True Crime Research Guide

Want to dig into a true crime case yourself?

Good. That's where things get interesting.

Researching a case can be incredibly rewarding, but it can also get messy very quickly. One website says one thing. Another says something completely different. A newspaper article from 1998 tells you something that doesn't appear anywhere else. Then you find a Reddit post with 47 comments and suddenly you're three hours deep into a theory about a person you've never heard of.

We've all been there.

The good news is that you don't need to be a journalist, detective or professional researcher to investigate a case properly. You just need a sensible approach, a willingness to check things and a way of keeping track of what you find.

So let's start at the beginning.

What Are You Actually Trying to Find?

Before opening twenty browser tabs, work out what you want to know.

Are you trying to understand what happened to a victim? Build a timeline? Find out what happened in court? Locate an old newspaper report? Check a claim you've seen online?

Those are different research jobs, and they may require completely different sources.

Start with a simple question:

What don't I know yet?

That one question can save you a lot of wandering around the internet.

Start With the Basics

If you're researching a case for the first time, begin by collecting the basic facts.

Names of the people involved
Dates
Locations
What happened
When the crime was reported
When an investigation began
Whether anyone was arrested or charged
What happened in court
The eventual outcome of the case

Don't worry if you can't fill in every blank immediately.

In fact, those empty spaces can be useful. They tell you where your research needs to go next.

Follow the Names

Names are often your best research starting point.

Try searching the victim's full name. Then try the offender's name. Try both names together. Add a location. Add a year. Add words such as court, trial, arrest, sentenced or investigation.

Small changes to a search can produce completely different results.

For older cases, also watch for variations in names. A person may appear under a married name, an earlier surname, a middle name, an initial or even a misspelling that was repeated by several newspapers.

Once you've found one useful source, look at the names, dates and organisations mentioned in it. Those can become your next search terms.

Build a Timeline as You Go

Don't wait until you've finished researching to create a timeline.

Start one immediately.

It can be as simple as:

12 March 1994: Victim last seen.
14 March 1994: Family reports victim missing.
20 March 1994: Police announce a major development.
June 1994: Suspect arrested.
1995: Trial begins.

As you find new information, add it to the timeline and record where it came from.

This does two useful things. First, it helps you understand the case. Second, it makes contradictions much easier to spot.

If one source says something happened on Tuesday and another says Thursday, you've now got something worth checking rather than accidentally repeating whichever date you happened to read first.

Find the Original Source

This is one of the most useful habits you can develop.

If an article says, "According to court documents...", try to find the court document.

If a website says, "Police revealed...", see whether the police agency issued a statement or whether another reputable source reported the announcement.

If ten websites all repeat the same unusual detail, don't automatically assume ten independent sources confirmed it.

They may all have copied the same original article.

One source repeated ten times is still one source.

Primary Sources and Secondary Sources

You'll often hear researchers talk about primary and secondary sources.

It sounds more complicated than it is.

Primary sources are records or information produced directly by the people or organisations involved. Depending on the case, that might include court documents, official police statements, government records, transcripts or other original records.

Secondary sources are people or organisations reporting, analysing or explaining information from other sources. Newspapers, books, documentaries and many websites fall into this category.

Both can be extremely useful.

A court document might tell you exactly what was filed, while a newspaper report might explain what was happening around the case at the time. You often need both to understand the bigger picture.

Don't Treat Every Source the Same

Finding information is only half the job.

You also need to decide how much confidence you should place in it.

Ask a few simple questions:

Who published this?
When was it published?
Where did the information come from?
Does the source identify its evidence?
Is the information presented as fact, allegation or opinion?
Can the claim be confirmed somewhere else?

And don't assume that something is reliable just because it looks professional.

A beautifully designed website can still get things wrong.

Watch the Dates

Dates matter enormously in true crime research.

A report written on the day of an arrest may contain information that was later corrected. A newspaper article published during a trial may describe allegations that had not yet been tested in court. A later article may have information that wasn't available when the earlier story was written.

So when you find something interesting, check when it was written.

Think of every source as a snapshot taken at a particular moment.

That snapshot can be useful without necessarily being the final word on what happened.

Separate Facts From Claims

This is particularly important when researching cases that received a lot of media attention.

There can be a big difference between:

what police alleged
what a witness said
what prosecutors argued
what a defence lawyer argued
what a journalist reported
what a court found
what someone later claimed in an interview

Those aren't interchangeable.

