This project becomes more complex and fascinating the longer it goes on. We are looking at cases where there has been a sudden death, but even though there are circumstances that raise the suspicion of homicide, there is no formal finding or recording of homicide. This may be for various different reasons, and it’s those reasons we are exploring. One thing we strongly suspect already is that the death rate from intimate partner homicide is higher than statistics suggest.
We are currently looking at a number of cases where murder or manslaughter have not been charged, but family or police have strong suspicions. We hope that by looking in depth at these cases that we can explore what the barriers are to finding the necessary evidence. Taking a deep look takes time, but it’s going to be worth it.
Gavin De Becker who is an international expert in threat assessment and author of The Gift of Fear says that we think that seeing is believing – but he continues that actually we need to believe before we can see, and herein lies the direction of some of our findings.
I have included the Homicide Timeline eight stage diagram for anyone who wants to use it, it can help us see.
#hiddenhomicide
Leave a Reply