Talk:Darren Deon Vann

This article was the subject of an educational assignment in Fall 2014. Further details were available on the "Education Program:Northwestern University/Online Communities and Crowds (Fall 2014)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki.

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Biography

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles

Crime and Criminal Biography: Serial, mass, and spree killers Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Serial Killer task force (assessed as Mid-importance).

United States: Indiana Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	Indiana portal This article is supported by WikiProject Indiana (assessed as Mid-importance).

Intro

Right now the introduction to the article seems to be a series of fragmented facts from Vann’s life. For example, when you state he was married for 16, and promptly segue into his arrest in Gary, Indiana. This could be separated into two distinct sentences, but more importantly should be made into distinct sections on his prior background and the events of the case. It is difficult to understand his background since at the start of the intro you mention he threatened the life of his girlfriend, and the end of the intro references the dissolving of his marriage. The intertwining of both his personal and criminal history convolutes your ability to clearly convey his background. Being he has multiple arrest charges unrelated to the case, you could possibly make a list of his prior convictions and time served for each case. This would remove these facts from the interior of the discussion on his relationships.

In addition, images such as his mugshot or those from crime scenes related to the case could bring more vibrancy to the page. Danmayornw (talk) 20:24, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

His mugshot would get deleted since he is alive, no fair use. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 20:32, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How is Charles Manson's up then?? Danmayornw (talk) 20:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

California's mugshot's are public domain [1]. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 20:39, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article contains good amount of information, given that it is a developing story. It is also organized well in relevant sections, and the details on each of the victims were informative. However, the article states that there have been seven victims, but the list only contained six – if the information on the seventh victim was not released, it may be better to state that as well. Also, the numbering on Jane Doe skips from #4 to #6. Also, the 'Arrest and Investigation' section states that it is currently believed that there may have been 5 more victims. Does this mean five additional victims to the seven, or five more after Hardy. There are some inconsistency in number of victims throughout the article. Znxbcv2121 (talk) 20:37, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jordan's Comments

This article you have written is a good improvement over the stub it was before. Some of the syntax used in the article is a little unclear. For example, "Although he Vann was married for 16 years to a woman who was about 30 years older than him, he was reportedly arrested in Gary, Indiana for threatening the life of his girlfriend" is a little confusing. When did he have a girlfriend? Did he have a girlfriend while he was married?

Having the article separated out into victims makes much easier to read. There are some inconsistencies within the sections though. For example, you write that in addition to Afrikka Hardy, Vann is suspected to have killed 5 more women, but then later say 7 victims and only list 6 people. Also, under Jane Doe #4, she is described as Jane Doe #5. Clearing up a few of these inconsistencies would make the article much more clear and easier to understand.

One idea for another section of the article could be where the case is at today. this would be hard to keep very current, but the fact that it is such a recent case could leave the reader wondering where Vann is currently in the legal process. I understand that some of this information is under Arrest and Investigation. Perhaps separating it out further could make it more clear to the reader what the latest information is. Jmshep (talk) 20:43, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

References

The references should be linked to the web article they cite. If you look at the references list none of the new ones have links. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 20:45, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Identification of other victims

[2]. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 03:51, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

About Vann's "Capture status"

At the time of this writing, the infobox lists Vann's "Capture status" as "Held without bond in Lake County Jail awaiting trial". But considering that he has plead guilty and been sentenced, he obviously isn't "awaiting trial" any more. I think his "Capture status" should be changed, but I am not sure what it should be changed to. Heart of Destruction (talk) 10:45, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Suspicions

The link between the text in the section "Suspicions" and the rest of the article is pretty much non-existent, unless one reads the references. The box on the right states "Span of crimes 2013–October 2014", while in "Suspisions" crimes of much earlier date are discussed, so it seems that the algorithm actually predicted future serial killer. I suggest using some of the text in New Yorker, possibly as direct quote, and pointing out that no investigetion is curently held to the previous murders (unless something have changed recently) and that it is impossible to say whether the murders were actually perpetrated by Vann. After all, the modus operandi (strangulation of women at abandoned house or disposal of the body there) is hardly that unique to make such bold claims as Hargrove has made in the NYer article as for example Vincent Johnson (the first "strangler" I opened in the list of US serial killers) used quite similar MO. Also, if 18(15) similar murders happened before those 7, the number of possible victims should be actually 25(22), shouldn't it? The article in medium that is used as a reference for the number 18 makes some confusing and possibly misleading claims that sounds like the algorithm and coroner agreement occured after Vann's apprehension. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prohnily (talk • contribs) 17:56, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]