The Homicide

The most serious crime against the person is homicide that is illegal intentional deprivation of human life. Investigation of murders is usually very difficult and long process, because the offender uses a variety of ways for not being caught: disguise, concealment of the crime and recourse to various means of countering the truth. Prevalence of homicide in modern society and difficulties in detection and investigation, forced to look for new methods and techniques of investigation. The central object, on which the investigation is focused in the initial moment, is victim. Basically, most motives of the commission of such crimes as homicide are caused by prudence, burdened by lack of upbringing in the childhood of both the victim and offender; constant drug use, gambling, infidelity that exist in the victim and offender’s lives. Application of investigative methods provides implementation of complex actions, which allow finding out whether there was committed a murder or a person died due to natural causes, suicide or accident. Therefore, all cases of detection of human corpses or information about persons missing under mysterious circumstances should be investigated according the rules of a murder investigation. The desired aim can be achieved if the person conducting investigation has well-developed interpersonal skills, observation, the ability to correctly estimate all the circumstances, good knowledge of psychology, clear understanding of tactical methods of carrying out separate investigations, the ability to organize search activities among other skills.

One of the most important steps in homicide investigation is collecting information about common personality characteristics of both offenders and victims. In most cases, the victims of murders are men. In those cases where a woman becomes the object of a crime, the most dominative motives are jealousy, sexual or selfish motives. There always exists a certain relationship between behavior of an offender and a victim, so the necessary part of investigation is studying the victim's identity and his or her actions immediately before the homicide. The investigator has to establish the identity of a victim, his or her behavior before the murder and during the murder. After all these actions the professional investigator is able to determine more accurately the motive and purpose of the crime. It can be done in the following ways: identification of people, who last saw or spoke with victim; finding out the information about any enemies the victim could have. The victim’s behavior may be provocative, challenging or slightly negligent, which may affect both tracking the picture of what happened, and influence the legal assessment of the offense.

In the victimology there are two ways of studying the victims. One of them is to collect and study data on the identity of the victim which is already known to the investigator; and understanding the number of people found guilty of criminal offense (if the offender is not found). Another way is collecting and studying information that is necessary to establish the unknown or unidentified victims and advance a lead of the unidentified criminals. All the actions that have to be done during the investigation depend on the type and version of the homicide committed. For example, when the victim is unknown, police has to search for all necessary information with the help of the media; interrogate the witnesses; to find out how the victim behaved or who had seen him or her before the murder. Also it is important to collect information about the victim's lifestyle and state of the victim's relationships; detailed information on the identity of the victim; presence or absence of serious conflicts in the family, the victim’s plans for the near future.

If the victim is still alive, then he or she needs to be questioned at the earliest opportunity. In this case, the investigator finds out when, where and under which circumstances the person became a victim of the crime, and who has tried to kill him or her, who has had an interest in his death, and on what grounds; did the victim resist a criminal, and how it was expressed; what evidences of resistance could remain on the body or clothing of his or her offender. Also it is important to inspect the clothes and visible parts of the victim’s skin; the clothes have to be recorded by the type, style, status, place of manufacture, presence or absence of individual clothing items. The other things that have to be found out are information about victim’s habits, inclinations, interests, aspirations, and his or her sociable or secluded life. This is essential information because in their normal everyday life people communicate and come in contact with each other based on the common interests, inclinations, aspirations, education and development, lifestyle and hobbies. Personal and interpersonal relations of both the victims and offenders are divided into groups of friends and strangers to each other.

The key to successful investigation and disclosure of homicide is the teamwork of participants of the investigative and operational groups according to studying the individual life of the victim subject to his or her identity is established, questioning those who had contacts with victim; identification of events and circumstances of the last days or weeks before the crime. In evaluating the evidence established at the first trial inspection of the homicide scene there could be made the deductive arguments that are always checked. To check all the versions, the research evidence requires a research by means of special scientific and technical methods and techniques. The basic steps to an effective investigation are among important things of the whole solution of crimes. These are the following: inspection, interrogation of suspects, defendants and witnesses, confrontations, expertise.

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