Before We Search for the Body, We Search for the Person: What Lost Person Behavior and Research-Based Forensic Victimology Have in Common
Recently, I visted in a canyon near West Hollywood. I saw lots of people out walking dogs and exercising. Then I thought about what happens when someone goes missing from such a densely populated, yet remote and steep area? It got me thinking about Lost Person Behavior compared to Forensic Victimology.
When a person disappears into the wilderness, experienced search managers don't begin by randomly deploying teams across a map.
They begin by asking questions about the missing person.
Who are we looking for?
How old are they?
What is their physical condition?
What were they doing before they disappeared?
Are they familiar with the terrain?
Do they have a history of wandering?
Are they injured, frightened, disoriented, or attempting to avoid being found?
These questions aren't simply background information. They help search managers develop a behavioral understanding of the missing person and determine where to begin looking. Ok great.
Now let’s consider a homicide investigation.
Who was the victim?
What were their daily routines?
Who did they associate with?
Where did they spend their time?
What relationships were important to them?
Were they experiencing conflict with someone?
Did they have vulnerabilities that may have influenced their exposure to danger?
What were they doing in the hours, days, and weeks before their death?
At first glance, wilderness search operations and homicide investigations may appear to have little in common. One involves searching for a missing person, while the other involves reconstructing the circumstances surrounding a death. Yet both disciplines depend upon understanding human behavior, but search and rescue doesn’t focus on that and to be quite honest, in many cases, neither do homicide investigators. Before we can understand where someone went, or what happened to them, we must first understand who they were. That is the connection I’ve discovered between Lost Person Behavior and my Research-Based Forensic Victimology method.
I was speaking with a colleague recently about Pettler’s Research-Based Forensic Victimology. He mentioned having given LPA’s Victimology form to detectives for use in a domestic violence related homicide. Soon they solved their case using it. Then the case was handed up to the AG’s Office review board. They called my colleague and said never have they received so much useful information about a victim, inquiring about where the form came from, etc. They invited my colleague to present LPA’s Victimology method in relation to crime scene reconstruction. Now, the LPA’s victimology process has been adopted as standard operating procedure for this police agency expanding LPA’s methods reach even further. We are making progress. Victimology is not just part of your investigation, it is the investigation. It’s why you’re there…the victim is missing or dead.
Lost Person Behavior: Understanding the Person We Are Searching For
Lost Person Behavior (LPB) is a research-informed approach to understanding how different categories of missing persons may behave after becoming lost or otherwise going missing. The discipline draws upon historical search-and-rescue incidents, documented subject behavior, environmental conditions, and statistical patterns to help search managers develop and prioritize search strategies. I’ve been reading and researching this topic for the past few years on my quest to learn professional NASAR-certified SAR methodology and as usual I must default to my cornerstone quote of being a lifelong learner, “The more I know, the more I know, I don’t know.”
A missing toddler doesn't necessarily behave like an experienced hiker. A person experiencing cognitive impairment may respond to their surroundings differently from a teenager who has intentionally left home. An injured hunter may face physical limitations that substantially affect how far they can travel.
Even individuals within the same behavioral category may respond differently depending upon their circumstances. The objective is not to assume that every missing person will behave in a predictable manner. Rather, it is to use available research and case-specific information to develop reasonable hypotheses about where the individual may have traveled, what decisions they may have made, and which environmental features may have influenced their movement.
Consider an experienced hiker who becomes disoriented after leaving an established trail. The search manager needs to understand more than the hiker's last known location. Their physical condition, familiarity with the area, available equipment, experience, intended destination, and potential responses to becoming lost may all influence the search strategy. Terrain, weather, daylight, water sources, roads, trails, and other environmental features may further influence the individual's movements. A search manager who understands these variables can use them to develop search priorities, while remaining prepared to revise those priorities as new information becomes available. The person is not simply a point on a map. They are an individual whose behavior, capabilities, circumstances, and environment may help explain where they went.
Research-Based Forensic Victimology: Understanding the Person Before the Crime
In homicide investigations, victimology is frequently reduced to collecting biographical information about the deceased. This is a grave error. Often a rookie move, but I’ve seen seasoned investigators with decades of the wrong experience do it over and over.
