Materials for the study of the locus operandi in the search for missing persons in Italy

Abstract

Geographic profiling, or locus operandi, is a scientific approach that has been applied to forensic investigations for several years. However, it has never been applied to a phenomenon as complex as the search for missing persons. This article presents three Italian case studies in which geographic profiling was used to narrow the areas to search for missing persons. The geographical data were mapped and processed on a geographic information system platform using computational geometry analysis. However, these disappearances occurred during the Italian lockdown period, imposed to address the COVID-19 outbreak, which made the searches slower and more complex than usual.

Keywords

• forensic sciences
• geographic profiling
• locus operandi
• geographic information systems
• missing persons