Murder Mysteries

• NEW! Mass murder rises as other killings decline
• NEW! Mass murder incidents by state - 1980-2008
• NEW! A child dies every day in an unsolved homicide
• NEW! Solution rates for child homicides vary by sex, race, age
• NEW! Unsolved homicide resources; crime support group information
• NEW! Child murders: a state-by-state accounting
• Sloppy reporting prevails for America's unsolved homicides
• Some police departments fail to tell FBI when they solve homicides
• Many 'best practices' known to improve murder investigations
• Father still thinks of revenge years after son's homicide
• Victim's age, sex, race affect homicide clearance rates
• One in nine Americans knows the victim of an unsolved homicide
• Yearly homicides and clearance rates from 1980-2008
• FBI's estimated homicide clearance rates from 1965-2008
• Gender, age, ethnic breakdown of homicide statistics
• State-by-state breakdown of homicide clearance rates
• Editorial: Killers don't have to get away with murder
• Graphical Database: Murder Mysteries

How Local TV Stations and Newspapers Reported the Murder Mysteries Project

Image Gallery: How the Scripps newspapers and TV stations examined homicides across the nation

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Searchable Database: Murders across the U.S.

Search through more than 540,000 homicides across the U.S. using the drop-down boxes below to narrow by state and county. Filter the results using the tabs underneath.

Awards for this project

Finalist: IRE Freedom of Information Act Award

Finalist: Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award (PDF)

Despite dramatic improvements in DNA analysis and other breakthroughs in forensic science, police fail to make an arrest in more than one-third of all homicides. National clearance rates for murder and manslaughter have fallen from about 90 percent in the 1960s to below 65 percent in recent years.