TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2014//
TI  - Stochastic modeling of a serial killer
JO  - Journal of theoretical biology
A1  - Simkin, M. V.
A1  - Roychowdhury, V. P.
SP  - 111
EP  - 116
VL  - 355C
IS  - 
N2  - We analyze the time pattern of the activity of a serial killer, who during twelve years had murdered 53 people. The plot of the cumulative number of murders as a function of time is of "Devil's staircase" type. The distribution of the intervals between murders (step length) follows a power law with the exponent of 1.4. We propose a model according to which the serial killer commits murders when neuronal excitation in his brain exceeds certain threshold. We model this neural activity as a branching process, which in turn is approximated by a random walk. As the distribution of the random walk return times is a power law with the exponent 1.5, the distribution of the inter-murder intervals is thus explained. We illustrate analytical results by numerical simulation. Time pattern activity data from two other serial killers further substantiate our analysis.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0022-5193
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2014.03.039
ID  - ref1
ER  -