BBC Uses Skype Links In Murder Hunt

Nico M writes "The highly publicized UK murder hunt for the serial killer(s) of five young sex workers in Suffolk is using Skype to ask the public for information. BBC News is embedding freephone Skype links to both the police incident room and Crimestoppers UK. Is this the first time Skype has been used in this way?"

Mobile Phone Tracking

[MrSteveSD]

I wonder if the murderer was stupid enough to have a mobile phone with him when he dumped the bodies. All you would have to do is do a search of all mobile phones that have been in those particular cells at the estimated times of death of each victim. The bodies were dumped in the surrounding countryside so it might narrow it down to a few phones. Another possible line of attack is that the murderer's mobile phone would have been in the same cell as each victims mobile phone for some amount of time. Once you have his mobile number, the game is up. Even if it was not purchased in his name, the phone would spend most of its time where he lives, so it would be simple to narrow it down to the row of houses where he lives.

Re:Sex workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

To "protect" the innocence of the women who would be whoring themselves on the streets, of course! As opposed to the capitalistic whoring done in other fields. . . .

In sparsely populated towns in Nevada it is legal, but only in brothels. IMHO I'd rather blow several hundred bucks on a coupling with a gorgeous professional "sex worker" than in a casino (I still haven't gotten around to mastering the art of counting cards, which means the odds are in the house's favor), but perhaps that is just me. Actually, I'd rather have the latest in graphics card technology...*sigh*. Geek.

Re:Sex workers?

[notwrong]

I hate to say it, but better illegal than legal *and* legally recognized by the State as a "normal" profession like in Germany. There was the recent case of an unemployed lady there who was refused continuing unemployment benefits because she didn't take a job as a "sex worker." (Cite: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne [telegraph.co.uk] ws/2005/01/30/wgerm30.xml ) I'd be ok if it were legal for the purpose of harm reduction but not overtly encouraged by the State.

That seems like a much better argument for "legal but voluntary" than "illegal". The police in the US must waste so much time trying to stamp out something that is never, ever going to go away. Here in New South Wales (the most populous state in Australia), prostitution has been legal for decades. It's not like there isn't still a social stigma attached, but I find it hard to see how throwing criminal sanctions into the mix is helpful.

Re:Why do people suddenly care?

[TheoMurpse]

This women have been suffering for ages now. And have been killed by all sorts of people before. Why do people suddenly care about them?

You seem to be implying (albeit unintentionally) that our only justifiable course of action is to continue to ignore their plight. Also, if you think that police have not cared about the murder of prostitutes before, I'd like to direct you to information about Jack the Ripper [wikipedia.org], who killed exclusively prostitutes in the late 1800s.

Furthermore, are you implying that we are only allowed to care about a person's murder if we also took steps to improve their lot in life? I don't know about the UK, but in the US we have something called welfare [wikipedia.org] that a woman could live in on instead of prostituting herself. We also have student loans [wikipedia.org] to go to college (including extremely cheap community college) and free public education. Anyone who becomes a prostitute sure doesn't become one for lack of opportunity. He or she either makes a conscious decision to get some fast money and then gets caught up in the system of crime (or, perhaps in a few cases, just really loves sex), is forced into the system through slavery, or isn't told about FAFSA opportunities.

If it is slavery, we already have laws banning that, and there is enforcement of the laws in the US. Perhaps, because there is a lot of slavery and human trafficking we don't know about (and it is difficult to detect often), there is a lot of forced prostitution we just don't know about or cannot track down.

If it is for the love of sex, well, shouldn't a woman or man be allowed to make that decision for themself?

If it is for the lack of information about financial aid, I don't know how it could be improved -- every high school I've been to in the US has posters on the walls about the program. And "welfare" is a household word in the US.

If it is someone who got caught up in the system and is now trapped in the system, this is the same as the aforementioned slavery case, and all cases have now been reduced to two: slavery or willful participation. The only one we should care about remedying (excluding moral objections to prostitution -- which not everyone has, e.g. Las Vegas and the Netherlands) is slavery/human trafficking, and I think government already actively cracks down on that sort of thing.

Thus, it seems that the US government (I cannot vouch for the UK government, as I do not know what the UK does for human trafficking within its borders) does, in fact, care about these woman (perhaps not personally, but as a whole) with regards to public policy decisions and legislation.

Re:Why yes...

[metamatic]

Do you actually know any CEOs? I do, along with various other people in high positions in companies. Contrary to the popular belief, most of these people are extremely hard-working, extremely ethical people.

...who collectively feel like they deserve to be paid more than 400x as much as a regular worker [faireconomy.org], then outsource our jobs to India. But of course, you never see their jobs being outsourced, even though I'm sure China and India have plenty of business school graduates who could do the job for a hundredth of the money. That's why we hate them.