Forensically aware offenders and homicide investigations: challenges, opportunities and impacts

ABSTRACT

Offender forensic awareness may negatively impact on an investigation. The detection avoidance behaviours of 22 police-trained murderers were examined. Offenders with forensic awareness appear to use many detection avoidance strategies depending on their relationship with the victim and whether they stage the crime scene. Common themes included body disposal; planning and making threats to kill; a history of deception; and interfering with the investigation.

KEYWORDS:

• Death investigation
• staged crime scene
• murder
• forensic awareness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

There were no funding sources for this study.