Time and Distance as Solvability Factors

Major components of a murder (shared by virtually every one)

• Body recovery site: police come across it first, usually
• Murder site: where the death of the victim occurred
• Initial assault site
• Initial contact site: where do the killer and victim first initially meet (that leads to murder)
• Victim last-seen site

Case Status: UCR

• Solved: cleared by arrest, exceptional clearance (Capitol Hill murders), open but arrest warrant issued
• Unsolved: open, inactive (inactive for a long time = “cold”)

When there is no separation of sites…

• Accounts for ~2/3 of murder cases (65%)
• Maybe crime of passion or heat of the moment
• Solvability of this = 73%

When the sites are separated…

• Completely separated = harder to solve
• But, when sites are separated in the time and distance, but all sites are known, solvability rate = 98%!!!
• 38% of the cases, evidence connected to the killer found within 3 miles of the crime scene
• Solvability rate for all cases: 73%
• Body Recovery site: 73%
• Murder site: 80% (more witnesses – killer and victim more likely to be found together)
• Initial Assault Site: 86% (think Bundy – if someone had seen him hit Georgann Hawkins)
• Initial Contact Site: 88%
• Victim Last-Seen Site: 73% (killer not likely to be there)
• Site separation natural cutoff @ 200 ft.
• When people pick up and carry bodies, they can only usually do so for 150-200 ft.
• Solvability increases and time and distances decrease among pairs of location
• When victim-last-seen site and body recovery site are separated by 1 month and 1.5 miles, solvability is 4% (characterizes a lot of serial/predatory killers)