The Restless Sleep:

Common Mistake about Suicide

I was reading a number of people on an NYPD blog make a common mistake about women and suicide. They were saying that women don’t use guns to kill themselves as much and use other methods more. This was an unofficial NYPD blog, I should add, so their comments do not represent the collected knowledge of the NYPD. The only reason I bring this up is because it was in the context of a murder investigation and I thought it was important to try to clear up this common misconception.

The truth is the number one method of suicide among women IS shooting themselves. I believe I know how this mistake got started. It’s a combination of a persistent stereotype about women reinforced by a select representation of statistics that supports this bias.

Whenever you read articles about suicide you always hear "women use poison more than men." That's true. They do. But that said, they still use guns more than poison when they kill themselves. I’m going to simplify the numbers in order to explain how I think the confusion arose.

Take a 100 male suicides and 100 female. Say 90 of the men shot themselves and 10 took poison. Among the women, 80 shot themselves and 20 took poison. In this example, you can accurately say that women used poison more than men. But, as you can see, they still used a gun more than anything else.

I researched this a while back, that’s how I know. I also learned that men jump off buildings and other high places more than women. Anyway, the point was being made that this female gunshot victim was more likely a homicide because when women kill themselves they don't use guns and that's wrong. It's the number one method of suicide among women.

The Number of Unsolved Murders in New York City

There are now 9,082 unsolved murders in New York City going back to 1985. That figure is a moving target of course. They are adding to that number all the time. Roughly 150 - 200 or more murders go cold every year, and try as they might, they are not going back and solving that many each year (of the older, cold cases).

That picture was take at one of the Property Clerk warehouses. Those barrels contain homicide evidence.

Declining Clearance Rates - Part 2

The first thing to look for is an increase in the kinds of murders that are harder to solve, such as:

- Murders involving firearms. When someone shoots someone they don't necessarily get close enough to leave DNA evidence.

- Murders without witnesses or uncooperative witnesses. For instance, cases involving organized crime or gangs.

- Murders where the victim and killer are strangers to each other. When there's no connection between the killer and their victim, it's harder to solve.

- Murders that happened outside, and late at night. Again, less trace evidence than murders that take place indoors, and fewer witnesses.

I went down to the Municipal Library and looked at the FBI's Uniform Crime reports going back to 1990. Has there been an increase in any of these areas?

There hasn't been any appreciable increase in murders with firearms. There also hasn't been an increase in murders by strangers (of the ones they know about -- they can't say for unsolved murders, of course). They don't have data for gangs or organized crime. Does anyone know who keeps hard data on organized crime and gang murders? I've been asking around and so far, no one has noticed an increase in gang or organized crime murders, but this is strictly anecdotal, and I haven't yet questioned people who specifically study these kinds of murders.

I'm still gathering data for murders that took place outdoors.

It's an interesting and important question, these degrading clearance rates. Why haven't so many years of accumulated experience and scientific discovery and application made more of a difference?

Declining Clearance Rates - Part 1

Although clearance rates went up a teeny, tiny bit nationally, I'm still curious why they have been generally declining over the years. It was such a huge shock to me to discover while I was writing the book that clearance rates have, in fact, been slowly going down. What really amazed me was, the decline in clearance rates began around the time DNA started to be used forensically. So what?  DNA hasn't made a difference?? It just doesn't make sense.

I have a theory.  DNA is used in cases that were probably going to lead to an arrest anyway (clearance rates refer to arrests, not convictions).  Cases where the murderer got close and left all sorts of trace evidence besides DNA.  So it isn't helping so much in arrests, those arrests were going to be made anyway. BUT, it's helping build stronger cases and leading to more convictions.  This is also contributing to the overall number of murders going down (more murderers in jail). But it wouldn't necessarily have an effect on clearance rates.

Also, perhaps by quite naturally focusing on the cases they can solve and win, they are putting just a little less attention on the cases that are a lot harder to solve. Because the clearance rates aren't plummeting. They are going down very slowly, over time. So you only have to have a slight shift in attention to explain it. And there has been a shift in attention towards DNA. The thing is, they can't always recover DNA from a murder scene.

I have a number of theories, which I will be posting over the weeks and months to come.

Capital Punishment

History of Capital Punishment in New York.

1778-1887: hanging
1888-1964: electrocution
1965-1973: no death penalty
1974-1977: electrocution
1978-1994: no death penalty
1995-present: lethal injection

(Except, isn't it in limbo somehow now?)

From the Bureau of Justice website:

In 2005, 60 persons in 16 States were executed -- 19 in Texas; 5 each in Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina; 4 each in Ohio, Alabama, and Oklahoma; 3 each in Georgia, and South Carolina; 2 in California; and 1 each in Connecticut, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, and Mississippi.

