Author: lopezkar

by Nitya Marimuthu While researching serial killers, I came across two cases that dealt directly with insurance fraud and serial killing intentions. The first killer I discovered was Judy Buenoano. Known as “the Black Widow,” Buenoano poisoned her son, husband, and boyfriend to collect an estimated $240,000 in insurance policies. Though her intentions were chalked…

by Morgan Gomes This week while working on the Serial Homicide and Path Dependency team, I came across some fascinating serial killers: Alfred Leonard Cline and Cynthia Coffman. What this team investigates are the various social and cultural variables that may have impacted a killer’s behavior. These variables cover a large range of crucial data…

By Bea Brockey While investigating clearance rates of homicides across the country this week, I stumbled across an article about victims of homicide in Los Angeles county that I found very interesting. Though I am new to the cold case team, I have started to notice trends in victim characteristics that contribute to faster clearance…

by Shannon Hickey During our team meeting this past week, we discussed one of the project’s newest variables under the umbrella of adult social embeddedness. The variable in question was social ostracization. We operationalize social ostracization in the Social Homicide Project as: “Did the person have strong or close adult friendships or relationships? Did they…

by Tatum Kleis As I’ve started to review the current literature in the realm of unsolved homicide and cold cases, I came across an interesting study regarding the ethical nature of reopening a homicide cold case. Time has allowed for large improvements in the technology used to investigate homicide cases, and specialized units have been…

by Nitya Marimuthu As I continue to work alongside the rest of the Cold Case team to fill out census data, I began noticing an odd pattern when it came to large cities. Although many of the cities were majority white or had a slim black majority, most of the victims were non-white, (largely black…

By Gillian-An Farland Throughout the last few weeks I have worked alongside the Cold Case project team to explore the demographic and structural variables associated with a series of unsolved homicides. Using census data gathered from the Social Explorer database, our goal is to explore whether trends in the demographics of a county provide insight…

By: Cameron Fuller I have had the privilege of spending the past several weeks working on the Social Homicide Project team. Our team is researching the societal factors that we believe to be associated with serial killers. Our research looks for common traits in these killers’ upbringing, development, and social exposures. Independent of my involvement…

by Kulsoom Haqqi Over the past month, I have been pouring over a multitude of cold cases in the U.S. When filling out rows of data about victims on different cases, it is very easy to forget that there are names and faces attached to these demographics. The numbers themselves weave their own story. Some…

by Charlotte Kopelman Over the past few weeks, I have been inputting data for a project where our team is examining demographic and structural variables related to unsolved homicides. This work consists of identifying an unsolved homicide in a specific county in the U.S and gathering demographic statistics—i.e. education, income, race—based on the census data.…