...My stat is - l believe - for killings with known/convicted murderers who were PID’d as “strangers”...
Yes - in the sense of the McCann's at this time, their relationship to the data is moot, and any implications are based on what is effectively a begged question (in its proper sense); in relation to the statistics - we'll only know where they fit into the results, when we know where they fit into the data, if that makes sense.
But aside from that:
This doesn’t affect the thrust of my post: Stranger murders of children are very, very rare, despite what the Mirror/Mail/Record would have us believe.
Yes, absolutely.
I don't know a lot about this case, but all this talk of the McCann's reaction to their daughter's death actually reminds me of Camus' The Outsider (or, The Stranger) where the protagonist's reaction to his mother's death is seen by "normal" society as being emotionally indifferent. I am also reminded of how people on the spectrum can be judged for their apparently inappropriate reactions to certain, particularly emotional, events. I don't really think a person's reaction to such an event is necessarily an indication of guilt, or of being a sociopath, or anything really.
Oh, this is so true. I'm reminded of Amanda Knox being portrayed as quite obviously guilty because she ate pizza and did exercise in prison. Christine Villemin (and her partner - but her especially), the mother of Grégory Villemin - subject of the not at all bad Netflix documentary
Who Killed Little Gregory - was utterly vilified by a howling French media (and public) in a way which makes the McCanns treatment look like a stroll in the park. I read an article on the case in which one policeman actually seemed to suggest the fact that he found Christine attractive was suspicious - presumably because grieving mothers should not be attractive (and it was literally that: not that she was dressing provocatively, but simply that he found her attractive). And the thing is, even if they
were guilty as sin - eating pizza, doing cartwheels and giving chaps a tingly feeling in their pants,
still wouldn't be evidence of anything.
I've said before that, where a quick simple and obvious conclusion does not apply itself to a case, you could probably write a mathematical equation predicting the precise moment media/public sympathy with those close to the victim will morph into the glare of accusation. There is, as we've seen, some statistical basis to this focus, but the barrage and baying tone of the attention usually goes well beyond any reasoned statistical analysis. (And god help you if you're female, especially if the case has anything to do with children.)
We just aren't very good at reading other people - we almost always do it with reference to self, without factoring in the vast array of differences there are between selves. It's one reason why I find so-called 'body-language experts' a modern blight (especially the ones who apparently stare at British royals all day long - just fuck off and get a real job guys.)