{ "id": "1995-march-the-case-of-the-unknown-stranger", "slug": "1995-march-the-case-of-the-unknown-stranger", "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1995-march-the-case-of-the-unknown-stranger.html", "year": 1995, "month": "March", "monthNum": 3, "headline": "The case of the unknown stranger", "kicker": "", "author_name": "David Royse", "author_title": "", "affiliation": "University of Missouri", "summary": "Armstrong reveals safety failures in elevators and escalators through data analysis, leading to significant state-level repercussions.", "keywords": [ "inspection", "safety", "elevators" ], "topics": [ "Crime & Justice", "Investigative Methods", "Data & Databases" ], "technologies": [], "full_text": "Run for your lives! Everyone in the United States has a realistic chance of being murdered!\n\nAfter all, the FBI said so in December. In Crime in the United States, 1993, a summary of the Uniform Crime Reports, the agency said the statement \"is somewhat supported by the fact that a majority of the nation's murder victims are now\n\nkilled by strangers or unknown persons.\" In other words, random murders are soaring.\n\nScary stuff. Numerous newspapers and wire services ran with the FBI's assertion. But the claim is not backed by the numbers. That is because there is a big difference between a stranger and an unknown person.\n\nThe distinction brings up a crucial rule, regardless of whether a reporter is running with a press release on a tight deadline or sifting through massive amounts of data: Know your definitions.\n\nThe difference between a stranger and an unknown person is enormous. A stranger, according to police definitions, is someone the victim did not know. An unknown offender, on the other hand, means the case is unsolved. They don't know who did it. It could have been the victim's mother. Or it could have been a friend. Or a stranger.\n\nThe FBI view\n\n\"There are still criminologists asserting that (murder) is a crime of passion, that it is a crime between family and friends, and something law enforcement has no control over,\" said Gil Gee, the principle author of the FBI study. \"We are seeing a trend away from that. It should be noted that there is a shift toward more ambiguous relationships between homicide victims and offenders.\"\n\nAmbiguous is the key word. That's because, in recent years, the biggest increase is not where the criminal is classified by stranger. It is where the criminal is unknown - and the case is unsolved.\n\n\"The essence of this study is that we are seeing a significant change in the circumstances surrounding murders,\" Gee said. \"When you look at murder, you find that going back to 1965, a third of murders occurred within the family or were committed by an acquaintance. In 1992 that's 12 percent.\"\n\nMurders by strangers are more difficult to solve than those by acquaintances and family members, Gee said. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that many of the unsolved crimes are committed by strangers.\n\n\"These cases would not be unsolved if they were that clear cut,\" he said.\n\nLook again\n\nThere are a number of police officials and other experts, however, who disagree with the FBI's interpretation of the numbers.\n\nThe FBI's announcement \"is not true,\" said Bill Burns, a spokesman for the Gary, Ind. police department. Located right outside of Chicago, Gary had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation last year. \"You're most likely to get killed by someone you know,\" Burns said.\n\nTim Carroll, a police homicide detective Chattanooga, Tenn., cautioned against speculating about the relationship between a killer and his victim when the crime is unsolved. \"Until we get a suspect, we don't know what the relationship is,\" he said.\n\nJames Fox, dean of the Northeastern College of Criminal Justice, said this year's FBI analysis focused on murders by strangers at the expense of some more important trends.\n\n\"There are two trends going different directions, and they miss it entirely,\" he said. \"The (murder) rate among is skyrocketing, and the rate among adults is plummeting.\"\n\nOne newspaper that did not lead with the FBI's contention was the New York Times. In his story on the 1993 data, reporter Keith Bradsher noted, \"a declining percentage of murder victims were clearly killed by family members or people with whom they were romantically involved. But because the relationship between murderer and the victim could not be determined in two of five cases, the figures on romantic and family killings may not be representative of national trends in actual killings.\"\n\nBradsher is not a reporter who covers crime. In fact, it's the only crime piece he recalled writing.\n\n\"It was a case of reading carefully,\" he said. \"I did my master's in public policy and economics. They taught us you don't just look at the statistics, you look at how they were defined. You don't just take numbers and run with it.\"\n\nkilled by strangers or unknown persons.\" In other words, random murders are soaring.\n\nScary stuff. Numerous newspapers and wire services ran with the FBI's assertion. But the claim is not backed by the numbers. That is because there is a big difference between a stranger and an unknown person.\n\nThe distinction brings up a crucial rule, regardless of whether a reporter is running with a press release on a tight deadline or sifting through massive amounts of data: Know your definitions.\n\nThe difference between a stranger and an unknown person is enormous. A stranger, according to police definitions, is someone the victim did not know. An unknown offender, on the other hand, means the case is unsolved. They don't know who did it. It could have been the victim's mother. Or it could have been a friend. Or a stranger.\n\nThe FBI view\n\n\"There are still criminologists asserting that (murder) is a crime of passion, that it is a crime between family and friends, and something law enforcement has no control over,\" said Gil Gee, the principle author of the FBI study. \"We are seeing a trend away from that. It should be noted that there is a shift toward more ambiguous relationships between homicide victims and offenders.\"\n\nAmbiguous is the key word. That's because, in recent years, the biggest increase is not where the criminal is classified by stranger. It is where the criminal is unknown - and the case is unsolved.\n\n\"The essence of this study is that we are seeing a significant change in the circumstances surrounding murders,\" Gee said. \"When you look at murder, you find that going back to 1965, a third of murders occurred within the family or were committed by an acquaintance. In 1992 that's 12 percent.