Homicide Watch DC Founder Receives Harvard Fellowship

Photograph by Douglas Sonders.

Laura Amico, who founded the website Homicide Watch DC with her husband,
Chris, in September 2010, is heading to Cambridge for a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. She won one of the first two fellowships
awarded by Harvard and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

“I proposed building an online guide for crime reporters,” Amico says. “Tips, tricks, tools as a guide to working with police
departments, judges, and attorneys.”

Amico, 30, was profiled in the February 2012
issue of
The Washingtonian. Her website chronicles murder in
DC, from the initial crime through the legal process. With photos of
victims and their
stories, Amico brought to life the tragic stories of the dead.
Family members and friends flocked to Homicide Watch to honor
victims and share their grief–and anger.

In the past month, Amico says the site drew record page views of 20,000 page views a day. She and Chris broke new ground in
using social media to report and write.

“I hope to explore best practices in tweeting from trials,” she says, “finding witnesses to the crimes on Facebook and using
graphics to cover crimes.”

Whither Homicide Watch?

“We are talking to a couple of potential partners,”
she says. “We are focusing on universities. The students who have
volunteered
for us have been terrific. It would be a great fit for a
journalism program.”

Harry Jaffe