Data: Queensland disposed homicide victims

Full description

Background [Extract from Related publication]:

Homicide numbers are relatively low in Queensland, less than one incident per week, and in most cases the victim has been located at the scene of the crime.  However, there are approximately 2.5% of victims that have never been located.  This has flow on consequences such as difficulty in proving death and then murder by the prosecution, difficulty in gathering forensic evidence when a victim cannot be located and the grief experienced by the co-victims, family and friends who have no closure.  There have been limited studies on the disposal of homicide victims, mostly related to sexual serial or familial killings in the United States of America, Canada and Finland (Beauregard & Field, 2008; Beauregard & Martineau, 2014; DiBiase, 2015; Ferguson & Pooley, 2019; Häkkänen, Hurme & Liukkonen, 2007; Lundrigan & Canter, 2001; Nethery, 2004)

Methods [Extract]:

There was a single source of Queensland homicide data, the Queensland Police Records and Information Exchange (QPRIME). QPRIME is the sole repository of all information pertaining to crime within the state.  Permission was obtained from the Queensland Police Service to access the demographic data of all homicide incidents between 2004 and 2020.  Within the data it was identified that 149 homicide victims had been moved (disposed) from where they were murdered, and of this number seventeen had never been located. The data relates to the demographics of both the victim and offender in those incidents where a homicide victim has been moved from where they were murdered. This includes the sex, height and weight of both victim and offender, method of homicide, distances moved from scene, method of transport, method of concealment and how these victims had been found in the past.  No Queensland homicide incidents were excluded from this study.

The data for the non Queensland homicide victims was located in the National Missing Person Register and The Red Heart Campaign.  The collection of the demographics was identical to the initial Queensland data and was stored in a parallel MS Excel sheet.  Of the non Queensland homicide cases, 149 disposed homicide victim incidents were located, although all of these victims had been located.

A statistical analysis, using IBM SPSS v26, of the data was undertaken, leading to the development of the Disposed Homicide Victim Matrix (DHVM).

The DHVM has provided police search coordinators with the statistical information on victim disposal directions, distances, locations, concealment methods and type of searching required. This has contributed to seven victims being located from the eight times it has been utilised.

 Data sources acknowledgement:

There had been no known previous whole of jurisdiction disposed homicide victim analysis previously undertaken.

This dataset consists of:

• 2 MS Excel files (2 worksheets) containing input data [also available in Open Document Format (.ods)]

Software/equipment used to collect and analyse the data: IBM SSPS Statistics v26 Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet.