The ‘murder rate’ is one way of measuring the effectiveness of the justice system. Another is the percentage of homicides that are ‘cleared up’ – otherwise known as the Sanction Detection Rate. This means cases where a suspect has been identified but not necessarily convicted of the crime, perhaps because they have been acquitted on …
Author archives: murdermap
Suspicious and Unexplained Deaths
The case of MI6 spy Gareth Williams is one of those rare mysteries that seems to defy all logic. It begins with a body, but it is a body within a locked bag within a locked room. Detectives and scientists have marshaled all their resources in an attempt to work out how it happened yet …
Off the Map: The case of Jayden Wray
This week it was reported that the parents of Jayden Wray had been cleared by the High Court of all responsibility for the death of their son. As a result we have decided to remove the case from the map as it can no longer be said to be a homicide. Although experts disagreed about …
The London Homicide Manual
How do detectives investigate a murder? Books, TV programmes and documentaries give us some idea – even if their focus is on a single grizzled cop who solves a homicide single-handed. But what exactly is the ‘procedure’ when that call first comes in about a dead body? As it happens the Metropolitan Police have what …
Playing Politics with Murder
The London ‘murder rate’ has become something of a political football as the Mayoral election draws near. Last year the Evening Standard reported that the number of murders in the capital had fallen to a level not seen since 1978. On Saturday the Times reported that it had continued to fall to a level not …