Crowdsourcing Solves a Murder Mystery

Photo Credit: Waynesboro Police Department

When 57-year-old Betty Wheeler was hit by a car and killed a few weeks ago, police knew the chances of finding the perpetrators were slim. The only evidence the driver left was the shard of metal you see above, which had broken off in the collision. Car parts are notoriously difficult to identify, what with the vast numbers of makes and models available, many made with similar-looking parts. So without a good way for the police to find the specific car this piece came from, they turned to the crowd.

Automotive news site Jalopnik picked up the story, and urged readers to help. And help they did; the comments section exploded with helpful automotive gurus who practically clambered over each other to identify this piece. And in a matter of days, one vigilant commenter correctly identified the part as belonging to a Ford F-150. Although a common truck, this identification helped police narrow their search, and it was only a matter of time before they located the vehicle that had a chunk missing in the exact size and shape of this broken metal shard. Truly, a film noir Cinderella story.

None of us are as smart (or dumb!) as all of us, so stories like these are a great example of how a team can use crowdsourcing to add to their available knowledge base. Without the vast and deep knowledge the crowd possessed, police may have never located the perpetrators of this heinous crime. The takeaway lesson: when a project requires specific, detailed knowledge of one particular thing, crowdsourcing essentially provides a library of research, conveniently mobilized because it happens to be attached to five thousand dedicated individuals.

Facewatch: Crowdsourced Crimefighting Revisited

© Penny Matthews

Do you remember that story arc in the Batman/Superman comic (#53-56) where they switched powers, and Batman went kinda nuts because he finally had the ability to fight every crime? No? It’s a good one, look it up.

My point is this: if Batman can’t be everywhere at once, the police definitely can’t. This is why we see platforms like iPaidABribe and the Syrian Sexual Assault Crowdmap; the crowd can be the eyes for the police and fill in where the normal service may not be enough.

This is the drive behind Facewatch, which seeks to reduce some of the petty crimes that business owners may experience. These crimes, the website claims, are small, committed serially, and recurring, meaning that they bleed the company over a long time and are very difficult to catch. Facewatch speeds up the process by allowing businesses to submit their crime evidence (victim statements, CCTV footage and stills) directly to the police instead of filing an official report and waiting.

After the victim reports the crime, Facewatch goes a few steps further to help ensure it is solved and won’t happen again. They circulate images of the perpetrator to local businesses and industry networks, since many criminals use the same tactics on multiple locations. For the victim, Facewatch provides an instant crime reference number for insurance, email updates about the status of the case, and a one-phone-call process to cancel and replace any stolen cards.

As the brand becomes more fleshed out, simply having a “Facewatch” sticker on an establishment’s window will deter crime. And while it’s great to see places like Africa, Syria, and India embrace citizen police work, it’s good to see it being applied to a context the average American can relate to a little more strongly. Anyone who has had their wallet lifted has wished there was a better way to recover it; now there is.