She had reasoned that a single killing generated a lot of single data points—time of death, murder weapon, age of victim, and so on—but that a murderer with multiple victims committed a series of data-generating events that repeated themselves. To a woman like Phyllis Windom, each serial killer was operating under a personal algorithm that was hard for human beings to perceive in the pile of data generated by all of America’s killers. But if she turned all that information over to a computer? She believed it would find patterns in those data sets that could be used to track down some of the most terrifying people who ever lived.
No. That was wrong. She didn’t just believe that she could find patterns that identified serial killers. She knew it for a fact.
She knew it because she had found the most notorious serial killer in North Carolina by combing through publicly available data, and she’d done it from the comfort of her bedroom. Much of her information came from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, which was like a playground for a data scientist with a certain morbid mindset. Once she was comfortable that her work was solid, she’d built a website and had given her database and search algorithm to the public for free.
The article on Faye’s screen gave Windom’s website address, saving Faye the trouble of searching the Internet for it. She entered through the public login portal and started working her way through Windom’s database, using search strings and drop-down menus.
She found the Corinth murder immediately and spent some time studying the file. The victim had been petite, female, African-American, and in her mid-twenties, just like Frida, but so, tragically, were a lot of murder victims. Everything Sylvia had told Faye was correct. The unidentified woman had been found in July in a church graveyard and she’d been bludgeoned with an unidentified weapon. She had not been raped and there had been no evidence for robbery as a motive.
The victim buried in an Arkansas state park, however, did not come up in a search of Windom’s database. This was not a surprise. Windom herself had put a big “Help Wanted” banner on her home page, with a caption saying:
Police budgets are tight. Reporting often falls through the cracks. None of the databases I’ve tapped to build my own data set is complete. If you know of a case that should be here, WRITE ME. “Big Data” is nothing but individual data points. Send me your data, and you may save lives.
Faye shot off an e-mail to Phyllis Windom, telling her everything she knew about the Arkansas murder victim and about Frida. Then she started exploring Windom’s database.
First, she searched “Unsolved murders in Mississippi,” “Unsolved murders in Arkansas,” “Unsolved murders in Tennessee,” just to get a sense of the scope of the problem. Her answer? The scope was big, too big for any one person or any one police department. Once a serial killer began roaming over a wide territory, it just might take an algorithm like this one to find the tracks the killer had left through the data.
Faye was no data scientist, so she just kept entering search strings and pushing go. What was she hoping for? A miracle, probably.
Missing women in Mississippi
Missing women in Arkansas
Missing women in Tennessee
There were just so many of them. This fact alone made Faye want to crawl into bed and resign from the human race.
The clock had rolled on past three when she started another round of random, fruitless searching.
Unidentified bodies in Mississippi
Unidentified bodies in Arkansas
Unidentified bodies in Tennessee
Again, there were just so many. She was getting nowhere and her body needed sleep, so she stomped on her desire to filter those searches by “Unidentified murder weapon” and “Body disposal by burial.”
Instead, she navigated back to the WRITE ME button and dashed off a second e-mail to Phyllis Windom.
I know of three women murdered and buried within an hour’s drive of Memphis. They were all bludgeoned in the summertime, one with a shovel and two with unidentified weapons. I’m working with your database, but I don’t know it well and I’m slow. One of the murders happened two days ago, so the clock is ticking. Can you help?
She included a signature line that identified her as a PhD archaeologist, which she hoped gave the subtle message of “I’m not crazy.” After pressing send and closing her computer, she wanted to sleep, but she couldn’t wipe her mind clean of all the unsolved killings she’d seen on her silent, glowing screen. Who did such things? More importantly to Faye, who had done such a thing right here in Memphis? And was it possible that the person who killed Frida had struck before, many times, and would strike again?
Or maybe McDaniel was right. Maybe Frida’s killing had been an isolated crime, committed by someone who knew her. If this was true, she would say that Linton was the prime suspect. He had a history of violence, both in the Navy and toward Frida herself. She could still feel the unwelcome touch of his finger on hers.
But there was something deeply disturbing about Mayfield’s sullen eyes.
On the other end of the charming-to-sullen continuum, it was hard to suspect the smooth and handsome Armand, but he was the last man known to have been near Frida, and that counted for something. Besides, serial killers were known for being charismatic. Ted Bundy lured dozens of women to their deaths with nothing more than a fake limp, a cane, and his satin-smooth patter.
But Faye’s mind wouldn’t stick with the three obvious suspects. It strayed. It considered every man she’d met since coming to Memphis.
There was Jeremiah, who was certainly big enough to overpower a woman Frida’s size. What did she know about him anyway?
There was also Kali’s teacher, Walt Walker. It
