QUANTICO, Va. -- FBI agents are trying to teach computers how to spot serial killers, enlisting artificial intelligence to identify patterns in the nation's growing number of unsolved homicides.
The process - called automated case matching - is the brainchild of a small cadre of crime researchers at the bureau's famed Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (or ViCAP) housed in a row of unmarked office buildings near the Quantico Marine Training Base south of Washington, D.C.
Federal authorities hope computers can sift through more than 60,000 unsolved homicides currently in ViCAP records, looking for common clues that would link one killer to multiple crimes. Detectives nationwide log 3,000 new killings of the roughly 6,000 unsolved cases each year into the system to discover if their homicides are similar to killings in other areas.