Of persons executed in 2005:

- 41 were white
- 19 were black

Fifty-nine men and one woman were executed in 2005.
Lethal injection accounted for all of the executions.
Thirty-eight States and the Federal government in 2005 had capital statutes.

The map was courtesy of http://encarta.msn.com.

(Forgive me, I feel I must out myself. As strongly as I feel that murderers must be caught and imprisoned, I am against capital punishment. Even though, I too, think that some people should not be on the planet.)

Newsday Article about Unsolved Murder

A great piece about unsolved murder by Rocco Paranscandola was in Newsday on January 10th. Of course I immediately wrote a letter to the editor explaining the rate at which murders are cleared over time, and how that changes clearance rates.

The police department also told Newsday that in the late 1990's their clearance rates went as high as 90% and that is simply not true. Although I checked and they did have their best year in 1998 (in recent NYPD history), when it was 70.8% (not 92.5%, as claimed). Again, this is not a reflection of the NYPD. This is a national trend and when you look at the national trend for big cities, New York is doing a little better then most.

Murder Clearance Rates

Clearance rates don't change all that much, but it's interesting that when the homicide rate in New York was at it's highest, the NYPD was also solving the highest precentage of murders. (1990 was the peak for murder in New York. The murder rate started going down after that.)

And now that the murder rate is so impressively down, so is the clearance rate. I have some theories about this, but it would make a good doctoral thesis for someone at John Jay, I think.

1970’s - The percentage of murders that went unsolved in New York is 37.6%.
1980’s - The percentage of murders that went unsolved in New York is 31.2%.
1990’s - The percentage of murders that went unsolved in New York is 35.2%.
2000’s - The percentage of murders that went unsolved in New York is 40.2%.*

*So far.

Homicide Total Update

We're up to 515 murders in New York as of December 15th. Still well below last years total of 572. It's weird (and sad) to think that since the last time I was sitting here, typing away in this very same place, seven more people who were just going along, living their lives, were murdered. Seven more people who won't see today. (And probably many more people spending Christmas day shell-shocked from the loss.)

"If you want something done , ask a busy person."

Interestingly, when the murder rate was at its highest in New York, so were the clearance rates. In the 1980’s, the percentage of murders that went unsolved in New York was 31.2%. Now it's up to 40%. (It's been hovering around 35% for decades, sometime a little better, sometimes a little worse.)

Why Cold Case Squads Matter - Part 2

Based on the number of homicides in America, I estimate that 6,000 murder cases are going cold every year.

(My computer is in the shop, by the way. That's why I am posting less, and will be posting less for the next week. Hopefully it will only be a week.)

How Many Unsolved Murders?

When my book went to press there were 8,894 unsolved murders in New York since 1985.

Los Angeles, the next largest city in America, had 8,000 going back to 1960.

Fairfax, VA, had 75 going back to 1964.

If you want to try to figure out how many cold cases are in your city, go to the FBI's website and download the Uniform Crime Reports, aka Crime in the United States. Right now they have reports going back to 1995. You can also go to the library or local college if they offer a criminal justice degree, and find reports going back to 1930.

In each report, you can look up the national clearance rate for murder that year and from that estimate how many murder cases in your city likely went cold. It's generally around a third.

The Sheik - A 1936 Cold Case

In 1936, a young Syrian boxer named George Abdinoor (aka The Sheik) was murdered in Brooklyn, then buried in a basement in Lawrence, MA.

He was unearthed 18 months later, and buried in the United Syrian Cemetery in Lawrence, MA. His case was never solved. 145 of the 365 homicide cases that year went cold.

The year with the largest number of unsolved homicides in New York was, not surprisingly, the year with the most murders. In 1990, 791 of the 2,245 murders that year are still unsolved. That's 35%, and that's typical. The most recent figures I have are for 2003. As of 2004, 294 of the 596 murders that year were not yet solved. That's almost 50%. However, I did discover that a cold case has up to a 5% to 10% chance of being cleared within one year after it went cold. After two years it's less than 1%. That means the percentage of unsolved murders in New York is around 40%.

DNA Barrels at the Property Clerk Warehouse

Homicide evidence is placed in what are called DNA or blood barrells, and stored at the Property Clerk Warehouse. The warehouses look like that final shot of Raiders of the Lost Ark, when they are putting away the Ark of the Covenant, amongst endless stacks of wooden crates. Here, there are fifty foot tall towers of cardboard DOA barrels. Each barrel holds 20 to 25 envelopes of evidence. There are roughly five or six thousand barrels. At 25 envelops per barrel, that could represent up to 150,000 crimes.