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The purpose of this paper is to suggest two things: first, that the scientific and technological developments and increased regulation that have shaped homicide investigations in England and Wales over the last few decades have provided today’s investigators with opportunities not available to their predecessors, and play a key role in solving unsolved homicides. Second, however, the authors suggest that such developments have created new challenges for investigators, challenges that impede current investigations, potentially creating the future unsolved cases.

This paper draws on two qualitative studies that comprised over eight months of ethnographic research, observations, interviews with serving and retired homicide detectives and case file analysis.

The widespread changes to homicide investigations in England and Wales have been valuable in many respects, notably, they have allowed detectives to look back in time and bring longstanding unsolved cases to a close. However, change, although well intentioned, might actually be creating future cold cases as detectives endeavour to manage the volume of information now generated during investigations, fast evolving scientific and technological techniques and an increase in bureaucracy.

This study is helpful for: improving investigative practice; learning from change; reducing unsolved homicides vs a rise in new cold cases; and innovative and entrepreneurial investigators.

Utilising qualitative research, this paper contributes to the academic literature exploring homicide investigation in England and Wales, offering insight into the challenges facing detectives and the potential impact of these upon solving past and present homicide cases.

The purpose of this study is to outline the specific details and lessons learned during a cold case collaborative effort, which granted graduate students and a professor from the University of South Florida the opportunity to assist Pasco Sheriff’s Office in the investigation of a cold case homicide.

The collaboration between law enforcement and academics is a new and emerging strategy to investigate cold cases and identify the elusive offenders who committed these crimes. Such collaboration aids law enforcement by obtaining a force multiplier for investigative resources, accessing cutting-edge evidence-based research and cultivating innovative approaches to their work. For academics, such collaboration allows the unique opportunity to engage in translational criminology, which is an important and increasingly encouraged aspect of the field.

In this paper, the authors provide an overview of the process used to study this cold case as part of an experiential academic course, provide evidence-based research findings relevant to cold case investigations and outline the steps for others to replicate the efforts.

The authors describe in detail the process used to “work” the cold case, academic research that the authors found useful in understanding and investigating cold cases, important lessons learned and advice for future academics and practitioners who undertake an incredible collaborative effort such as this.

The purpose of this scoping literature review was to identify and consolidate all available theories and methods for cold case homicide evaluation, solvability and priority ranking that would serve to guide a broader exploratory study and future research.

The paper presents the findings of a scoping literature review. The review forms part of a broader exploratory study. The scoping literature review sought to identify reported evidence from the extant literature in identifying and defining key concepts relevant to cold prioritisation. It also sought to identify any knowledge gaps relevant to the scoping review question.

The review suggested that internationally, there is a wide variance and inconsistency in the processes, methods and criteria used by policing agencies to evaluate and prioritise cold cases for investigation. Despite this, there were four themes that could be regarded as [parameters for future cold case research: cold case evaluation and review, prioritisation methods, solvability and prioritisation systems and tools. The review revealed several gaps in the literature. No papers could be found discussing the allocation of individual priority rankings based on any kind of weighted criteria system or model. Further, no information could be found in the available literature on any automated systems, online tools, algorithms, or applications utilised when evaluating or prioritising cases.

The research results are limited in that it is possible that relevant extant literature exists that was not discoverable using the scoping review search strategy.

The paper is a part of a broader exploratory study that seeks to develop a framework for cold case prioritisation that, in a time where public scrutiny has increased, has increased transparency with clearly articulated criteria for evaluation and process.

This paper assimilates the extant literature associated with cold case evaluation and prioritisation and presents a summary of themes and gaps in knowledge that informs future research.

The purpose of this paper is to begin to explore whether and how the use of detection avoidance (DA) by offenders leads to a so called “dark figure” of unsolved homicides that have been mis/unclassified.

Australian Coronial data and inquest findings are used to examine how DA impacts on determining homicide, and cases remaining unsolved.

