifice one to save five, and this cultural difference was more...

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Reassessing the Situational Covariates of Homicides: Is There a Need To Disaggregate?

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Annotation: This study examined the situational covariates of four homicide types--domestic, drug, robbery, and interpersonal dispute--that occurred in Newark, NJ, from 1997 through 2005.

Abstract:

Findings show that each homicide type had distinctive situational covariates that were related to the nature of the incidents. For example, the situational covariates of domestic homicides differed from those of other homicide types in incident location, the use of guns, the number of suspects, and the characteristics of victims and suspects. Drug-related homicides differed from other homicide types in their occurrence in public housing complexes during weekdays, the use of guns, and the lack of alcohol or drug impairment by victims and suspects. Dispute homicides, on the other hand, were distinct from the other types regarding the variables of drug and alcohol impairment, victim-offender relationship, their prevalence during weekends, and the race of victims. Robbery homicides differed from the other types primarily in victim-offender relationship,...

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Characteristics Of Homicide Followed By Suicide Incidents In Multiple States, 2003–04

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Abstract

Objective

To calculate the prevalence of homicide followed by suicide (homicide/suicide) and provide contextual information on the incidents and demographic information about the individuals involved using data from a surveillance system that is uniquely equipped to study homicide/suicide.

Methods

Data are from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). This active state‐based surveillance system includes data from seven states for 2003 and 13 states for 2004. The incident‐level structure facilitates identification of homicide/suicide incidents.

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The Sex Killer

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Abstract

Thirteen sex killers were compared to 13 nonsex killers and 13 nonhomicidal sexually aggressive men on sexual history, substance abuse, history of violence, mental illness and personality, brain pathology and endocrine abnormalities. There were more similarities among the three groups than differences. Among the findings, the presence of transvestism and the early appearance of sadism differentiated the sex killers from the other two groups. Sex killers also killed by strangulation more often than nonsex killers and more often victimized a female stranger. The sex killer was more often diagnosed as ‘antisocial’ personality and ‘sadist’ than the other two groups. They were more often considered psychotic at the time of their offence and more often considered not guilty by reason of insanity. Directions for future research are noted...

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The Rarity Of “Unusual” [Corrected] Dispositions Of Victim Bodies: Staging And Posing.

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Abstract

The act of leaving a victim's body in an unusual position is a conscious criminal action by an offender to thwart an investigation, shock the finder and investigators of the crime scene, or give perverted pleasure to the killer. The unusual position concepts of posing and staging a murder victim have been documented thoroughly and have been accepted by the courts as a definable phenomenon. One staging case and one posing case are outlined and reveal characteristics of those homicides. From the Washington State Attorney General's Homicide Investigation and Tracking System's database on murder covering the years 1981-2000 (a total of 5,224 cases), the relative frequency of unusual body dispositions is revealed as a very rare occurrence. Only 1.3% of victims are left in an unusual position, with 0.3% being posed and 0.1% being staged. The characteristics of these types of murders also set them apart: compared to all other murders,...

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Body Disposal Patterns of Sexual Murderers: Implications for Offender Profiling

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Abstract

Offender profiling postulates that crime scene behavior should predict certain offender characteristics. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between offender characteristics, situational factors, and body disposal patterns. Sequential logistic regression analysis on a sample of 85 sexual murderers shows that those who were in a relationship at the time of the crime and who present organized psychological characteristics are more likely to move the victim’s body after the homicide. However, when the victim is older and a conflict with the offender occurred prior to the crime, the body is more likely to be left at the crime scene. Implications for offender profiling are discussed in light of the results...

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Prostitute Found Dead Near Ny Serial Killer’s Dumping Ground Possibly Murdered, Says Famed Coroner

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AMITYVILLE, N.Y. –  The remains of a New York-area escort whose body was found in 2011 near a mass grave of prostitutes were buried Thursday, four days after a renowned coroner told Fox News she may have been murdered a development that could be a break in the hunt for a Long Island serial killer.

Shannan Gilbert, 23, of Jersey City, N.J., disappeared May 1, 2010, after visiting a client in the gated community of Oak Beach on a barrier island off Long Island's south shore. A months-long search for her first led to the bodies of four other prostitutes, each strangled and stuffed in burlap bags along Ocean Parkway, a 15-mile road that spans Jones Beach, roughly a mile from where they would later find Gilbert's body, in December 2011.

It's extremely rare for a young woman to die of drowning yards away from where four young women have clearly been murdered. The statistics don't go along with that."...

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Neighborhood Structure Differences Between Homicide Victims And Non-victims

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Abstract

While there were numerous studies documenting the neighborhood characteristics that led to increased risk of crime victimization, very little was done to compare the neighborhoods of homicide victims to non-victims. The current research used the case-control design to alleviate this gap in the research. A sample of homicide victims and non-victims collected from Prince George's County, Maryland, in 1993, was used to make these comparisons. Significant differences were noted in the macro-level measures of education, unemployment, household income, and percentage of female-headed households in the neighborhoods of victims and non-victims. Individual elements, such as age, race, gender, and arrest were also strongly associated with the risk of homicide victimization. Both macro and micro level variables needed to be included when studying factors that increased the risk of homicide victimization....

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Predictors of Interracial Homicide Victimization for Asian Americans: A Macrostructural Opportunity Perspective

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Abstract

This paper uses Blau's macrostructural opportunity theory to explore patterns of interracial homicide victimization among Asian Americans. Data are drawn from the F.B.I.'s Supplementary Homicide Reports and aggregated for 131 SMSAs over the 1976-1984 period. Unlike previous research, two out-groups--white and black offenders--are considered to see if the same predictors behave similarly for the different out-groups. As expected, the descriptive data show that Asian Americans as a minority group have a greater conditional probability of being killed by out-group members than do whites and blacks. On the other hand, logistic regression analysis reveals that educational inequality and population size are significant predictors of the conditional probability of out-group victimization, while hypotheses concerning the effects of relative group size, income inequality, and residential segregation fail to be fully supported. We conclude with a discussion of possible reasons for the unexpected results and of important tasks for future research.

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Multiple Homicide: Patterns of Serial and Mass Murder

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Abstract

Over the past decade the topic of multiple homicide-serial and mass murder-has attracted increased attention in the field of criminology. Though far from the epidemic suggested in media reports, it is alarming nonetheless that a small number of offenders account for so much human destruction and widespread fear. The serial killer is typically a white male in his late twenties or thirties who targets strangers encountered near his work or home. These killers tend to be sociopaths who satisfy personal needs by killing with physical force. Demographically similar to the serial killer, the mass murderer generally kills people he knows well, acting deliberately and methodically. He executes his victims in the most expedient way-with a firearm. Importantly, the difference of timing that distinguishes serial from mass murder may also obscure strong similarities in their motivation. Both can be understood within the same motivational typology-power, revenge, loyalty, profit, and terror...

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