How do we categorize a missing person whose disappearance is likely attributed to foul play?

In the abstract for her article entitled, The Missing Missing – Toward a Quantification of Serial Murder Victimization in the United States, Kenna Quinet states, “Although early attempts to estimate the number of serial murder victims in the United States varied greatly and were exaggerated, current estimates may actually underestimate the number of serial murder victims. This study provides extrapolation from existing databases including missing persons, unidentified dead, and misidentified dead to estimate uncounted serial murder victims.

In addition to providing lower and upper estimates of possible victims from these sources, this article also provides a methodology for counting “the missing missing”—missing persons who were never reported as missing and some of whom may be serial murder victims. By counting various sources of possible hidden serial murder victims, the addition of a lower estimate of 182 and an upper estimate of 1,832 additional annual serial murder victims in the United States is suggested.”

In the 1980s, the numbers of possible serial murders were inflated. The factors that affected this included:

Beliefs that stranger homicides were the result of serial killers
Beliefs that unknown offender homicides were the result of serial killers.
Political agendas –
The FBI wanted its Behavioral Science Unit to have authority over serial murders and wanted to expand federal authority to other serial crimes such as arson and rape;
feminists drew on serial murder to highlight the victimization of women
get-tough-on-crime and death- penalty advocates used the heinous nature of serial murder to call for stricter sentences
religious groups used serial homicides as a warning about the evils of Satanism
all forms of media made money from the public’s interest in the crime (Jenkins, 2005).

We know now that these numbers are lower but there are still open ended issues that demonstrate the need for more focused investigations on key areas.

How do we detect additional deaths when a caregiver’s charge dies suddenly?
How do we count an unidentified dead body whose cause of death may be homicide?
How do we categorize a missing person whose disappearance is likely attributed to foul play?

It is believed that the number of serial killer victims may be underestimated due to what we don’t thoroughly track details on –