Mind Games: Crime, Profiling, and True Crime

If you're looking for a case to work, there are several places to find them.  A good place to start is the list of crime information sources and missing persons/cold cases in this box and this box of the Useful Websites tab of this guide.

There are also many television shows, books, and podcasts that feature cold cases.  You can find a list of them on the last tab of this guide.

There is a wealth of information about prominent criminal and missing persons cases in the news, but you have to remember that most reporters don't have law enforcement experience and will sometimes sensationalize stories.  They also rarely have access to insider information that hasn't been made public.

In addition to searching your local TV station websites and newspaper sites, you can use news aggregators such as Google News to find interesting stories.

Rollins students and employees have access to several databases that allow you to search newspaper archives for stories:

If you don't know which newspaper to start with you can use the newspaper search feature in the library's R-Search.

Map from Logikcull.  How open are the public record laws in your state?  You can see a breakdown of individual state laws on this interactive map.

Official records might be difficult to pull as a civilian depending on the rules for your state.  States with particularly open laws (like Florida) can usually provide court records and arrest reports via a web search for free.  Other records might require a formal request or a fee.  Note that law enforcement agencies rarely release documents pertaining to open cases, and other records (such as police reports and 911 transcripts) will be heavily redacted if released.

The general types of official records you can request from law enforcement agencies and coroners are:

• 911 call records - reports of calls to emergency dispatch
• Case files - files on criminal case investigations that almost never available for cases that are still open
• Coroner reports - reports of the post-mortem examination of human remains. When available, usually only a brief summary is provided.
• Court documents - official documents from court proceedings
• Police reports - criminal incident reports written by the responding officers (and occasionally amended by their field supervisors)

Methods for finding and pulling records will vary by state (and in some states, by city or county).  The best sources for records is typically one of these places:

• Clerk of Courts - nearly every jurisdiction has a clerk of courts, and they will be able to provide several types of records.
• RECAP - PACER is a court records system that isn't open to the public, but a nonprofit posts those records on a system they call RECAP.
• County Comptrollers - some places (including Florida counties) have a comptroller that is separate from the Clerk of Courts.  This agency will have records the Clerk doesn't.
• Law Enforcement Agencies - most of their websites will have information on how to request records.
• Medical Examiners - the source for information about deceased crime victims.
• Property Appraisers - useful mostly for property ownership records.

If you're researching crimes in Florida, simply Googling the name of a county and "clerk of courts" or "comptroller" is the easiest way to find the relevant search portals.

Consider other sources besides official records when conducting your investigations.  Newspapers (especially older ones) often have features such as engagement announcements, property sales records, and other useful pieces of information.

Genealogical records are tremendously useful and often overlooked.  You can often find information about suspects, victims, and persons of interest from genealogy sites.  There are several, but Rollins users have access to one of the most comprehensive ones, Ancestry:

If you start delving into crime statistics or trying to find a likely suspect for a series of crimes, there are several useful tools that can help you in your analysis and investigation.

Never underestimate the utility of maps.  Plotting crime locations, making a map of important sites in a case (victim's home, last known location, etc.), and pulling satellite, aerial, and street views of important locations - all of these are invaluable for any investigator.

The Freedom of Information Act allows citizens to request government information.  Several federal agencies have vaults of previous or frequently requested documents: