Identification of clandestine grave sites by understanding location choices from an environmental and psychological perspective

Nikita T Price

Victims of homicide may be disposed of by their offenders in the form of a clandestine grave site. Discovering these grave sites comes with a series of difficulties for investigators, due to their nature, and their purpose of being undetectable. Locating clandestine grave sites requires a multidisciplinary and multifaceted approach, with heavy emphasis on the relationship of environmental factors and offender decision-making. Understanding these factors is crucial in improving apprehension by enforcement and preventing this type of offending in the future. Current criminological and forensic approaches are discussed to review why, where, and how offenders choose specific locations for their victim burials, and what techniques are used to locate these burials, respectively. These current approaches, provide insight into how criminals behave throughout their environment, creating patterns and trends, that can be supported by behavioural prediction models and statistical methods. The successfulness relies on applying a combination of crimino-forensic approaches. Winthropping, an adapted approach to locating clandestine grave sites, combines both approaches, by implementing psychological and environmental theories in understanding behaviours of offenders, whilst maintaining objectiveness through forensic awareness to aid in predicting locations of grave sites. This review examines this relative to the proposed research of identifying what geographical characteristics and landmarks individuals use to select a clandestine grave site location within a chosen environment, and how they shape their behaviour, choices and pathway in the process, a current research gap within the literature. The potential impact of this research is that it may reduce investigators reliance on offenders revealing their burial locations and provide a new, independent method to use for current cases.

Identification of clandestine grave sites by understanding location choices from an environmental and psychological perspective

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