The police report which might shed light on the unsolved murders carried out by ‘Jack the Stripper’ in London in the 1960s is currently locked away in the National Archives, marked not to be opened until 2050. If you were wondering why this is necessary nearly 50 years after the killings, then a recent Freedom …
Continue reading “The Jack the Stripper Files: Closed until 2050”
As well as covering every new murder in London, we are also trying to expand the database backwards in time to the 19th Century. How do we go about it? Some cases are so famous that vast amounts of information can be found easily online or in countless books, blogs and newspaper articles (Jack the …
The first thought of any writer covering a murder case is naturally the victim and their grieving families. But that is only one half of the story. What of the murderer and his or her parents, children, close friends and relatives? One man who has built a career on this other side of the coin …
In 2005 the FBI published a guide to serial murder for investigators which listed seven myths or misconceptions about serial killers. Their examples were all cases from the United States – so we decided to try and match the myths with cases from London’s own history of murder. 1) Myth: Serial killers are all dysfunctional …
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 …
