monsterwatch.net

Here’s the text of a rough set of expansion/enhancement notes that I put together while I was in Newcastle and this morning after kicking the concept around with friends last night.

Some of these ideas have been superceded by events - I’ve read a lot of material on the motivations/predictive factors thing and it is not as simple as I thought it would be to create a predictive index of serial murder by state.

Monsterwatch.net: further expansion and to-do list

02-01-2007

To-do list

1. make a latest news page and cross-reference it.
2. add booklist and astore: consider adsense.
3. topicmap
4. Predictive tools?
5. Blog these things

Topicmap expansion

Enable stats by state on the following facets:

• Repeat offenders (Y/N)
• State
• Acted alone/group
• Victim age/sex
• Murderer age/sex
• Century and year
• Motivation type (SMP/Theft etc.)
• Others (such as cannibalism, mutilation, infanticide, rape either pre- or post-mortem)

Think on what else can be done to reinforce the notion of repeat offenders with statistics. Separate this from what can be done with predictive tools.

Predictive tools: Qualifiers and Probabilities

What can be done to predict the liklihood of serial murder within a given state? Can it be expressed mathematically?

• Granted that not all SMP go on to be serial killers, but that some of them do, is there a correlation between average numbers of violent sexual assaults and an increased liklihood of serial murders? Is there a correlation between the victims of childhood sexual abuse and later tendancy towards serial murder?
• What about factors leading towards other serial murder motivators? For example, is there a link between non-sexual violence towards a child and later non-sexual serial murder?
• Is every murderer (especially SMP/thrill-killer) likely to become a serial murderer if not caught after the first occurrence? In other words, what circumstances “qualifyâ€? someone to perform their first murder? Is it just the “homocidal triangleâ€?? And from there, after the first, what qualifies them to go on to the second? Is it just motive (a nature or nurture prompt) mixed with opportunity? Or will those with the motive create the opportunity, as in those SMPs who had normal relationships with partners who were not aware of the murders?
• What of police competance? Is there a correlation between the usefulness of a police force and the number of murderers? Or just the number of victims prior to the murderers being caught?

Linkages

• Intercase (where one set “episodeâ€? of crimes may be connected to another) vs. intracase (where there are connected crimes within a case)
• Conspiracies/groups, where there are related episodes.

Map Counter

Use a map of Australia with hitcounter icons to show the number of victims with a link to details. Put [[image:]] tags into the maps at statename level. Add the same counter to the State category pages.

AJAX-y/ruby-y webapps

• A social network analysis tool with an iris display as used by the team that caught Milat.
• A kartoo-style visual category browser (maybe just use facetmap or omnigator?)

Subject expansion

Expand:

• vertically to include world serial killers (starting with famous cases like Jack the Ripper and Dahmer), or
• horizontally to include Australian murderers (starting with famous gruesome cases like the lady who skinned her husband)