SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Thomas K. Hargrove is a retired Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist and former White House correspondent. He founded the nonprofit Murder Accountability Project (MAP) in 2015 to track unsolved homicides nationwide.
While working as a national correspondent for the Scripps Howard News Service, Hargrove developed an algorithm that uses FBI homicide data to identify clusters of murders with an elevated probability of containing serial killings. Authorities in Youngstown, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana, opened new homicide investigations in 2010 because of Hargrove’s findings. The algorithm’s identification of 15 unsolved strangulations in the area was corroborated in 2014 with the arrest of Darren Deon Vann, who confessed to killing women for decades. He then took police to abandoned properties where the bodies of six previously unknown strangulation victims were recovered.
Working with fellow board member Prof. David J. Icove of the University of Tennessee, Hargrove developed another algorithm that can review the National Fire Incident Reporting System to identify undetected or unreported arsons. Working with Prof. Guido H. Stempel III of Ohio University, Hargrove co-founded the Scripps Survey Research Center and co-edited a two-volume encyclopedia The 21st Century Voter: Who Votes, How They Vote and Why They Vote published by ABC-CLIO in late 2015.
INTERVIEW
LYNN: As an investigative journalist, did you work directly on murder cases? If so, which one stands out the most and why?
THOMAS: My first job in journalism was as a crime reporter at the Birmingham Post-Herald newspaper in Alabama. At the time (late 1970s-early 1980s) , the entire South was transfixed by the Atlanta child murders. The Atlanta Police Department was criticized for not recognizing sooner that too many killings of young black males were going unsolved. It’s a phenomenon criminologists call “linkage blindness.” If someone is murdered, a detective is assigned to the case. When someone else is killed, a different investigator is assigned. If both victims had a common killer, it’s unlikely detectives will compare notes to discover commonalities. It is such a common problem that many criminologists fear most homicidal series remain unconnected.
LYNN: In layman’s language, can you describe what the Murder Accountability project is and why it exists?
THOMAS: The Murder Accountability Project is a small, all-volunteer nonprofit organization that seeks to document every homicide committed in the United States. We do this by starting with crime data reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from police departments that voluntarily participate in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR).
We then augment those data by contacting non-participating departments under the Freedom of Information Act or Open Records Act and asking that they report case-level and summary-level data to us. If necessary, we go to court. We’ve filed litigation against the Illinois State Police and, surprisingly, against the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies that fail to participate in UCR reporting. So far, we’ve gathered case-level details on nearly 40,000 homicides that were not reported to the UCR.
LYNN: How can the data you use help law enforcement and/or help the public?
THOMAS: Police investigators and supervisors often use our datasets (available at www.murderdata.org) to look for cases that may be of interest to them for a variety of reasons, including possible serial crimes. We also hope the general public will go to our website to determine the homicide clearance rates in their own communities.
The national clearance rate in 2023 was only 58 percent, which is one of the worst in the industrialized world. Increasingly, people live in areas where most murders go unsolved. We hope our data will become a political force to prompt improvements in how we fund and track law enforcement. We’ve found the murder rate usually declines when clearance rates improve. We at MAP have a mantra for this: “Solving Murders Saves Lives.”
LYNN: What motivated you to create the Murder Accountability Project? Why is it important?
THOMAS: America does a poor job tracking and accounting for its unsolved homicides. Every year, at least 5,000 killers get away with murder. The rate at which police clear homicides through arrest has declined over the years until, today, nearly half go unsolved. As a result, more than 316,000 Americans have perished in unsolved homicides committed since 1970 — more than the combined death toll of all U.S. military actions since World War II.
No one knows all the names of these victims because no law enforcement agency in America is assigned to monitor failed homicide investigations by local police departments. Even the official national statistics on murder are estimates and projections based upon incomplete reports by police departments that voluntarily choose (or refuse) to participate in federal crime reporting programs.
The Murder Accountability Project is a nonprofit group organized in 2015 and dedicated to educating Americans on the importance of accurately accounting for unsolved homicides within the United States.
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"Time may fade the memories, but it can never erase the pain of unsolved mysteries."
--The Book of Cold Cases
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LYNN: On the website you talk about Murder Data that would allow someone to consider whether a serial killer may be active within a specific community. Can you explain how that works?
THOMAS: MAP has two portals at www.murderdata.org that permit users to look for serial killings. First is the “Search Cases” tab, allowing review of case-level details for any county or city in the nation. Select victim characteristics (sex, race, age ranges) and method of killing (weapon). Then look for a large number of red bars indicating many or most of these killings were not solved. Be sure to read the “How to Use” tab to explain how to use this system and to download data.
The second is an interactive algorithm MAP created to automate the search for serial cases. Go to the “County Clusters” under the “Murder Clusters” tab. You’ll note a large circle over Long Island, New York. These are some of the murders already acknowledged by police to be the work of the Long Island Serial Killer or LISK. You can download those cases using the techniques described at “How to Use.”
LYNN: You also mention that if someone were doing research on everything the FBI knew about the Gary Ridgway killings (for instance), they could use this ‘murder data’ to find what they’re looking for. Is there an easy way to explain how that works?
THOMAS: Specifically, on the cases of Green River Killer Gary Ridgway, go to “County Clusters” under “Murder Clusters.” Set the year slider to 1980-2000. Hover over the Seattle, Washington, area and note the 71 homicides involving women killed by “Other or type unknown” weapons. These victims were exposed to weather, causing difficulties for medical examiners to determine the exact cause of death. Download these files as described at “How to Use.” You now have all the information reported by police to the Uniform Crime Report about these cases.
LYNN: What is a murder cluster and why is it useful?
THOMAS: MAP has determined it is very useful to cluster homicides according to geography (most serial killers are active in a specific area), victim sex, method of killing and, importantly, how often murders in each cluster was solved by arresting the offender. We’ve learned that clusters with very low clearance rates often reflect serial activity.
LYNN: Why is America so much worse in solving homicides than other countries?
THOMAS: This is a complicated problem. First, America has a much higher murder rate compared to most other industrialized nations. The reasons for this are hotly debated. But what is not under debate is that more than 18,000 murders reported to the FBI in 2023 overwhelmed the limited resources of America’s police departments. Working as hard as they could with limited resources, police were able to clear only 58 percent of these killings that year.
Further complicating clearance rates are the limit layers of support provided when a case goes unsolved. For most of America, if local police fail to close a murder, the case then goes onto the growing Cold Case pile. In a few places, however, police have close working relationships with state authorities who can provide additional resources. We believe this is why the state of Texas has a much higher historical clearance rate than does California.
LYNN: What’s the greatest success you’ve realized at MAP?
THOMAS: Probably the spotlight MAP helped focus on 51 strangulations of women in Chicago from 2001 to 2018, many of whom were drug addicts, sex workers or both. We believe most of these homicides were committed by serial killers, especially convicted Indiana serial killer Darren Deon Vann, who told investigators he killed “way more” people in Illinois. (See Vann’s taped confession at our news feed.)
LYNN: What’s the next step for MAP?
THOMAS: We hope to successfully conclude our nearly five-year lawsuit against the FBI, Justice Department, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Department of Defense for the thousands of homicides federal law enforcement have failed to report to the Uniform Crime Report. This is in violation of the Uniform Federal Crime Reporting Act of 1988, an act of Congress that has been completely ignored by most federal law enforcement agencies.
LYNN: Thomas, thank you so much! I doubt many of my readers were even aware of your organization; I sure wasn't. And yet, it seems like you're doing such important work. Thanks again
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