Bees Help Detectives Catch Serial Killers

Hugh Pickens writes "The way bumblebees search for food could help detectives hunt down serial killers — because just as bees forage some distance away from their hives, so murderers avoid killing near their homes, says a University of London research team. The researchers' analysis describes how bees create a 'buffer zone' around their hive where they will not forage, to reduce the risk of predators and parasites locating the nest. This behavior pattern is similar to the geographic profile of criminals stalking their victims. 'Most murders happen close to the killer's home, but not in the area directly surrounding a criminal's house, where crimes are less likely to be committed because of the fear of getting caught by someone they know,' says Dr. Nigel Raine. Criminologists will fold this insight into their models using details about crime scenes, robbery locations, abandoned cars, even dead bodies, to hone the search for a suspect."

Comments

Two ways?

[JohnnyKlunk]

If read and understood by a sane serial killer (assuming these things exist). Could they then pattern their kills around a location other than where they live? Hence leading police to profile the wrong location based upon these kind of patterns?

Re:Two ways?

[lukas84]

Yes, of course.

If you kill a random person at a random location, with the only value that influences your choice of victim being the chance of getting away with it, the chances of getting away with it, if properly executed, are almost 100%.

But that's not how it works in the real world - most murders happen for a reason, even those be insane or sane serial killers.

Re:By the same token..

[Cillian]

That's the problem with psycological theories and profiling. As soon as the subject knows the model, they probably stop following it.

Easy way to handle that

[Hektor_Troy]

Use one program to select the town of your victim at random.
Find a written phonebook from the area and pick a page at random using ten sided dice.
And use the same dice to pick a person at random from that page.

Now you have your victim - it could be you (start over), your neighbour, your boss - doesn't matter all that much.

Next you pick a method of execution at random as well.

If you have no modus operandi, they can't really catch you. See Richard Kuklinski

But learn from his mistakes - if you're using a freezer to keep the time of death obscured, thaw them before you dump them.

Re:dont shit where you eat

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

What does he do? He covets. And what do we Covet? We covet what we see...

I do believe it is most likely first-time killers DO kill close to home because it is their buffer zone. Then they start to spread their wings.

Re:As do Nation States

[Anonymous Coward]

Got to love how the US seems to think a pre-emptive strike on a country unable to launch an attack is fine whereas Russia reacting to Georgia invading its territory is a return to the Cold War.

Most people in Europe aren't fooled by Bush trying to make a failed invasion by Georgia look like empire-building by Russia; I'm amazed that people in the US are so blinkered.

Re:dont shit where you eat

[Z00L00K]

The problem with going public with this kind of information is also that the nastiest serial killers - they who plan their killings - actually takes notice and makes sure that their pattern is weird enough to mess up any logical conclusions from their pattern.

Of course - sooner or later they are probably making a mistake that leads to their downfall, but by creating a offbeat pattern they can lead investigators down several blind alleys.

This is however not limited to serial killers, but also other kinds of crime. Organized crime are all to aware already of methods used by law enforcement. They know that they are being watched so they run decoys etc.