Nick Sepcic, Noah Kosobucki, Zak Diethorn, Nick Milas, Ian Greacen, Kevin Curran, Joe

Palaski, Amanda Robic

AP Statistics
Ms. Coley
3/18/16
Crime Scene Investigation
Overview:
In the room where Jonathan Wallace, a famous pop music producer, was murdered, there was a
set of footprints that were 25 - 30 cm long with a heel-to-heel stride length of 64 - 65 cm. We
needed to find a way to conclude which one of the three suspects, Penelope Paige, Rex
Chapman, and Dirty Dawg, had done the evil deed. We knew that Penelope was 5 feet and 4
inches tall, Rex was 5 feet and 8 inches tall, and Dirty Dawg was 6 feet tall. We decided to
conduct an experiment in which a formula would be created for stride length and shoe size in
correlation with height to figure out which one of the suspects was guilty. In this experiment, the
significance of the relationship between a persons height and their shoe length and between their
height and their stride length were to be determined. To conduct the experiment, the heights and
shoe lengths of 17 subjects were measured. After this, a good way to measure stride length was
needed. To do this, 25 feet were measured out to act as a baseline. Then the subject was to take
10 steps as naturally as they possibly could. The measurements of the distance the subject
walked were then divided by 10 to get an average of all of the strides that the participant made.
This was to account for the fact that the subject may not walk completely natural for all 10 of
their steps. The information that was obtained from the experiments will help to determine who
the murderer was in the case.

Sample Data:
Participan
t
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16*
17

Height (cm)

Shoe Length (cm)

Stride Length (cm)

174.5
182
178.5
179
166
163
183.5
178
181
189
178
160
185.25
186
166
179
171

30.5
30.5
31
30
30
25.5
30
30
30.5
32
29.75
24
28.75
30.5
27
31
26.5

57.7
62.9
54.5
61.7
48.7
47.8
53
53.2
68.5
58.25
48
47.9
62.7
55
55
74.6
66.5

*Outlier (more than 2 standard deviations away from the mean)

Analysis:
First, we tested the linear relationship between height and shoe length by finding the r and r2:
r = 0.7988121144
r2 = 0.6381007941
The value of r tells us that there is a strong, positive correlation between the height and shoe
lengths of our participants because r is between 0.75 and 1.00. The value of r2 tells us that
approximately 63.81% of the variation is explained by the relationship between height and shoe
length.

Then, we tested the linear relationship between the height of the subjects and their stride length
by finding r and r2:
r = 0.4762347353
r2 = 0.2267995231
This is evidence that there is weak correlation between the height and stride length of the
subjects because r falls between 0.25 and 0.49, and that approximately 22.68% of the variation is
explained by the relationship between height and stride length.
Next, we had to run a hypothesis test for both correlations to test to see if a significant linear
correlation existed. We ran both of these tests at a level of significance of 0.1. We ran the
hypothesis test for height vs. shoe length first:
H o : =0
H a : 0
t c =invT ( .05, 14 ) =1.761310111
t=

1r 2
n2

.7988121144
=4.968380463
1.6381007941
162

We reject H0, meaning that there is enough evidence to suggest significant linear correlation.
Then, we ran the hypothesis test for height vs. stride length:
H o : =0
H a : 0
t c =invT ( .05, 14 ) =1.761310111
t=

1r 2
n2

.4762347353
=2.026464638
1.2267995231
162

We reject H0, meaning that there is enough evidence to suggest significant linear correlation.

After learning that a significant linear correlation exists for both of the correlations, we used the
equations created from our sample to attempt to predict the suspects shoe size and stride length.
We used the equation for height vs. shoe length first because it had a stronger correlation. The
equation for the predicted y value for finding shoe length based off of height was:
^y =mx +b=0.2026309779 x6.566958183
We then plugged in the height for each of the suspects to figure out their predicted shoe length:
Penelope Paige:

^y =0.2026309779 ( 162.56 )6.566958183=26.37273358 cm

Rex Chapman:

^y =0.2026309779 ( 172.72 )6.566958183=28.43146432 cm

Dirty Dawg:

^y =0.2026309779 ( 182.88 )6.566958183=30.49019506 cm

Based off of this information, we can say that Dirty Dawg is off of the list for suspects because
his predicted shoe length does not fall within the boundaries of 25 - 30 cm, which was the shoe
length found at the site of the crime.
Next, with the remaining suspects, we used the equation for height vs. stride length. The equation
for the predicted y value for finding their stride length based off of height was:
^y =mx +b=0.3638501318 x7.811266196

We then plugged in the height for the remaining suspects to figure out their predicted stride
length:
Penelope Paige:

^y =0.3638501318 ( 162.56 )7.811266196=51.33621123

Rex Chapman:

^y =0.3638501318 ( 172.72 )7.811266196=55.03292857 cm

cm

Since Rex Chapmans predicted stride length was the closest to the stride length found on the
crime scene, we can conclude that he is the person guilty of this crime.

Finally, we inferred the final suspects height from their stride length, so now we have to run a
confidence interval for the data set to show how confident we are that the suspects actual height
would fall between the two given values:
^y =0.6233322549 ( 55.03292857 ) +141.181842=175.4856415
E=t c s e

2
n (x0 x )
1
1 16(55.0329285756.334375)
1+ +
=1.761310111 7.955286826 1+ +
=14.
2
2
n n
16
16 ( 51,445.8725 )(901.35)
x 2( x)

( ^y E , ^y + E ) =(161.0254833,189.9457997)
With 90% confidence, the suspected killers height of 172.72 cm falls within the range of
approximately 161.025 and 189.946 cm, so we can conclude that Rex Chapman is the killer of
Jonathan Wallace.
Conclusion:
As stated previously, we can conclude that the murderer is Rex Chapman, the rock guitarist. His
possible motive was that he accused Wallace of stealing profits from his hit single Walk it Off.
We can conclude this because using the predicted y value equations to find both the shoe length
and the stride length based off of the suspects height, we found that the suspects shoe and stride
length fell between the lengths found at the crime site. Once we determined Rex was the killer,
we created a confidence interval to prove that his height falls within the range of height.

There were a variety of possible errors that we may have performed while conducting our
research. One part of the data that could be skewed is the stride length. While testing a persons
stride, they may not have walked normally since they were aware that they were being tested.
Another possible error for our group is that we only measured a persons normal stride, not other
forms like running or tiptoeing. Since we were only left with unclear muddy footprints, it is

reasonable to assume that the murderer might not have had a normal walking pace when he
escaped the crime scene. Another error was that the data our group collected resulted in us not
being able to carry on with the investigation because we were getting reject H0 or not getting
values that fell in the range of the evidence found at the crime scene. Because of this, our team
used the stride length data from the other team. There was also the error that the predicted stride
lengths we found for the three suspects did not fall into the range of the stride length on the
crime scene. This could have happened because of incorrect calculations or testing methods. As a
result, we picked the suspect whose stride length was closest to the found range. A final error we
encountered was outliers in our set of data for stride lengths. There was one test subject, number
sixteen, whose stride length greatly exceeded the average set by others, which also could have
skewed the data. In response to this possible error, we removed this test subject from the data
list.