If you're taking notes, make that distinction clear.

Instead of writing:

"The suspect did X."

you may need to write:

"Prosecutors alleged that the suspect did X."

Or:

"The court found that X occurred."

The wording matters because the underlying evidence and legal status matter.

Expect Contradictions

You're going to find them.

Different dates. Different spellings. Different descriptions of events. Different accounts of who knew what and when.

Don't panic and don't immediately decide that one source must be lying.

Sometimes information changes because investigators learned something new. Sometimes an early report was simply wrong. Sometimes two sources are describing slightly different parts of the same event.

When you find a contradiction, flag it.

Then go looking for the source closest to the original event or record.

Keep Your Research Organised

You don't need an elaborate database.

A spreadsheet, notes app or document can be enough.

At minimum, keep track of:

What you found
Where you found it
When the source was published
What date the information relates to
Whether it is confirmed, alleged or unclear

Save useful URLs while you're researching.

Seriously.

Future-you will thank you.

There is nothing quite like remembering that you found the perfect newspaper article three hours ago and having absolutely no idea which of the 37 browser tabs it was hiding in.

Use Search Like a Researcher

Once you have some basic information, start combining search terms.

Instead of searching only:

John Smith

try combinations such as:

John Smith murder 1998
John Smith court 1998
John Smith trial Melbourne
John Smith sentencing
"John Smith" newspaper archive

Quotation marks can help when you're looking for an exact name or phrase.

Adding a location, year or specific event can also cut through a lot of irrelevant results.

And once you've found a useful phrase, name or document number, search that too. Research often works by collecting small pieces of information and using each new piece to find the next one.

Don't Get Trapped in the Rabbit Hole

This is an easy one to forget.

True crime research can take you in some very strange directions.

You start looking for a court date and suddenly you're reading a 40-year-old newspaper article about someone's neighbour's cousin's dog.

Interesting? Maybe.

Relevant? Probably not.

Keep coming back to your original research question.

If something doesn't help answer it, put it aside. You can always come back later.

When the Internet Isn't Enough

Some information simply isn't sitting on the first page of Google.

For older cases, you may need newspaper archives, libraries, historical collections or government records.

For court information, you may need to search court systems or locate published judgments and other legal records.

For statistics, look for the organisation that actually collected the data rather than relying on a website that has summarised it.

And for very old or obscure cases, don't underestimate libraries and archives. The internet is enormous, but it still hasn't swallowed the entire world.

Research the Case, Not Just the Crime

It's easy to focus entirely on the crime itself.

But a useful research trail can also include what happened before and after it.

Look at the investigation, witnesses, searches, arrests, court proceedings, sentencing and later developments.

For victim-focused research, look for reliable information about the person's life, family, work, interests and circumstances where appropriate. A victim should not become just a name attached to a crime.

Likewise, when researching an offender, distinguish between verified biographical information and the many theories and claims that can accumulate around notorious cases.

And Remember: Finding Something Doesn't Make It True

This might be the most important rule of all.

The internet is full of information.

It is also full of mistakes.

A claim can appear on one website, then another website copies it, then a video repeats it, then someone posts the video to social media and suddenly it looks like an established fact because you've seen it five times.

That's not how evidence works.

Go back to the source.

Ask where the information came from.

Check the date.

Look for independent confirmation.

And if you can't verify something, it's perfectly fine to write:

"I couldn't confirm this."

That's not a failure of research.

That's good research.

Your Basic Research Checklist

When you're finished, run through this quick checklist:

Have I identified the people, dates and locations correctly?
Have I checked the original source where possible?
Have I looked at more than one reliable source?
Have I checked when each source was published?
Have I separated allegations from established facts?
Have I recorded conflicting information rather than ignoring it?
Have I kept track of where my information came from?
Have I avoided turning speculation into fact?
Can someone else follow my research trail?

Ready to Dig Deeper?

Once you've got the basics down, you can start exploring the tools and sources that make deeper research possible.

That's where the rest of the Universaul resources come in.

Use Research Tools to find useful ways of searching, organising and investigating information.

Explore Crime Databases when you're looking for structured crime information and records.

And when you need to understand where reliable information comes from, head over to True Crime Sources.

There isn't one magic website that contains everything.

Good research is more like following a trail — one useful clue leading to the next.

So grab a notebook, open a few tabs and follow the trail.