The front-page article by Ford Turner in today's Patriot News about the unsolved triple homicide in Lancaster County was notable for the glimpse it provided into an investigative tactic that's being used: story-gathering.
The police have passed out questionnaires to local residents, asking them for their recollections of the family and of the night they were killed.
Then the police put them together and try to make sense of them. Turner writes that "something not striking to one detective might mean something to another." This is narrative sensemaking in a nutshell.
I don't have a deeper view into the process beyond what is written in the article, but I'd make the following recommendations:
1. Try to get residents to actually tell complete stories. "This happened, then this happened, then this..." Ask them to use sensory detail. Sound and smell clues can be as valuable as what's seen.
2. Rather than a written questionnaire, having stories told orally, then recorded and transcribed, yields more unguarded and candid language. And, as the police already know, lying can be more easily detected.
3. Make sure the detectives involved in evaluating the questionnaires review them as a group. Putting ones' heads together can yield faster, deeper sensemaking than individual detectives making individual assessments.
After reflecting on this article for a few hours, I'm certain that giving detectives and the district attorney's offices more education on using story-gathering and sensemaking techniques could greatly help in solving mysteries like the Manheim Township tragedy.