Abstract
Homicide investigators in the digital era have access to an increasing amount of data and the processing of all persons of interest and pieces of evidence has become nearly impossible. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a case-specific element library (C-SEL) that can be used to incorporate and prioritize persons of interest in homicide investigations. In a survey, 107 experts in the field of criminal investigation assigned an initial score to the elements. Each element was extended with underlying factors that can be used to adjust the initial score based on the relevance and credibility of the source. A case study was conducted using three Dutch real-world cases to evaluate the methodology. The results look promising and are better than four methodologies currently used in practice.
Highlights
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [1] estimated, in their latest global study of homicide, that in 2017, approximately 464,000 deaths were due to intentional homicide
Dutch homicide cases were used: the cases described by Sutmuller et al [18] to compare the four methodologies that were introduced in the background section (POIPAT, Trace Investigate Evaluate (TIE), Rasterfahndung, and Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH))
To evaluate the effectiveness of the case-specific element library (C-SEL) methodology, three real-world and recently-solved Dutch homicide cases were used: the cases described by Sutmuller et al [18] to compare the four methodologies that were introduced in the background section (POIPAT, TIE, Rasterfahndung, and ACH)
Summary
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [1] estimated, in their latest global study of homicide, that in 2017, approximately 464,000 deaths were due to intentional homicide. The homicide rate has dropped over the last three decades, but at the same time, the percentage of unsolved homicide cases has increased in many countries [3,4,5,6,7]. Over these decades, our environment has changed from analogue to digital. Homicide investigators have access to an increasing amount of data, making it possible to incorporate and collect an increasing number of persons of interest and pieces of evidence. A case file has to be produced, proving the guilt of the suspect, and eliminating all alternatives
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