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How to get away... with murder?



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Fri May 15, 2015 5:10 pm
TheSparringPanther says...



Okay, I think this is the correct place to post this. If not, do refer me to where I have to be :/

Le question: I'm in the process of writing a story that involves obfuscation of murder. Can you guys help me out with tricks that have to do with this? I.e., tricks that have to do with messing with rigor mortis, framing other people, placing relevant red herrings on the scene, alibi construction - that kind of thing.

Referring to relevant material would also be nice. Note that I have read plenty murder mysteries, and I do have context and such, but still, a little help would go a long way ;>
"Glory... Lies beyond the horizon!"
— Rider, Fate/Zero
  





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Fri May 15, 2015 11:40 pm
Rosendorn says...



What time period are you talking about? Do keep in mind that you'll have to be relatively specific, maybe even down to the year if it's modern times, because forensic science has improved a lot in the past few decades and that's the primary way of getting an honest conviction. We'll need to know what levels of scientific advancement the society's at in order to properly provide advice.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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Sat May 16, 2015 12:14 am
TheSparringPanther says...



Ah yes, excellent point

It's modern, rules of this day and age apply~
"Glory... Lies beyond the horizon!"
— Rider, Fate/Zero
  





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Sat May 16, 2015 4:42 am
Rosendorn says...



Are you talking "modern" as in somewhere in the '00s, or 2010-2015? I asked for exact year in my post. Because I am not kidding there have been advancements in forensics that make getting away with murder significantly harder since the start of the 2000s (the most recent being a few months ago, where they developed a more effective DNA test to determine which identical twin committed the crime).

So if you want to be realistic, then you'll really have to be specific with what year "modern" is.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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Sat May 16, 2015 8:40 am
TheSparringPanther says...



Rosendorn wrote:Are you talking "modern" as in somewhere in the '00s, or 2010-2015? I asked for exact year in my post. Because I am not kidding there have been advancements in forensics that make getting away with murder significantly harder since the start of the 2000s (the most recent being a few months ago, where they developed a more effective DNA test to determine which identical twin committed the crime).

So if you want to be realistic, then you'll really have to be specific with what year "modern" is.


... damn

eh, okay, let's say 2014 then. Late '14. Think nov - dec, around then
"Glory... Lies beyond the horizon!"
— Rider, Fate/Zero
  





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Sat May 16, 2015 7:36 pm
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Rosendorn says...



Okay!

First off, identical twins won't be able to get away with a crime via DNA evidence. That's the absolutely most recent advancement I know of in forensic science. They've developed a much more effective way of monitoring DNA that changes as you live your life, making identical twins possible to differentiate.

Social media will be very much a part of police toolbelts. It's happened before where cops befriend gang members on social media and use the evidence collected online against the perpetrators.

You'll have to keep in mind things like GPS systems, cell phone data collection (which the police have access to— one case I know of used how long the flashlight app on the phone had been active to demonstrate the guy had used his phone as a flashlight to bury a body), online activity (recent google searches, pages visited), any sort of documents made online or on a hard drive (even if deleted, they can usually recover a fair chunk of it).

They check credit card records, paperwork, fraud, the trash. They will check what is/is not in your house, what you recently bought, what you had been known to buy before. There is blood evidence, ballistics, knife edge matching (if they have a certain type of blade vs another), toxicology reports, and of course the classic fingerprint (which also includes palm prints). Related to prints, there are tire track impressions, shoe impressions, barefoot prints— all of those are unique, btw, and can be traced back to a very exact person.

You will have fibre evidence to contend with, hair evidence, and microscopic evidence. Soil matching and plant matching exists. Insect evidence can provide a certain amount of time of death. Handwriting and syntax can be used to identify who wrote something. Geo profiling can help in certain cases, as criminals usually stick to geographic patterns.

And another important thing to note: a lack of forensic evidence often is used against perpetrators just as much as a lot of forensic evidence. Because somebody who commits "perfect crimes" usually knows quite a lot about how crimes are investigated... meaning they're often in the law enforcement field. Investigators start looking internally in those cases.

Also, court cases take an incredibly long time to work their way to trial. It's not uncommon for trials to take two, three, even five to ten years to reach a judge— which means new breakthroughs could've been made in that time. Cold cases are being constantly reevaluated because of new forensic techniques that lets them look at old evidence in new ways, leading to sometimes 30 year old murders being solved.

I wouldn't exactly call it "easy".
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  








Turn your demons into art, your shadow into a friend, your fear into fuel, your failures into teachers, your weaknesses into reasons to keep fighting. Don’t waste your pain. Recycle your heart.
— Andréa Balt