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Statistical study of time intervals between murders for serial killers | | M.V. Simkin
; V.P. Roychowdhury
; | | Date: |
1 Nov 2018 | | Abstract: | We study the distribution of 2,837 inter-murder intervals (cooling off
periods) for 1,012 American serial killers. The distribution is smooth,
following a power law in the region of 10-10,000 days. The power law cuts off
where inter-murder intervals become comparable with the length of human life.
Otherwise there is no other characteristic scale in the distribution. In
particular, we do not see any characteristic spree-killer interval or
serial-killer interval, but only a monotonous smooth distribution lacking any
features. This suggests that there is only a quantitative difference between
serial killers and spree-killers, representing different samples generated by
the same underlying phenomenon. The over decade long inter-murder intervals are
not anomalies, but rare events described by the same power-law distribution and
therefore should not necessarily be looked upon with suspicion, as has been
done in a recent case involving a serial killer dubbed as the "Grim Sleeper."
This large-scale study supports the conclusions of a previous study, involving
three prolific serial killers, and the associated neural net model, which can
explain the observed power law distribution. | | Source: | arXiv, 1811.0664 | | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites | |
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