Googling the Trail of a Serial Rapist

theodp writes "Innovative Interactivity has a behind-the-scenes look at the Washington Post's On the Trail of a Serial Rapist series. Information Designer Kat Downs details her experience designing and building the impressive interface for the series, including the use of Google Maps to track the rapist. Wary, perhaps, that it might encourage vigilantism, the WaPo stopped short of allowing readers to add their own input to the maps and urged anyone with additional information to contact the police."

Comments

I'll take

[Anonymous Coward]

Therapist for $400

Witness unreliable

[aepervius]

The problem is that at the best of the case , the witness are unreliable. In a stressful situation like rape this is much worst. So 5'7'' or 6'1'' could be the same guy. Really. Now tehre are still problem with DNA matching, as it seems that collision over a huge population can happen (so you can't try to match against a whole database), so I would not trust that too, unless it is to ground a case when the suspect is shown to also have been at the place.