Typically, investigators document the victim's age, occupation, marital status, residence, employment history, and known relationships. They interview family members, identify associates, and attempt to establish the victim's activities before death. While this information is important, collecting biographical facts alone does not constitute a comprehensive forensic victimology. Pettler's Research-Based Forensic Victimology moves beyond describing the victim to examining how the victim's behavior, lifestyle, relationships, circumstances, and environment may have contributed to the events surrounding their death. The methodology incorporates empirical research, investigative findings, behavioral analysis, and case-specific evidence to develop a structured understanding of the victim. Rather than simply asking who the victim was, we examine how the victim lived. What did a typical day look like? Where did the victim spend their time? Who had access to them? What relationships involved conflict, dependency, intimacy, or opportunity? What behavioral patterns were established? Were there recent changes in the victim's routines, relationships, or circumstances?
At LPA, we also examine the victim's physical, psychological, social, and environmental circumstances to determine whether those factors have investigative significance. Importantly, identifying a vulnerability does not establish that it contributed to the death. Nor does identifying a particular lifestyle or behavior establish that the victim was responsible for the violence committed against them. The purpose is to understand the circumstances in which the victim lived and died, not to assign blame. A victim's lifestyle may help explain opportunities for offender access, the timing of an encounter, or the circumstances surrounding a critical incident. It may also reveal inconsistencies between the available evidence and an investigative theory. For example, if a victim consistently followed a particular routine but departed from that routine immediately before death, investigators should examine the circumstances surrounding that departure. Was the change voluntary? Was it prompted by another person? Was it consistent with a previously documented pattern? Could it have resulted from an unexpected event? The answers may help investigators identify additional witnesses, reconstruct the victim's movements, or evaluate competing explanations for what occurred. The victim's behavior provides investigative context. It does not, by itself, establish what happened.
Two Disciplines. One Behavioral Foundation.
Lost Person Behavior and Research-Based Forensic Victimology share an important investigative principle: understanding the individual helps us interpret the circumstances surrounding their disappearance or death. However, the two disciplines apply that principle to different investigative objectives.
Lost Person Behavior primarily supports the development of search strategies by examining how a missing person may behave under particular circumstances
Research-Based Forensic Victimology supports the reconstruction of a victim's life, activities, relationships, and circumstances to help investigators understand the events surrounding a suspected crime or death
One frequently looks forward from a last known location to develop hypotheses about where a missing person may be found. The other frequently looks backward from a critical incident to reconstruct the circumstances that preceded it. Both rely upon the systematic examination of behavior, the evaluation of available evidence, and the willingness to revise investigative hypotheses when new information becomes available.
What Happens When the Missing Person Becomes a Death Investigation?
This is where the relationship between Lost Person Behavior and Research-Based Forensic Victimology becomes particularly important from my perspective. Imagine that an adult disappears while hiking in a remote wilderness area. The initial investigation is treated as a missing-person incident. Search managers establish the person's last known location, gather information about their experience and physical capabilities, evaluate the surrounding terrain, and develop search priorities informed by Lost Person Behavior research. Several days later, the missing person is located deceased. The discovery of a body changes the investigative questions, but it does not render the original search information irrelevant. The person's known habits, intended route, physical capabilities, environmental exposure, and possible behavioral responses may help investigators reconstruct the circumstances preceding death. The location of the body must also be evaluated in relation to the person's last known location, the surrounding terrain, the condition of the remains, and the available physical evidence. Did the individual reach the recovery location through their own movement? Is the location consistent with their physical capabilities and the environmental conditions? Is there evidence of an injury, medical event, accident, or interaction with another person? Could the remains have been moved after death? These questions cannot be answered through behavioral research alone. They require the integration of scene findings, medical and autopsy evidence, environmental conditions, witness information, and other available investigative findings. However, the behavioral information collected during the missing-person investigation may provide valuable context for interpreting that evidence.
