Hi,
I hope that it's OK to post this! I used to work as a statistician and recently have watched a lot (approx 40) Disappeared episodes. I wanted to post in the off chance that someone has had similar thoughts to me. I'm sure all of this has already been realised by LE, people with more expertise than me etc but it is interesting and potentially helpful hopefully.
Having watched a number of these cases one thing stood out to me - the patterns and ways in which people disappear and how they are sadly found. I will say that with Disappeared first of all there appears to be a massive bias with cherry picking the cases that are shown in this programme! I was under the impression (I don't know very much about missing people) that most people who went missing were from black or minority ethnic groups and on Disappeared the majority appear to be white middle class women. I will not add my thoughts on why I think this is is apart from to say that I think this is quite sad and I think resources should be split equally irrespective of gender, race, age or who the person is etc.
Please note these are just my thoughts that I am developing and I need to do way more research with cases other than Disappeared for it to be accurate or representative,
These are the factors that I think play a role:
1. gender. There is a very strong difference between male and female disappearances.
Female - husband, boyfriend, male friend, friend of an acquaintance, someone located in the building, male who has had contact with the victim through work or a club. Seems to be more of an intentional disappearance.
Other factors:
drug use
disruption of a journey (car breakdown, being in an unfamiliar place).
mental illness especially untreated mental illness and recently untreated mental illness or recently unable or choosing not to access medication
previous contact with LE
sex work (no judgement, it just seems to involve association with dangerous opportunistic people)
lack of sleep or disruption to routine
change of routine in preceding days (recent)
non-working mobile phone or in an area with no mobile phone reception
a journey longer than normal
interest in hiking
proximity to remote area
for women, a break up or potential break up or recent break up or wanting to leave/initiating leaving.
for women, current partner change of circumstances
for women, meeting a new person, going on a date at a new location.
for women, history of domestic violence, pattern of escalating incidents.
for women, separation from friends.
for men, going to national parks.
previous suicidal behaviour
trying to get back home/return home.
for men, recent argument or disturbance with an acquaintance.
for men, money issues or being on the periphery of dangerous events.
Now for me, the most important thing - where are people found?
I was massively struck by one thing - when people disappear by walking off, just how close people tend to be found to their last known location and how they seem to follow certain landmarks. The landmarks are: bodies of water, sources of shade, numerous other things.
When people have been sadly murdered, the pattern seems to be - close to a road, a location previously known to the killer, a family member's property, adjacent to a family member's property, body of water previous visited by suspect, other factors.
The factors that seem to influence how far people go -
< 1 mile from last known location
1 - 1.5 miles from last known location
2 miles from last known location
> 2 miles from last known location.
Age, fitness, drug use, previous involvement in military, experience as a hiker or involvement in sports past recreational level.
The thing I most want to look into is the patterns regarding location from last known sighting. I feel that if this could all be analysed with up-to-date information to March 2023, it could be potentially useful to someone as it could narrow the search area more accurately. As areas are so hard to search it could be useful. I'm sure someone has already done this and people have spent hours on it, but I do feel that hours spent on this may potentially be more helpful than hours actually physically searching, as there is often too much area to cover and it would narrow it down so much. I'm just saying that you cannot search everywhere, so you have to make decisions on where to focus the search, and the more data that goes into this the better. People think that one mile is a short distance but it is a huge area to cover unless you know the direction in which someone has definitely gone (and not altered course either). Actually, I believe it is still a massive area to cover knowing that.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Should I try to analyse this or do you think no one would be interested and I am wasting my time? I would be prepared to back it up with figures.
I hope that it's OK to post this! I used to work as a statistician and recently have watched a lot (approx 40) Disappeared episodes. I wanted to post in the off chance that someone has had similar thoughts to me. I'm sure all of this has already been realised by LE, people with more expertise than me etc but it is interesting and potentially helpful hopefully.
Having watched a number of these cases one thing stood out to me - the patterns and ways in which people disappear and how they are sadly found. I will say that with Disappeared first of all there appears to be a massive bias with cherry picking the cases that are shown in this programme! I was under the impression (I don't know very much about missing people) that most people who went missing were from black or minority ethnic groups and on Disappeared the majority appear to be white middle class women. I will not add my thoughts on why I think this is is apart from to say that I think this is quite sad and I think resources should be split equally irrespective of gender, race, age or who the person is etc.
Please note these are just my thoughts that I am developing and I need to do way more research with cases other than Disappeared for it to be accurate or representative,
These are the factors that I think play a role:
1. gender. There is a very strong difference between male and female disappearances.
Female - husband, boyfriend, male friend, friend of an acquaintance, someone located in the building, male who has had contact with the victim through work or a club. Seems to be more of an intentional disappearance.
Other factors:
drug use
disruption of a journey (car breakdown, being in an unfamiliar place).
mental illness especially untreated mental illness and recently untreated mental illness or recently unable or choosing not to access medication
previous contact with LE
sex work (no judgement, it just seems to involve association with dangerous opportunistic people)
lack of sleep or disruption to routine
change of routine in preceding days (recent)
non-working mobile phone or in an area with no mobile phone reception
a journey longer than normal
interest in hiking
proximity to remote area
for women, a break up or potential break up or recent break up or wanting to leave/initiating leaving.
for women, current partner change of circumstances
for women, meeting a new person, going on a date at a new location.
for women, history of domestic violence, pattern of escalating incidents.
for women, separation from friends.
for men, going to national parks.
previous suicidal behaviour
trying to get back home/return home.
for men, recent argument or disturbance with an acquaintance.
for men, money issues or being on the periphery of dangerous events.
Now for me, the most important thing - where are people found?
I was massively struck by one thing - when people disappear by walking off, just how close people tend to be found to their last known location and how they seem to follow certain landmarks. The landmarks are: bodies of water, sources of shade, numerous other things.
When people have been sadly murdered, the pattern seems to be - close to a road, a location previously known to the killer, a family member's property, adjacent to a family member's property, body of water previous visited by suspect, other factors.
The factors that seem to influence how far people go -
< 1 mile from last known location
1 - 1.5 miles from last known location
2 miles from last known location
> 2 miles from last known location.
Age, fitness, drug use, previous involvement in military, experience as a hiker or involvement in sports past recreational level.
The thing I most want to look into is the patterns regarding location from last known sighting. I feel that if this could all be analysed with up-to-date information to March 2023, it could be potentially useful to someone as it could narrow the search area more accurately. As areas are so hard to search it could be useful. I'm sure someone has already done this and people have spent hours on it, but I do feel that hours spent on this may potentially be more helpful than hours actually physically searching, as there is often too much area to cover and it would narrow it down so much. I'm just saying that you cannot search everywhere, so you have to make decisions on where to focus the search, and the more data that goes into this the better. People think that one mile is a short distance but it is a huge area to cover unless you know the direction in which someone has definitely gone (and not altered course either). Actually, I believe it is still a massive area to cover knowing that.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Should I try to analyse this or do you think no one would be interested and I am wasting my time? I would be prepared to back it up with figures.
