15 May HOW MANY MISSING PERSONS ARE THERE?
How many missing persons are there? The answer depends on our definition of missing. Missing persons includes a number of different categories including family abducted, stranger abducted, thrownaway, kidnapped, voluntarily missing, involuntarily missing, and short- and long-term missing.
The “hidden victims” include the following:
Missing Persons as Uncounted Serial Murder Victims
Transient victims such as prostitutes, hustlers, runaways and the homeless are examples of this group.
The Missing “Missing”
Missing persons never reported as missing, or were reported as missing with the case having been prematurely or incorrectly closed or purged, bodies never found, and unidentified bodies.
This also includes thrownaway children (those emancipated minors who are disconnected from family) and foster children.
In the case of foster children, laws actually prevent easy access to information. In most states, when foster children go missing their name is not publicly released. in some states, biological parents are not even allowed to go to the media if their child who has been placed in foster care goes missing (“Few Looking for Missing,” 2002).
Unidentified Dead
The unidentified dead are made up of persons who died from any number of causes, including natural deaths, although the cause of death is unknown.
“Many jurisdictions across the United States only keep unidentified remains for a year, and then they are either buried in unmarked graves, or as is the case in San Francisco, once a month, the unidentified dead are incinerated and the ashes taken out to sea.” (Davis,1996).
Misidentified and Elsewhere Classified Dead
The misidentified dead are comprised of deaths with unknown causes or deaths that are wrongly categorized as suicides, accidents, or natural causes, when in fact they are the result of homicide.
“Known medical murderers appear to average 2 victims per month. In a small county in Indiana, Orville Lynn Majors killed as many as 130 patients in about 2 years, all of which were coded as natural deaths. Even after investigations revealed the true causes of death, the death certificates were never updated.” (G. Carter and N. Alexander, prosecutors in the Orville Lyn Majors case, personal communication, February 4, 2005).
What we know is that, despite best efforts, many databases are underutilized or contain inaccurate or duplicate information. Many do not contain information on missing individuals who have gone unreported. We know that unidentified bodies, especially those in the state of significant decomposition, prevent not only putting a name to the remains, but also give no clue as to cause of death. DNA is only as good as the information available to investigators.
It is an unfortunate, but nonetheless real, phenomenon that investigators are faced with – the knowledge that there are far too many levels of death in addition to the categories of death that we document. Some victims remain “less dead”.
Week 2 assignment
Known Killers
In this assignment you will read the week 2 lecture titled “More or Less Dead.” The author of the article discusses the “most successful serial killer is the one that selects victims no one will miss or know they are missing (Quinet, 2007).
Using these guidelines and THREE external resources, compare and contrast the psychological and behavioral traits and characteristics of violent killers and their victims. In your response, you should consider these theories; biological, and psychological and how is society impacted?
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