A death investigation should not automatically assume that the location where a body is recovered is the location where death occurred. Nor should investigators assume that an unexpected recovery location necessarily indicates criminal activity. The objective is to determine which explanation is supported by the totality of the evidence:
Lost Person Behavior may help explain how the person reached a particular location
Research-Based Forensic Victimology may help investigators understand the circumstances that brought the person to the critical incident
Together, these approaches can contribute to a more comprehensive reconstruction of the events surrounding the disappearance and death.
The Danger of Investigating Through Assumptions
I would be retired by now if I had a dollar for every assumption I’ve heard over the past 25 years in death investigation for what happened or how it happened. “What” is the most basic level of thinking. Most people are good at identifying the “what.” How is a bit trickier for many. Why is nearly impossible for most. It’s true. Ah the beauty of Bloom’s Taxonomy, forever may it reign.
One of the most significant challenges in both missing-person investigations and death investigations is the tendency to substitute assumptions for evidence. A search manager may hear that a missing person was an experienced outdoorsman and assume that the individual would never leave an established trail. A homicide investigator may hear that a victim had a stable marriage and assume that intimate partner violence could not have occurred. Neither conclusion is justified by the information provided.
Experience does not eliminate the possibility of becoming lost. A relationship's outward appearance does not establish what occurred within it. Similarly, an individual's behavioral history does not guarantee that they will repeat the same behavior under different circumstances. A person who routinely follows a particular trail may deviate from it because of weather, injury, disorientation, or an unexpected encounter. A victim who maintains a predictable daily routine may change that routine because of an appointment, an interpersonal conflict, or circumstances that have not yet been identified. These departures may be significant, but they must be investigated rather than interpreted through preconceived expectations.
In Pettler's Research-Based Forensic Victimology, we distinguish between documented behavior, information reported by others, research-informed expectations, and investigative hypotheses. Those categories are not interchangeable. A witness's description of the victim's personality is not necessarily an accurate representation of the victim's behavior in every circumstance. A statistical pattern does not establish what a particular individual did. An investigative hypothesis is not a finding of fact. The same principle applies to Lost Person Behavior. Behavioral research can help search managers identify reasonable possibilities, but the absence of a missing person from a predicted search area does not establish that the person could not have traveled there. Research should inform the investigation, not become a substitute for investigating.
People that know me, know how I build. An idea like this comparison of discussion pops into my head. Soon it develops into a diagram in my mind and I start sketching it. Then eventually, and through many, many iterations, I build something new. That’s where I’m headed with Lost Person Research Based Forensic Victimology. My goal is to train Mounted Forensic Specialists civilian and sworn in our new Mounted Forensic Operations Program. Like the Murder Room Method, victimology is the cornerstone. Lost Person Research-Based Forensic Victimology with my particular take on it is the cornerstone of the MFOS program as well. Searchers must be trained not only in NASAR’s SARTECH II and MST III certifications programs, but in forensic psychology and forensic science. That’s what makes MFOS unique.
Why This Matters to Mounted Forensic Operations
The relationship between these disciplines is particularly relevant to the development of our Mounted Forensic Operations System (MFOS) at LPA. Since 2024, I have been researching and learning about search and rescue, lost person behavior, and developing the MFOS system because in learning about SAR in relation to civilian and sworn units, I identified a gap: little to no training in forensic psychology or forensic science. My goal is to build mounted forensic specialists, civilian and sworn.
Mounted personnel operating in wilderness environments may encounter missing persons, human remains, potential crime scenes, or physical evidence during search operations. Their ability to recognize the significance of those discoveries depends upon more than horsemanship, navigation, and search techniques. It requires an understanding of the human behavior that may have influenced the missing person's movements, the environmental conditions that may have altered the scene, and the forensic principles necessary to recognize and preserve potential evidence. A mounted team may encounter a personal item along a trail, discover an area of disturbed vegetation, or locate human remains in terrain that is difficult to access on foot. The team must understand that an item's location may have investigative significance, but its presence alone does not establish how it arrived there or whether it is connected to the missing person. Likewise, the discovery of human remains requires careful attention to scene preservation, documentation, safety, and the appropriate notification of authorities.
