Thank you for creating this homepage for Eric’s case! We will be promoting it on social media for the family.
Could anyone tell me what the criteria is for the cases to referred to the FBI?
Hello, it depends on the offense. For murder, there is no federal offense of murder so the FBI doesn’t investigate murders directly. They do have technical things they can assist and support a primary agency but state level law enforcement agency will always be the primary agency because the laws against murder are on the state level. There are some creating things with drugs and guns that the FBI can get involved in but you won’t see them as taking over as the primary agency in a murder investigation.
I hope that helps!
Thanks for the quick response and feedback.
Good morning,
One of the tasks listed on the site is VICAP entry, could you explain how this process would work and assist the case?
Great question! ViCAP stands for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and it is a program run by the FBI that collects data on solved and unsolved homicides, especially those involving a kidnapping or if they are apparently motiveless, sexual or random, or suspected to be part of a series.
The database attempts to identify possible offenders or patterns in crimes to make links and develop possible matches. It is not accessible by the public and is law enforcement only which means the lead agency for Eric’s case should evaluate if the case should be entered into ViCAP (if they haven’t already done so).
You’re awesome! The information is a value add as always.