The Investigation of Homicide

What Came Before

When humans began to gather together for cooperative survival and the social benefits of communal living, community norms took on informal prescription of behavior and formal proscription of certain acts. Paramount among the violations was killing another member when not acting in clear self-defense of life. What became codified as criminal homicide carried with it the need to involve specific individuals charged by the greater community to hold accountable those who committed the homicidal act. Axiomatic for law enforcement is to begin each investigation of death acknowledging that it may be found to have been an act of murder or manslaughter.

Murder continues to matter in society. Criminology supplies theories and explanations of why one person kills another. Criminal justice works to create strategies both to prevent violent acts and to hold those accountable who have committed such acts. The dyadic of offender and victim may give us a single murder of someone known to the person who ends his or her life, an abstract but specific death such as in road rage or confrontational homicide of a stranger, or the intimate elimination of a supposed loved one as in intimate partner homicide or family annihilation. Far less frequent but more dramatic and concerning to the broader public are mass killings such as the schoolyard, public venue, or workplace shootings. It has fallen to law enforcement personnel to investigate each version of criminal homicide. Historically, such investigations have involved investigating and solving the crime by gathering statements from those with information bearing on the incident, and speaking directly with the suspected killer. Physical evidence took on increasing importance over time and so gained prominence in the rule of law. The increased focus led to greater care in gathering evidence and increasingly sensitive instruments and methods to both gather and subsequently evaluate the evidence.

Science

The efforts of Vidocq, Bertillon, Locard, and others pointed the way forward to the application of science in fields such as forensic biology, chemistry, and the sophisticated techniques of crime scene investigation and the analysis of evidence. A determined and organized approach has likely yielded the most consistent positive results in homicide investigations. Increasingly, technology in its various forms and applications has contributed significantly to discovering evidence, connecting that evidence to suspect and victim, and applying and subsequently presenting such evidence as was developed to the court and jury. There have of course been documented challenges from the so-called CSI effect and the recognized weakness of many eyewitness impacts on case outcomes. The Una-bomber investigation has been noted as the first use of linguistic analysis as well as the Internet in a criminal investigation. Whether modern forensic practices constitute the icing or the cake itself is not clear as circumstantial evidence continues to rule the day in the majority of cases put before a jury. Regardless of obvious evidence, availability of technology, number of crime scene technicians and supporting officers and investigators, the work of a single and focal investigator is assumed to animate the entire effort.

Detectives, Departments, and the Public

Situated within the consciousness of society and the organizations of law enforcement is the person tasked with retroactive inquiry into a death by violent and unlawful means—the homicide detective. Since the common deployment of such an investigator late in the 19th century, a mythology has grown up around the officer whose job it is to unravel violent killing of one person by another. Often, the act borders on mundane. Yet, the commission of such crime must be investigated, hopefully to the conclusion of identifying and capturing the killer. The lone, dogged, somewhat rule-averse detective is now properly understood as perhaps information wrangler. The importance of investigators serving within a culture of innovation, recognizing decisional tipping points within investigations, supporting the role of patrol officers and successful major case investigation, and the general recognition of homicide investigation as a team approach are the reality that each agency can and should embrace.

Sitting more than 30 years ago in a training course called “solving unsolved crimes,” 40 or so homicide detectives (including me) were presented the acronym GOYAKOD and told that by week’s end, we would understand what this meant and why this was the key to successful investigation of difficult murder cases. After in-depth presentations and exploration of the cutting-edge or best practices of the mid-1980s, the week-long seminar concluded with the instructor telling those assembled that investigative success, even with innovations, would still rely, in large part, on Getting Off Your Ass and Knocking On Doors (GOYAKOD). Large and small agencies and investigators can fumble the ball on a homicide case—think Jon Benet Ramsey and O. J. Simpson as examples of poorly managed investigations, regardless of agency size and resources. Homicide cases do not actually solve themselves, even when a killer stands ready to confess and the act was witnessed by credible bystanders. The investigation is a process that can span a significant amount of time; it is not an event that quickly concludes.

The result of the homicide investigation generally is viewed as successful if the killer is in fact identified and brought to justice. There is room, however, to consider multiple views of what constitutes success. Research noted within the pages of this special issue sketches the perspectives of success as not just arrest of a suspect, but accomplishing all that can be done in a case even if no arrest results, as well as the views of the public and elected officials about the efforts and accountability of law enforcement agencies.

Enter the Researchers

Fifty years of research on criminal investigations has observed the interrelated factors seen as affecting whether a case will be cleared. The types of homicides, the types of offenders and victims, and the types of communities and settings in which the homicides take place have all received attention in the literature. Challenges to data collection are well known, and separating the examination of self-solvers and whodunits is important to an adequate comprehension of the mixed bag that is the act of criminal homicide. Extensive research on practices and clearance factors provides an opportunity for an intelligence-led approach that continues its ascent within criminal justice endeavors. Careful, specific examination of correlates and effects is important to understanding the phenomena of homicide. The research approach is also helpful in drawing conclusions that can benefit investigative technique and processes.

