Welcome to The Murder Accountability Project!

[DeniseMNola]

Hello! I'm brand new to Websleuths and forum posting in general. I was brought here by not only 'The Killing Season', but the 'My Favorite Murder' podcast. I've been keeping track of people who go missing in New Orleans via my blog nolamissing.tumblr.com after my own weird experience with a guy who may have been trying to kidnap me. One of my problems is that the NOPD sends out email alerts when people are reported missing, but doesn't update if they're found, so I have no idea how many of the people I've posted have returned home since.

Looking at the stats on this awesome tool, I'm not surprised to find that overall New Orleans has a 48.64% clearance rate. In the past 10 years it's down to 30.22%, which puts it below Cleveland! I'm hoping 'The Killing Season' heads down here next season, to shed some light on this problem. The only time I've ever heard the words 'serial killer' thrown around is by locals, but sometimes we get clusters of similar-looking girls going missing around the same time.

Sadly, New Orleans is the perfect place for a serial killer to operate, because the majority of us here are Black, in a Southern city that still has an unsaid racial hierarchy, with a police department that's in shambles. Dumb criminals don't even get caught here, so what's a smart one to fear?

 

[shadowraiths]

When you first created this under scripps, I was hopeful, and as such, downloaded the SHR data, along with the tagging info, immediately. To my disappointment, I found that it provides gross, deidentified, data. Not gross, as in disgusting, mind you. I'm referring to very generic information, such as county, state, date, as opposed to, say, street, city, state, date.

At the time... this would be in the 2014 time frame, I had considered coding something that would walk the database and then mine the internet for those cases matching the SHR database criteria. I did something similar when I received a [redacted] dox dump. Though, in that case, I correlated the member names to the national SXO registry in combination with profiles found on social networking sites, via the email addresses listed in that dump. The results were then automatically provided to various respective LEAs as well as the security department of the respective social media sites. It was, of course, on a much smaller scale and took a matter of minutes, in total, to code, and seconds, to run. Setting up the auto anon-remailer bit was the biggest challenge of that particular undertaking.

This, however, would be an order of magnitude greater. Especially since there are fewer unique data points to work with. Notably, densely populated counties are far more problematic than sparsely populated counties, due to the number of reported murders that can occur within a single county on a single day. Then, there's the question of unsolved gang related murder versus potential serial killer cases, which, per the series, you do not appear to differentiate. They are quite different and should be investigated with this in mind, btw.

But, I digress.

In all, while I absolutely love the concept of being able to search such a vast database, I see some immediate limitations. For example, since the data is deidentified, the user is left with trying to correlate the cases to those reported in some news paper and/or a police blotter... an extremely time consuming task. Especially if that information is not online.

That said, it may be worth while tapping into crime data apis (you can find a list of them, here).

Aside: This is one of the reasons LEAs tend to lag behind when reporting info to VICAP. An enterprising individual with some time on their hands, could capitalize on this. Just sayin...

In any event, while these agencies only keep their data around for 90 days, sucking that data into a separate database, and then correlating that data with new incoming SHR data, could prove to be useful. Bc, yes, api data has missing info, too. But the two (API+SHR) together? Huge, huge, implications.

Anyway, just a thought, and something I'm looking into as a side project for my crime mapping stuff.

Oh, btw, congrats on getting your rebranded project off the ground!

 

[dexter75]

Hello! I'm brand new to Websleuths and forum posting in general. I was brought here by not only 'The Killing Season', but the 'My Favorite Murder' podcast. I've been keeping track of people who go missing in New Orleans via my blog nolamissing.tumblr.com after my own weird experience with a guy who may have been trying to kidnap me. One of my problems is that the NOPD sends out email alerts when people are reported missing, but doesn't update if they're found, so I have no idea how many of the people I've posted have returned home since.

Looking at the stats on this awesome tool, I'm not surprised to find that overall New Orleans has a 48.64% clearance rate. In the past 10 years it's down to 30.22%, which puts it below Cleveland! I'm hoping 'The Killing Season' heads down here next season, to shed some light on this problem. The only time I've ever heard the words 'serial killer' thrown around is by locals, but sometimes we get clusters of similar-looking girls going missing around the same time.