Results show DA behaviours perpetrated by offenders may be catalysed by other challenges, and may lead to homicides being mis/unclassified and unsolved. Findings indicate there is a small dark figure of mis/unclassified homicides which eventually become known and investigated as homicides in Australia. The number of unsolved homicides may be greater than official data reveals, due to some cases remaining mis/unclassified.

Results are likely to underestimate the prevalence of mis/unclassified homicides due to the invisibility of cases and the difficulty establishing rules to include suspected but unproven homicides. The variable nature and impact of DA behaviours also limits results, along with jurisdictional differences in Coronial data.

This discussion explains DA behaviours impact on determining and investigating homicide and the necessity of future research.

Mis/unclassified homicides as unsolved homicides have not been discussed previously. This discussion is the first to conceptualise mis/unclassified homicides as a dark figure of unsolved cases, and the first to attempt to gauge the problem.

Crime linkage analysis (CLA) can be applied in the police investigation-phase to sift through a database to find behaviorally similar cases to the one under investigation and in the trial-phase to try to prove that the perpetrator of two or more offences is the same, by showing similarity and distinctiveness in the offences. Lately, research has moved toward more naturalistic settings, analyzing data sets that are as similar to actual crime databases as possible. One such step has been to include one-off offences in the data sets, but this has not yet been done with homicide. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how linking accuracy of serial homicide is affected as a function of added hard-to-solve one-off offences.

A sample (N = 117–1160) of Italian serial homicides (n = 116) and hard-to-solve one-off homicides (n = 1–1044, simulated from 45 cases) was analyzed using a Bayesian approach to identify series membership, and a case by case comparison of similarity using Jaccard’s coefficient. Linking accuracy was evaluated using receiver operating characteristics and by examining the sensitivity and specificity of the model.

After an initial dip in linking accuracy (as measured by the AUC), the accuracy increased as more one-offs were added to the data. While adding one-offs made it easier to identify correct series (increased sensitivity), there was an increase in false positives (decreased specificity) in the linkage decisions. When rank ordering cases according to similarity, linkage accuracy was affected negatively as a function of added non-serial cases.

While using a more natural data set, in terms of adding a significant portion of non-serial homicides into the mix, does introduce error into the linkage decision, the authors conclude that taken overall, the findings still support the validity of CLA in practice.

This is the first crime linkage study on homicide to investigate how linking accuracy is affected as a function of non-serial cases being introduced into the data.

The purpose of this paper is to report a study of practitioner views on the 28-day homicide review process.

The research draws upon primary data from interviews with senior investigating officers (SIOs) engaged in homicide investigations and review officers tasked with reviewing homicides unsolved after 28 days.

The review process was perceived to be meeting the needs of the organization but adding little, or no direct value to SIOs. Despite this, there was agreement as to the potential value and necessity of the homicide review process. Issues such as the purpose and process of reviews were considered, with recommendations providing impetus for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to review the use of reviewers commensurate with their expertise, the training and development of reviewers, and the aims, format and timing of a review.

The study involved the MPS, and its relevance to review processes elsewhere, whilst likely, is unproven. Further research could identify whether similar issues arise elsewhere, although the findings of this study could encourage other forces to undertake internal reviews of their own systems and processes to understand whether improvements could be made. Whilst over a third of the SIOs and Murder Investigation Team managers took part in the study, a fifth of the review officers were interviewed.

MPS should amend the objectives of a MCR to reflect the role they play in the prevention of miscarriages of justice. The MPS should conduct a skills analysis of existing staff. Reviewers should be appointed to cases within their sphere of expertise, and should all be qualified at Professionalising the Investigative Process (PIP) Level 3. The MPS should consider an arbitration process for contested review recommendations. The College of Policing should consider a PIP development programme for proactive SIOs. The College of Policing should review and support SIO continuing professional development opportunities within the MPS.

The findings are relevant to any police service currently undertaking 28-day reviews of unsolved homicide investigations.

