Investigating Leads

Stage 6 – Investigating Leads

As the next stage in the investigation process this stage focuses on investigating leads that have been generated.

Any forensic evidence collected from the crime scene that have produced a lead, such as fingerprints, DNA profile etc would be followed up by the police in the hope of identifying a suspect or new line of enquiry.  Any witness/witnesses at the crime scene will have been interviewed and their statement corroborated as far as it was possible at that time. 

The police will try to identify and locate further witnesses to the crime or suspects in order to gain further intelligence which is then processed and finally used to trace, investigate, eliminate (TIE) witnesses or suspects. 

They do this by viewing any CCTV footage that may be available, conducting house-to-house enquiries in the local vicinity to the crime which may uncover further witnesses to the crime, conducting appeals through the local or national media (depending on the nature of the crime) which may bring a witness /witnesses forward who did not realise they were a witness who may hold valuable evidence/information as well as a suspect/s the police were unaware of, investigating the victims financial records to ascertain the victims financial status and whether this may have a bearing on the case-i.e. in debt, the pathologists report will contain information regarding the deceased victim (if applicable) that may have an impact on the way the investigation proceeds, such as; how the victim was killed, what weapon (if any) was used, what the victims last meal was, trace evidence found on the body etc will all need to be investigated.

The police will have a witness and victim strategy.  The victim, if applicable, will be asked to give a statement containing as much information the victim can recall regarding the crime.  A witness will be interviewed following the PEACE model with the aim of listening to the witnesses’ account of events, clarifying or challenging that account in order to gain as much information that is relevant to the investigation.

The objective of this stage is to evaluate all of the intelligence and evidence collected in order to identify witnesses and a potential suspect/s with the aim of linking the evidence to a suspect/s.

This is an essential stage of the investigation process that may have been carried out earlier, if a suspect was immediately identified, it is where the witnesses value and suspect/s may be identified.  If all leads are not investigated correctly it may lead to no suspect being identified then charged and prosecuted or an acquittal at the trial.

In the case of Aileen Wuornos there were numerous investigative leads that needed to be followed, such as the analysis of fingerprints identified on the beer cans located in the vehicles of some of the victims that would need to be analysed in order to identify a match which would subsequently require the police to apprehend the suspect. 

The witnesses that were interviewed by the police would have provided information that would enable the police to form a picture of who was involved in the death of these victims.  While the forensic evidence shows that each victim was shot and that the same calibre weapon was used on each victim.  This is leading the investigation down the road of the person who is committing these murders is motivated by sex or in order to rob the victims.  All of the crimes have a clear modus operandi; have been committed by the same person with sex or money the motivation for each crime.