Sadly, New Orleans is the perfect place for a serial killer to operate, because the majority of us here are Black, in a Southern city that still has an unsaid racial hierarchy, with a police department that's in shambles. Dumb criminals don't even get caught here, so what's a smart one to fear?

Welcome to WS😉

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[Tricia]

Hey Everyone,

The only way The Murder Accountability Project survives is through donations.

It is a 5013c charity.

The link is http://murderdata.org/ and look to your right. You'll see a tab that says "Support Us". You can choose Paypal or card.

Even if it's one dollar it will help Tom Hargrove and his organization. No amount is to small.

Thank you,
Tricia

 

[Thomas Hargrove]

Thank you, really thank you, for these thoughts. We have gathered records on more than 715,000 homicides, searchable by year, geography down to the county and police agency, victim's sex, exact age, race and method of killing. I too have wondered how feasible it would be to automate Web searching tools to match news accounts and other sources to the files. We'd love to put names to all these unnamed dead.

I'm glad you've been downloading the data. Although we spend considerable effort obtaining these records, we want them to be as widely disseminated as possible. We recently added four years (1976-1979) at the request of two homicide detectives, one in Wisconsin and on in Florida, who were chasing multiple-victim killers who may have been active in the late 1970s. The FBI does not have comparable data that goes back any farther than 1976. Those records along with the data we got from our Illinois lawsuit are available for download now.

Feel free to call me anytime if you'd like to discuss your ideas further. My cell is 571-606-5999 and email thomashargrove@verizon.net.

--Tom Hargrove, Murder Accountability Project

 

[ScotsSam1]

I wish there was something like this in Scotland , there were 10 sex workers killed and still unsolved and I'm hearing the same stuff we could have a serial killer but also on the lack of work the police put into investigating these cases because they were sex workers i find this so sad and it makes me angry !

 

[NJEverCurious]

Thank you, really thank you, for these thoughts. We have gathered records on more than 715,000 homicides, searchable by year, geography down to the county and police agency, victim's sex, exact age, race and method of killing. I too have wondered how feasible it would be to automate Web searching tools to match news accounts and other sources to the files. We'd love to put names to all these unnamed dead.

I'm glad you've been downloading the data. Although we spend considerable effort obtaining these records, we want them to be as widely disseminated as possible. We recently added four years (1976-1979) at the request of two homicide detectives, one in Wisconsin and on in Florida, who were chasing multiple-victim killers who may have been active in the late 1970s. The FBI does not have comparable data that goes back any farther than 1976. Those records along with the data we got from our Illinois lawsuit are available for download now.

Feel free to call me anytime if you'd like to discuss your ideas further. My cell is 571-606-5999 and email thomashargrove@verizon.net.

--Tom Hargrove, Murder Accountability Project

Hi Mr. Hargrove,

This project is absolutely brilliant. Is this strictly a database, or is there a way in your system to map these homicides? Perhaps by color-coding each decade, it might be easier to visualize patterns or clusters. (Or maybe you're already doing something like this.)

 

[dexter75]

Hi Mr. Hargrove,

This project is absolutely brilliant. Is this strictly a database, or is there a way in your system to map these homicides? Perhaps by color-coding each decade, it might be easier to visualize patterns or clusters. (Or maybe you're already doing something like this.)

Great suggestion😉

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[Thomas Hargrove]

Hi Mr. Hargrove,

This project is absolutely brilliant. Is this strictly a database, or is there a way in your system to map these homicides? Perhaps by color-coding each decade, it might be easier to visualize patterns or clusters. (Or maybe you're already doing something like this.)

Thanks for your questions, NJEverCurious. Unfortunately, the Supplementary Homicide Report, the FBI source for most of the records you see at the "Search Cases" tab, does not include the street address of homicides, preventing geo-coding. This is very unfortunate since disorganized serial killers often operate in a pretty tight geography. We may be able to pick up geocoding as law enforcement transitions to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in the coming years.