The Articles

This special issue presents four articles addressing diverse aspects of the homicide investigation topic. Hawk and Dabney examined factors that influence whether a case is solved, modeling case outcomes in a setting of incomplete data. This is linked, according to the authors, with a compromised ability to provide practitioners with insights regarding effective practices in investigation. What are those activities within the domain of the investigators that are amenable to modification and show some promise of increased yield, vis-à-vis clearances? Hawk and Dabney utilized five substantive domains to aggregate factors familiar to homicide clearance researchers into a predictive model, using data from a large metropolitan U.S. agency handling more than 100 homicides annually. The significant level of access afforded to the researchers undoubtedly lends value to the results of the study and provides insights for how similar research can realistically inform practice.

Reale and Beauregard explore the challenge of offender detection when investigators encounter a case in which the sexual homicide victim’s body is not expeditiously recovered due to intentional efforts by the offender. Researchers have noted, and practitioners are acutely aware of, the degree to which an investigation is hampered as the result of degraded forensic evidence. The article authors chronicle cases in which offenders utilized “detection avoidance strategies” in attempting to thwart investigators or escape discovery. We note there can be a semantic or empirical debate over what period of time transitions a case from merely difficult to increasingly complex and challenged. What is known is that if a victim’s body is not discovered for some period of time, offenders can devote that time to fleeing or creating an alibi, witnesses become less available, forensic evidence deteriorates, and public interest or pressure may wane. Reale and Beauregard suggest faster resource allocation to missing persons cases where a high likelihood of foul play is suspected.

Brookman, Maguire, and Maguire assemble and summarize views of police detectives in the United States and the United Kingdom. The researchers conducted shadowing as well as in-depth interviews to support the idea that individual officer effort and agency approach can affect homicide case outcomes. Utilizing the less-common but rich data of a qualitative approach to homicide investigation issues, the authors articulate important points about how investigative work gets done. Brookman, Maguire, and Maguire point out similarities and differences in the importance of various factors between the two nations. The value of examining the “ordinary working practices” of detectives, and how to some extent these are developed based on their own views and experiences, is made all the more valuable by the cross-national comparison.

The final article in the issue presents the results of a survey administered to law enforcement agencies in Florida regarding the practices utilized in homicide investigations. Hough, McCorkle, and Harper, building on previous examinations of homicide investigative techniques employed by departments that experience 24 or more homicides per year, looked at whether a diverse sample of varying sized agencies claim procedures identified as best practices. The previous studies that have examined the nexus of investigation and clearance have focused on the large agency experience on the presumption of increased competence based on volume of cases handled, commonsensical as far as it goes, even in the face of 2016 declines in some big-city homicide clearance rates and evidence suggesting that higher (individual detective) caseloads have an inverse relationship to clearances. In their sample, Hough, McCorkle, and Harper found that smaller agencies and those handling fewer homicide investigations achieved comparable clearance rates in the study year. The smaller agencies in Florida relied on a state agency for forensic and crime scene services almost universally, but they also reported less of a perceived barrier in the form of public cooperation. Could smaller communities and their police departments be closer and more willing to cooperate?

In conclusion, the articles in this special issue remind us that the agency of individuals, as well as the policies and resources of departments, are important and that they do affect many investigative outcomes. Research around case clearance factors will undoubtedly continue with quantitative methods occupying the prominent position. Yet, it would be a mistake for social scientists to minimize the importance of omitted data, the relevance of the human officer in the model, or the benefits of qualitative and mixed methods research, not only to bring about greater clarity about the phenomenon of criminal homicide but also how to help inform policies and investigative practices.

I want to thank Jay Corzine, the editor of Homicide Studies, for extending to me the invitation to be guest editor of this special issue devoted to homicide investigations. In keeping with the stated goals of the Homicide Research Working Group, Homicide Studies works to present research and information from many disciplines and addressing the various dimensions of criminal homicide and society’s response to the crime. Providing this opportunity to focus on investigations hopefully reminds the reader that as our culture is always moving toward less crime and violence, that when criminal homicide does occur, we look to the generalists and specialists of law enforcement and allied disciplines to discover the facts of a matter and, when appropriate, assemble a case for presentation to the prosecutor, the court, and the people. I must also thank the many authors who submitted manuscripts for this edition. My thanks also go to the many reviewers who gave their time and expertise to provide thoughtful comments on the articles submitted. Given the space limitations of the special edition, several of the notable manuscripts found a home in other issues of Homicide Studies. It is important that researchers continue to examine investigations and the factors that contribute to or detract from their effectiveness.