Mounted personnel should not attempt to determine the manner of death from the recovery location or from behavioral expectations.
Their responsibility is to recognize potentially significant findings, protect the integrity of the scene, and communicate accurate observations to the appropriate investigative authorities. Within MFOS, Lost Person Behavior and forensic victimology provide complementary perspectives that help mounted personnel understand the broader investigative significance of their work. The horse may help us reach locations that are difficult to access by other means. The rider's training determines how effectively the team searches, recognizes potential evidence, and responds to a discovery within its authorized role. And when the search becomes a death investigation, the information gathered during the original operation may become an important part of the investigative record.
This is why it is critical to train both civilian and sworn personnel: most search and rescue personnel in the USA are volunteers. They have little to no law enforcement, coroner, or medical training. Some have training from NASAR and other recognized programs, but some teams are what I’ve come to learn Search and Rescue professionals refer to as “rogue teams”: no professional SAR training, no expertise in related fields, no proper equipment, no certifications, no idea how to function in NIMS, and the list goes on. Untrained teams are not respected or held in esteem by trained, professional SAR teams. I did not realize this initially, but when I did, my quest to become NASAR SARTECH II certified with an NASAR MST III designation became mandatory for me personally. I don’t want to be a liability to my unit leader or my team, to the victim, the decedent, their families, or other agencies. I’ve learned that the untrained searcher is a huge liability to a search operation for missing and deceased individuals. This is why NASAR and other entities work tirelessly to educate people. “Untrained” equals civil liability both for civilian volunteer 501s, law enforcement agency volunteer teams, and can even lead to criminal charges in some cases. All of this I have discovered in meeting SAR professionals who have opened my eyes wide to their perspective about their profession as a whole.
Understanding the Person Changes the Investigation
Over the course of my career in forensic criminology and death investigation, I have repeatedly encountered cases in which investigators possessed extensive information about the crime scene but comparatively little understanding of the person whose death they were investigating. They knew where the body was found. They knew what injuries were documented. They knew which physical evidence had been collected. But they had not adequately reconstructed the victim's life, relationships, activities, and circumstances leading up to the death. Without that context, investigators may overlook relevant witnesses, misunderstand the significance of a particular location, or fail to recognize that an apparently ordinary event represented a meaningful departure from the victim's established behavior. The same problem can arise during a missing-person search when attention becomes so focused on terrain, search patterns, and resource deployment that the missing person's individual circumstances receive insufficient consideration. Understanding the person does not guarantee that a missing individual will be located or that a death investigation will be resolved. It does, however, provide a more informed foundation for determining what questions need to be asked, which hypotheses deserve examination, and what additional evidence may be necessary. In both disciplines, the process is dynamic. New information may change our understanding of the person's behavior. New evidence may require us to reconsider an earlier investigative hypothesis. A previously overlooked detail may become significant when examined in the context of the individual's circumstances. That is why behavioral research must remain connected to the evidence rather than being treated as a predetermined explanation.
The Person Comes First
Whether we are searching for a missing child in a national forest, locating an overdue hiker in mountainous terrain, or reconstructing the circumstances surrounding a suspicious death, the investigation begins with an individual. A person with a history, relationships, routines, capabilities, vulnerabilities, and circumstances that are uniquely their own. Lost Person Behavior helps us examine how those characteristics and circumstances may influence the person's movements after they disappear. Pettler's Research-Based Forensic Victimology helps us examine how those characteristics and circumstances may inform our understanding of the events surrounding their death. Neither discipline can tell us everything about what happened; but, both remind us that the person is more than a missing-person report, a recovery location, an autopsy number, or a collection of physical evidence. The person is the reason we are investigating in the first place. And whether the objective is to find someone who is missing or determine what happened to someone who has died, understanding that person is an essential part of the pursuit of the truth. Before we search for evidence, we must first search for understanding.
Dr. Laura Pettler is a forensic criminologist, inventor of The Murder Room Method, and founder of Laura Pettler & Associates Death Investigations. Her work includes complex death investigations, forensic victimology, crime scene staging, and the development of interdisciplinary forensic education and mounted forensic operations.
