Case Type Identification for Crime Events

When to use

When the question describes a criminal or legal case and you need to identify the specific incident before answering detailed questions about it.

Technique

First classify the case type from the question description: murder/homicide, theft/robbery, arson/fire, traffic accident, assault, fraud, etc. Each type has domain-specific terminology that dramatically improves search precision.

Type-specific keywords:

• Murder: homicide, murdered, killed, trial, defendant, convicted
• Theft/Robbery: stolen, heist, robbery, ATM, malware, looted
• Fire/Arson: fire, arson, blaze, victims, arrested, charged
• Traffic accident: vehicular accident, car crash, collision, fatality

Combine the case type keyword with the most distinctive constraint (amount stolen, number of victims, specific location, victim profile) for the initial search.

Query Templates

• [case type] [victim characteristics] [time range] [location]
• [case type keyword] [distinctive amount/number] [year range]
• [specific detail] [case type] [country/city]

Worked Examples

Example

Question: bank ATMs robbed of $200K-$400K, 15-35 ATMs, 2010-2023.

• Case type: theft/robbery with malware
• Search: "ATM malware hacking bank stolen $200000 $400000 automated teller machines shutdown" — the amount + ATM count was distinctive enough

Example

Question: fire at educational institution 2009-2021, minors arrested, believed to be misunderstanding.

• Case type: arson/fire at school
• Search: "school fire arrested teenagers misunderstanding students 2009 2021" — located the Malaysia tahfiz school fire

Anti-pattern

Searching without case type keywords: Generic searches like "incident 2016 bank" are far less effective than "ATM malware theft 2016 bank". Always include the case type term.