Hunting Serial Killers: a Scripps Howard News Service Investigation

Serial killings: Unsolved, and unpublicized, slayings of women fill FBI files

THOMAS HARGROVE Scripps Howard News Service
Posted November 20, 2010 at 11 p.m.

Authorities in Indiana and Ohio have launched investigations into suspected serial killings after a Scripps Howard News Service study of FBI computer files found many alarming clusters of unsolved homicides of women across the nation.

Also, police in Nevada confirm for the first time that they are hunting a likely serial killer who has targeted up to seven women, mostly prostitutes, and has scattered their partial remains across three states.

Many of the suspected serial killings detected in the study have never before been disclosed to the public.

All told, authorities in seven cities have confirmed that a statistical analysis of federal crime files conducted by Scripps has detected known - or strongly suspected - serial homicides in their communities.

The study was based on computer records of 525,742 homicides committed from 1980 to 2008. The FBI provided most of the data. But Scripps supplemented these using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain detailed records of 15,322 killings that local police did not disclose to the federal government's entirely voluntary crime reporting system.

The resulting database - which crime experts say is the most complete accounting of homicide victims ever assembled in the United States - was created to determine if serial killings could be identified among the nation's 185,000 unsolved homicides.

Read more:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/nov/20/serial-killings-hidden-trail/
.

Search through Scripps Howard News Service's list of unsolved homicides of females nationwide. The database is being used to determine whether the homicides can be linked indicating a serial killer could be involved.

Search unsolved murders:
Searchable database
The Serial Killer Detector


http://applications.scrippsnews.com/murder/

Serial killers
Database of serial killers nationwide. Type in name or use pulldown arrow to search by state.

http://www.knoxnews.com/data/serial-killers-list/

Hunting Serial Killers: a Scripps Howard News Service Investigation

Published: November 19, 2010


~Snipped~

Police reopen cases after 'Detector' reveals clusters of killings


In the groundbreaking analysis of more than 525,000 murders in America, national correspondent Thomas Hargrove designed and created a database that crime experts say is the most complete accounting of homicide victims ever assembled in the United States. Using the Freedom of Information Act, Hargrove obtained details about 15,000 murders never reported to the FBI.

Hargrove also created a Serial Killer Detector, a computer algorithm that flags potential serial killings. Using the Detector, readers and viewers can sort through a database of 185,000 unsolved murders to determine for themselves if serial killers are at work in their communities.

Hargrove also puts to rest the myths perpetuated about social deviants who kill repeatedly:
-- Serial killers are not all dysfunctional loners or white males.
-- Serial killer are not all motivated by sex.
-- Serial killers target a specific area; most don't prowl interstate highways looking for prey.



Beginning Sunday, find "Hunting for Serial Killers" and the Serial Killer Detector at www.scrippsnews.com.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Headlines/hunting-serial-killers-a-scripps-howard-news-service-investigation-63300-.aspx

Thanks for these links Piper. It's interesting seeing them use a database to determine areas where people may be falling victim to a serial killer.

I came across this last night, it was late and I only tried a few searches with the graphs. Hopefully it will help track them and solve some of these unexplained murders. I thought it was interesting, Thomas Hargrove obviously spent many hours creating this.