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

dont shit where you eat

[timmarhy]

we've known this for a long time sherlock...

Re:dont shit where you eat

[sgt_doom]

WOW!! Sort of like...instead of attacking or nuking nearby Canada....invade Iraq and maybe nuke Iran.......

Those darn serial killers!!!

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: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.

Re:dont shit where you eat

[DarkOx]

True but unless you are dealing with the really really insane murder tends to be a crime of passion. You are generally not all that passionate about people you dont know. The majority of murder victims do have a relationship to the killer.

Just because you know something about the pattern of where the real nut jobs select their victims does not mean you have control over where yours is. So the information is not helpful to most would be killers. The real wack jobs who could use the information are pretty hard to catch anyway and probably already knew this, if only in an intuative way. Its still ture any way you don't want kill someone to close to you because someone who knows you might figure it out. You proably can't kill someone to far out side your buffer zone becuase of travel time, you are going to need better alibi to explain longer absenses. Its much harder to wack someone, clean up all the evidence, and be at the office the next morning if you have to drive an hour each way to do it on top of that. I have never tried but sitting here I can't think of any quick ways to dispose of a body that wont have it found pretty fast. You need to burry it deep, burn it completely, or sink it and make sure it stays sunk for a good long time otherwise modern technology / dogs are going to find it and its going to still contain enough evidence to lead back to the killer.

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:Two ways?

[drmofe]

Yes. 1. Find a known serial killer. 2. Commit crimes around their home. 3. ??? 4. Profit.

Re:Two ways?

[Oktober Sunset]

slight flaw, known serial killers' homes are generaly maximum security prison.

Re:Two ways?

[will_die]

First off this behavior is also used by thieves, murderers, arsonists, basically any type of serial criminal activities, and was used is solving poisoning back in the 80s.
The basis around most of this geographic profiling is that people put a bubble around the places they live or work so they are not to close while at the same time they don't want to be so far away that they don't feel safe or unfamiliar with the area or they don't have an explanation of why they are in that area.
So yea someone could setup another base but you then increase the chance that you will be seen as unfamiliar in that area or if you don't know the area a good chance there is a chance you will make a mistake and the fear of making that mistake is what causes people to create that original bubble in the first place.
There are a few pieces of software that are already being used by police and the I recently read an article where they are using this software in Afghanistan and Iraq to figure out possible locations of bomb building and enemy safe houses.

Re:Two ways?

[ComputerGeek01]

I would say no. To be a serial killer it implies that you murder more then one person, generally have the same Modus Operandi and some times your victims carry similar traits or are the same in some way. I would think if you kill around your home a pattern would emerge in a very tight area and police would catch on. The only thing you would accomplish is having them profile you as someone who kills spontaneously and has little or no self control, which would be the opposite of what you are trying to accomplish.

In short it is still safer to kill away from your home, the police still would have to figure out which direction your coming from and as the article says there is a far lower chance of you being recognized. Not that I've put too much thought into this or anything :-P

Re:Two ways?

[D-Cypell]

Or political buildings

Re:Two ways?

[Bloke down the pub]

From my extensive knowledge gained by watching "Diagnosis Murder" and "Murder She Wrote", there's always a false lead; the obvious suspect at the 20 minute mark is never ever the real culprit.

So that would be a yes.

Re:Two ways?

[chunk08]

braked in to prison

What happened? Did the master cylinder leak?

As do Nation States

[FriendlyLurker]

doing their serial killing far away, bombing countries half the world away. While just imposing embargoes on those next door, to reduce the risk to the hive. You don't need Bee theory, forensics or the CSI team to figure out who is doing the killing though.

Re:As do Nation States

[Anonymous Coward]

doing their serial killing far away, bombing countries half the world away. While just imposing embargoes on those next door, to reduce the risk to the hive. You don't need Bee theory, forensics or the CSI team to figure out who is doing the killing though.

Riiight. So please explain Russia invading Georgia, China invading Tibet, Indonesia invading East Timor.

Look, if you want to pick on the USA, please go ahead. There are many good & bad things about US foreign policy. But meaningless new-age psychobabble doesn't accomplish anything except making you look like an anti-American kook.

Bees don't help detectives

[Bromskloss]

The insight that killers don't kill too close to their homes help detectives. It has nothing to do with bees, really. Bees just happen to behave in the same way.

Re:Bees don't help detectives

[Bromskloss]

And it's not biotech as someone tagged the story! Scheesh!

Re:Bees don't help detectives

[OriginalArlen]

The buzz I've heard is that they're setting up a sting operation. Using a honey-pot.

Thanks, mine's the white boilersuit with the veil and hat on the next peg.

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:Easy way to handle that

[Hektor_Troy]

But that way you always end up with someone in the middle of the phonebook.

"Look at this - everyone in these unsolved cases have last names starting with L, M and N. Think he's using a phonebook?"

To the killer they catch...

[dreamchaser]

...it would really sting knowing that they were caught because of a bee.

DAMN IT.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was honestly hoping they discovered a way to manipulate bees to hunt down serial killers and "catch" them.

oh well, back to my plans for the beezooka.

Detective work

[jovius]

Is this what they call a sting operation?

I'd go see that movie...

[Nymz]

...because it sounds more original that the typical movie formula:

1) Get a paper map of the city
2) Mark the location of each crime scene
3) Draw lines connecting the dots
4) Search for serial killer in the center of the inverted pentagram

Re:I'd go see that movie...

[Kingrames]

Dude you just gave me a great idea for a CSI episode.

Re:By the same token..

[that IT girl]

Actually, it's pretty interesting how they don't. It's like they can't help but follow it. A subconscious thing. Doesn't make logical sense to me, but their minds don't work like the rest of ours so it's hard to understand why they behave the way they do.

Attention Slashdotters

[jabithew]

"University of London" is a loose federation and should be treated as such, not all colleges are equal. This story should have been reported as originating from Queen Mary's College, University of London.

UL contains world-class institutions such as UCL, Kings and LSE, but it also contains places like Heythrop College, essentially a seminary in all but name.

This is exactly the issue that made my alma mater leave last year. When evaluating the quality of research, "University of London" is not a useful label.

Geoprofiling?

[houghi]

Isn't this basicaly gepoprofiling?

The Dutch magazine kijk has an article on it starting on page 18. Unfortunatly nothing online, expet the title of the article: Geoprofiling: Misdadigers pakken met een landkaart

Re:The killers home?

[Dogtanian]

If you know where the killer's house is in order to draw this donut around it, why not just go there and arrest them? If you're arguing that the killing is in a donut, there are an infinite number of donuts that a killing could belong to, so I don't see how that helps you find the killer's house if you have any less than 3-4 body(ies) in different location(s) that are actually arranged in a donut around a central location.

Mmm..... donuts.

OMG!!!!! Homer Simpson is our serial killer!

works GREAT so far!!!

[globaljustin]

they are using this software in Afghanistan and Iraq to figure out possible locations of bomb building and enemy safe houses.

yeah, and how's that going? I bet if we use these models we could find those WMD too!

give me a break.

I am fully in favor using all tech at our disposal to be better at law enforcement (while still respecting civil rights of course), but what scares me is the underlying theories behind how they use this data. They actually think that all human behavior is quantifiable and that if we can just get a big enough database and the right algorithm (and maybe some pre-cogs) then we can END ALL CRIME! never...

Human behavior (including that of serial killers) has tendencies, but that's as far as we can pin it down. Deal with it.

As the first post explained, humans understand the 'don't shit where you eat' principle innately.