Questions and inquiry methods in research

¶ … crime, investigators often use a process called victimology to determine the suspect pool.

There are several ways that victimology can help investigators. If there are many victims, as in the case of a serial killer, victimology can determine the common characteristics that victims shared. For example if several tourists are killed on a particular stretch of mountain road it may appear at first glance that they had little in common. They may have come from different socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds. Victimology may be able to link the fact that they were all avid hikers, which helps them begin to narrow down what type of person the killer was.

Victimology connects the dots between victims or between victims and criminals by providing a link that is easily followed.

Once the process provides a type of criminal or a commonality that links the victims together, the investigators will be able to develop a pool of possible suspects and interview those suspects instead of trying to pull suspects out of thin air with no foundation.

Final Exit Suicide

At first glance a final exit suicide may be viewed as a homicide, however, when the investigator takes a deeper look he or she may discover that it was not murder at all.

When an investigator first looks into what may be a suspicious death, it is important to look at the entire picture.

If a person died of anything other than terminal illness, it is possible that they found a way to end their own life, even if it initially looks like murder.

People have been known to force others to shoot them, set their houses on fire and then purposely die in the fire, jump out of a window though it appears they were pushed and other things to end their life.

Unfortunately most people who commit suicide do it alone so there are no witnesses to how and why they died. There is a book called Final Exit Suicide that details ways that person can commit suicide, as well as ways to prepare for the final event.

Investigators should always look through the personal belongings of the deceased to see if there any such books,. If there are no such books, there may be notes of despair or notes of goodbye left for loved ones. If none of these are available the investigator may find prescriptions for anti-depressants, or medical papers indicating a recent diagnosis of a serious illness.

If any of the above are present, or if family members concur that the deceased was significantly depressed it is important to consider the death for evidence of final exit suicide instead of a homicide.

First Degree Murder

An investigator would rely on one question to determine whether to charge someone with first degree murder or with manslaughter. Did the killer decide to kill, and then act on that decision resulting in the victim's death?

If a person was in a club and someone bumped into him and he angrily hit the man in the head with his beer bottle and the man died, that would be manslaughter, because the man committing the act did not plan to kill anyone when he entered the club that night and he didn't think through the moment he reacted.

A difference scenario would be if the man found out his wife was having an affair. He then called around and discovered that the man and his wife were at a local club. He called her and told her he was going to come kill them both. He then loaded his gun, drove to the club and shot them both dead. He would be charged most likely with first degree murder because it was premeditated and planned and carried out, resulting in death.