Color coding by decade is an interesting idea. But with the year "slider" you already can isolate any range of consecutive years you wish. Thanks for your suggestions.

 

[sammyed]

Mr. Hargrove and other advocates,
I'm a NE Ohio resident living about 30 miles east of Cleveland. For several years I've advocated for missing persons and noticed unsolved missing, rape kits and investigations unsolved. I'm hopeful that better compilation of data like yours can light a fire under police jurisdictions, and thank you for your dedication.

 

[Megtrahan87]

I am beyond excited to start reading into all of this, I know it won't take me long to be enthralled!

 

[gwaterjetski]

It seems to be such a huge problem with law enforcement not communicating and sharing information. Hopefully law enforcement will take a serious look at this and take notes!

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[jacobd83]

I would really like too get involved in this project

 

[FormerDoeAdmin]

This murder accountability project, is this about mapping out unsolved murders of similar type? Because I have spreadsheets of thousands of predatory child homicides in an attempt to do the same thing years ago... Haven't done anything with them for years but wondering if I go back through them if I can help here....

 

[loumaff]

I love the idea of creating volunteer groups! I am a Sociology Graduate student wanting to get some real data entry / research experience outside of the classroom. It would be so neat to not only get to gain that experience but also to help out local law enforcement in solving all of these cold cases.

 

[missingjameswalker]

I would love to speak to someone there is issues in dad's case that involves a the original investigator made statements that hasn't been proven true and he was friends with the person of interest in my missing farther any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[SCHMAE]

Hello! I'm brand new to Websleuths and forum posting in general. I was brought here by not only 'The Killing Season', but the 'My Favorite Murder' podcast. I've been keeping track of people who go missing in New Orleans via my blog nolamissing.tumblr.com after my own weird experience with a guy who may have been trying to kidnap me. One of my problems is that the NOPD sends out email alerts when people are reported missing, but doesn't update if they're found, so I have no idea how many of the people I've posted have returned home since.

Looking at the stats on this awesome tool, I'm not surprised to find that overall New Orleans has a 48.64% clearance rate. In the past 10 years it's down to 30.22%, which puts it below Cleveland! I'm hoping 'The Killing Season' heads down here next season, to shed some light on this problem. The only time I've ever heard the words 'serial killer' thrown around is by locals, but sometimes we get clusters of similar-looking girls going missing around the same time.

Sadly, New Orleans is the perfect place for a serial killer to operate, because the majority of us here are Black, in a Southern city that still has an unsaid racial hierarchy, with a police department that's in shambles. Dumb criminals don't even get caught here, so what's a smart one to fear?

:welcome:

 

[Cookie.B]

I'm so happy for this!!! Lots of hearts can be healed. Can't wait to get started.

Cookie_Bee

 

[roamingirl]

Mr. Hargrove and other advocates,
I'm a NE Ohio resident living about 30 miles east of Cleveland. For several years I've advocated for missing persons and noticed unsolved missing, rape kits and investigations unsolved. I'm hopeful that better compilation of data like yours can light a fire under police jurisdictions, and thank you for your dedication.

I'm in ne Ohio, too. Except I'm 0 miles out. lol. Literally right in the middle of lame *advertiser censored* second district. [emoji51]



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[roamingirl]

As you can see by my stripped-down profile, this is my first post and I felt the need to say that I was (probably like numerous others) turned onto this community by "The Killing Season", but just by using the different formulas in the county I live in in New Jersey, it speaks volumes of how numbers do not lie.
I live in Somerset County, NJ, which is a pretty "safe" county, but there's a lot of patterns here also.
Thatnks for providing me with this tool and for all of this information, I intend to use it and hopefully contribute somehow.

TKS got me here! What a powerhouse they ended up with - getting people involved and energized like this. I rewatched the last 2 EPS and then binge listened to the last 5 eps of websleuths radio with them and all kinds of guests. It was all LISK all day here today!


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