The purpose of this article is to improve the use of evidence-based practice and research utilization in the offender profiling process. The use of offender profiling has been met with increasing resistance given its exaggerated accuracy. The “Investigative Journalist/Expert Field Micro Task Force” model, a collaborative method that incorporates offender profiling and is designed to address unresolved serial homicides, is introduced and evaluated alongside recommendations on attaining adherence.

The model was field tested in 17 instances. The measures used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to gauge the usefulness of their case consultations, whether their input helped catch the offender, offer new leads, move the case forward, provide new avenues or give new ideas, were used to evaluate the model.

The model established likely patterns of serial murder activity among strangulations of women in Chicago, Cleveland, and Panama and resulted in convictions of suspects in Louisiana and Kansas City. This model is valuable when used to parse modern-day offenders from those who committed unresolved homicides as the latter display different behaviors that can make investigations difficult endeavors. Results from the field tests mirror those from the literature in that profiling alone did not result in the capture of serial killers. Instead, profiling was used in conjunction with other efforts and mainly as a means to keep the investigation moving forward.

Unresolved homicides are at a point of crisis and represent a significant but largely unaddressed societal problem. The success of this model may compel law enforcement to restore faith in offender profiling.

Clearance rates for nonfatal shootings, especially cases involving gang- and drug-related violence, are disturbingly low in many US cities. Using data from a previously completed project in Boston, we explore the prospects for improving gang/drug nonfatal shooting cases by investing the same investigative effort found in similar gang/drug gun murder cases.

Our analyses primarily focus on a sample of 231 nonfatal shootings that occurred in Boston from 2010 to 2014. Logistic regressions are first used to analyze differences in the likelihood of case clearance for gang/drug nonfatal shooting cases relative to other nonfatal shooting cases. Independent samples t-tests are then used to compare the investigative characteristics of these two different kinds of nonfatal shootings. Next, independent samples t-tests are used to compare the investigation of gang/drug gun assaults relative to the investigation of very similar gang/drug gun homicides.

Results demonstrate that the odds of clearing gang/drug nonfatal shootings are 77.2% less likely relative to the odds of clearing nonfatal shootings resulting from other circumstances. This stark difference in clearance rates is not driven by diminished investigative effort, but investigative effort does matter. Relative to gang/drug gun assaults, gang/drug gun homicides have much higher clearance rates that are the result of greater investigative resources and effort that produces significantly more witnesses and evidence, and generate more forensic tests and follow-up investigative actions.

Gang- and drug-related violence generates a bulk of urban nonfatal shootings. Low clearance rates for nonfatal shootings undermine police efforts to hold offenders accountable, disrupt cycles of gun violence, and provide justice to victims. Police should make investments to improve investigative effort such as handling these cases with the same vigor as homicide cases.

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the evidence base by analysing the characteristics and motives of homicides involving acts of dismemberment.

The current study explored offence, victim and offender characteristics and the motives for 71 homicides involving dismemberment using open source data. All cases included in this study were investigated in the UK between 1970 and 2016. A non-metric multi-dimensional scaling procedure smallest space analysis (SSA) was used to explore the characteristics and motives derived from a content analysis of homicide data sourced online.

A distinction between expressive and instrumental characteristics was observable with three thematic regions identified: instrumental – defensive, instrumental – predatory and expressive – affective. Support was found for previously identified motives for criminal dismemberment, with defensive being the most common motive identified in 63% (N = 45) of the cases.

The implications of the findings are discussed with suggestions made for future research. The findings have practical implications for assisting law enforcement and forensic and clinical practitioners in further understanding offenders who engage in homicidal dismemberment. This includes aiding homicide investigations, in terms of supporting investigators to draw upon offence, victim and offender characteristics and motives for homicides involving acts of dismemberment. Differentiation between cases of dismemberment and understanding of motives also has practical implications for the development of interventions and treatment pathways for homicide offenders who dismember victims.