\"\n\nMurders by strangers are more difficult to solve than those by acquaintances and family members, Gee said. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that many of the unsolved crimes are committed by strangers.\n\n\"These cases would not be unsolved if they were that clear cut,\" he said.\n\nLook again\n\nThere are a number of police officials and other experts, however, who disagree with the FBI's interpretation of the numbers.\n\nThe FBI's announcement \"is not true,\" said Bill Burns, a spokesman for the Gary, Ind. police department. Located right outside of Chicago, Gary had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation last year. \"You're most likely to get killed by someone you know,\" Burns said.\n\nTim Carroll, a police homicide detective Chattanooga, Tenn., cautioned against speculating about the relationship between a killer and his victim when the crime is unsolved. \"Until we get a suspect, we don't know what the relationship is,\" he said.\n\nJames Fox, dean of the Northeastern College of Criminal Justice, said this year's FBI analysis focused on murders by strangers at the expense of some more important trends.\n\n\"There are two trends going different directions, and they miss it entirely,\" he said. \"The (murder) rate among is skyrocketing, and the rate among adults is plummeting.\"\n\nOne newspaper that did not lead with the FBI's contention was the New York Times. In his story on the 1993 data, reporter Keith Bradsher noted, \"a declining percentage of murder victims were clearly killed by family members or people with whom they were romantically involved. But because the relationship between murderer and the victim could not be determined in two of five cases, the figures on romantic and family killings may not be representative of national trends in actual killings.\"\n\nBradsher is not a reporter who covers crime. In fact, it's the only crime piece he recalled writing.\n\n\"It was a case of reading carefully,\" he said. \"I did my master's in public policy and economics. They taught us you don't just look at the statistics, you look at how they were defined. You don't just take numbers and run with it.\"\n\nkilled by strangers or unknown persons. In other words, random murders are soaring.\n\nScary stuff. Numerous newspapers and wire services ran with the FBI's assertion. But the claim is not backed by the numbers. That is because there is a big difference between a stranger and an unknown person.\n\nThe distinction brings up a crucial rule, regardless of whether a reporter is running with a press release on a tight deadline or sifting through massive amounts of data: Know your definitions.\n\nThe difference between a stranger and an unknown person is enormous. A stranger, according to police definitions, is someone the victim did not know. An unknown offender, on the other hand, means the case is unsolved. They don't know who did it. It could have been the victim's mother. Or it could have been a friend. Or a stranger.\n\nThe FBI view\n\n\"There are still criminologists asserting that (murder) is a crime of passion, that it is a crime between family and friends, and something law enforcement has no control over,\" said Gil Gee, the principle author of the FBI study. \"We are seeing a trend away from that. It should be noted that there is a shift toward more ambiguous relationships between homicide victims and offenders.\"\n\nAmbiguous is the key word. That's because, in recent years, the biggest increase is not where the criminal is classified by stranger. It is where the criminal is unknown - and the case is unsolved.\n\n\"The essence of this study is that we are seeing a significant change in the circumstances surrounding murders,\" Gee said. \"When you look at murder, you find that going back to 1965, a third of murders occurred within the family or were committed by an acquaintance. In 1992 that's 12 percent.\"\n\nMurders by strangers are more difficult to solve than those by acquaintances and family members, Gee said. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that many of the unsolved crimes are committed by strangers.\n\n\"These cases would not be unsolved if they were that clear cut,\" he said.\n\nLook again\n\nThere are a number of police officials and other experts, however, who disagree with the FBI's interpretation of the numbers.\n\nThe FBI's announcement \"is not true,\" said Bill Burns, a spokesman for the Gary, Ind. police department. Located right outside of Chicago, Gary had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation last year. \"You're most likely to get killed by someone you know,\" Burns said.\n\nTim Carroll, a police homicide detective Chattanooga, Tenn., cautioned against speculating about the relationship between a killer and his victim when the crime is unsolved. \"Until we get a suspect, we don't know what the relationship is,\" he said.\n\nJames Fox, dean of the Northeastern College of Criminal Justice, said this year's FBI analysis focused on murders by strangers at the expense of some more important trends.\n\n\"There are two trends going different directions, and they miss it entirely,\" he said. \"The (murder) rate among is skyrocketing, and the rate among adults is plummeting.\"\n\nOne newspaper that did not lead with the FBI's contention was the New York Times. In his story on the 1993 data, reporter Keith Bradsher noted, \"a declining percentage of murder victims were clearly killed by family members or people with whom they were romantically involved. But because the relationship between murderer and the victim could not be determined in two of five cases, the figures on romantic and family killings may not be representative of national trends in actual killings.\"\n\nBradsher is not a reporter who covers crime. In fact, it's the only crime piece he recalled writing.\n\n\"It was a case of reading carefully,\" he said. \"I did my master's in public policy and economics. They taught us you don't just look at the statistics, you look at how they were defined. You don't just take numbers and run with it.\"", "provenance": { "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6", "extracted_at": "2026-07-05", "verified": true }, "similar": [ { "slug": "1995-march-go-up-the-database-staircase", "score": 0.318 }, { "slug": "2002-november-december-access-forms-help-build-inspections-database", "score": 0.172 }, { "slug": "2001-mayjune-truck-safety", "score": 0.156 }, { "slug": "1991-june-the-safe-and-the-sorry-working-in-ohio", "score": 0.139 }, { "slug": "1992-april-bytes-bits-and-nibbles", "score": 0.136 } ], "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1995-march-the-case-of-the-unknown-stranger.html", "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1995-march-the-case-of-the-unknown-stranger.json" }