Texas State University’s Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation (GII) has partnered with the Austin Police Department to conduct an evidence-based and scientific study of deaths that have occurred in Lady Bird Lake over the last several years, with the goal of understanding the nature and cause of these incidents and any possible connection to a serial killer, nicknamed the “Rainey Street Ripper” on social media.
The complete report may be found at https://hdl.handle.net/10877/21901.
Kim Rossmo, Ph.D., the director of GII, conducted the analysis. Professor Rossmo has studied and researched serial murder for over three decades and currently teaches university classes on cold case investigations and serial murder. As a retired detective inspector, he has worked operationally on a number of serial murder cases. He played a key role in analyzing the pattern of missing women in Vancouver, British Columbia, concluding they were most likely the victims of a serial murderer (it was eventually determined the women were victims of the Pig Farmer serial killer, the worst such case in Canadian history).
The project used geospatial and time-based analytic methods, including statistical clustering techniques from epidemiology for identifying disease outbreaks. The project was completely independent, and TXST and the APD remain committed to making public the results of the analysis.
The theory that a serial killer has been drowning young men in the Rainey Street/Lady Bird Lake area of Austin has been aggressively promoted by social and mainstream media for more than two years. Much of this coverage criticized the failure of authorities to recognize the threat of a violent offender. While police must properly respond to any risks of a predator, they also must follow the evidence and ensure they are not leveraging resources in pursuing non-existent criminals.
There is substantial research on serial murder and its investigation. Established methodologies exist for identifying serial crimes and valid techniques have been developed for crime linkage analysis (determining which incidents are linked to which other incidents). GII and the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at TXST are committed to contributing their knowledge and expertise to enhance public safety and justice in Texas.