Arthur C. Clarke, in his “White Hart” story Let There Be Light, had a murder committed from several miles away, with a telescope – remember, light can go through a telescope in both directions. The only problem was that someone else what driving the car…
Hog pen.
Hogs eat everything. 
Bludgeon them to death with a frozen leg of lamb in the garden, throw them over the fence and invite the cops around for dinner.
Ten bonus points to the first one to state the fatal flaw in this plan.
mmm
The person you hire might go straight to the cops (or BE a cop)?
He/She is a contract killer and likely to be aware of this tactic.
There really is no such thing as a “contract killer”. There are guys in the mob who will kill anyone their boss wants dead. But they don’t sit around waiting to kill people, they do their normal organized crime stuff. And unless you’re also in the mob, they aren’t going to kill anyone for you.
There are also crazy guys you meet at the bar who will kill someone if you offer them a case of PBR. But these guys aren’t hitmen, they’re just fucked up retarded guys with no empathy. They aren’t going to commit a perfect murder, because they’re fuckups.
There are also your various CIA and SEAL types, except they aren’t contract killers either. They don’t work on contract, they’re salaried. Same as the mob guys, they kill people their bosses want killed.
Aw, heck, I guess I’ll award the bonus points to myself.
If you have to kill the killer afterwards, you are in need of another perfect murder. So you hire a second killer to off the first. But wait. Then you need to commit a third perfect murder. So you…
mmm
Develop a “Manchurian Candidate” mind control technique.
Brainwash someone to go commit the murder for me.
Then brainwash the killer to commit suicide.
You’re welcome.
Also there was a pretty good method in a Tom Clancy book.
- Get a room in a tall hotel very close the the landing path of an airport.
- Get a VERY powerful laser or tightly focused spotlight.
- Shine it into the cockpit of a plane as it approaches the runway to blind them so they crash the plane.
Hunting rifle with a scope.
Victim you don’t know.
Shoot from inside your car or van. That avoids leaving any evidence at the shooting scene.
Worked for that guy in Washington DC. He would have never been caught if he had stopped after the first shooting or even the second shooting.
What would keep them from just waving off and circling the airport while the police find and arrest you in three minutes flat? There are also autopilot programs that are quite capable of landing planes at this point, so even if you could completely incapacitate the pilots there’s no guarantee they’d crash.
My impression is that the key to getting away with the perfect crime is to resist the temptation to try it again. And definitely resist the temptation to brag about it. If you can do that, you’re way ahead of the game.
You hit the light just a few seconds before they touch down. They won’t be able to see the controls to switch to an auto landing, if in fact they can do it that close to touchdown any way. The police can’t do anything in 3 minutes, and the pilots will be too dead to report that a bright light from that building over there blinded them.
Stab him/her with an icicle.
(Dick Tracy 1950’s)
Make a long, thick, sharp icicle. Or in a cold location in spring, find one and break it off. Carve serations on it.
Wait until July or August, and with the icicle in a cooler after being retrieved from a freezer, drive to a dark, secluded area and stab a random victim (possibly in the neck) with the icicle.
You not only leave the weapon by the body, you leave it in the body. It disappears before the victim’s found, as does, with luck, any puddle of water not covered with blood.
Is there an easy-to-obtain substance that when frozen could be shot like a bullet, leaving nothing for ballistics? Icicle stabbings take too much work.
Edit: Wow, Ignatz. I was composing this thing as you were posting.
It has to be a stranger. You can’t get away with killing someone you know unless you are a former professional football player/actor, but I digress. You have to control the scene of the murder. Everybody wants to sneak up on the victim and kill silently. No, what you need to do is be loud at the moment of the killing. A big loud gun is best. When people hear a gunshot they want to hide. Nobody will look at a person who just fired a gun. They don’t want to be the next victim.
Keep the gun with you as you leave the scene. Leave the victim be. He is no good to you anymore. The gun is there in case anyone breaks rule number one. When they look up and see the gun, the eyes will again go to the floor. Drop the gun as soon as you are away from the victim. Get somewhere to change your clothes. Don’t hurry, but don’t delay. Nobody knows what a blood stain looks like. Toss your clothes in a dumpster somewhere or donate them to charity. Just don’t keep them in your house or set your house on fire trying to burn them.
Finally, forget about the victim. Convince yourself it never happened until you need to kill again.
Of course, I could be wrong.
SFC Schwartz
The piece everyone is missing was an elaborate scam to get a false report of a bug in the autolanding systems software and reccomending it not be used until resolved. So all of the pilots were landing without the automatic systems that could land the plane even if you could kill the pilot.
The book was “Debt of Honor”
I’m going to assume for sake of discussion we’re not talking about some kind of sick serial-killer-type random killing, but of killing a specific person you hate enough to kill.
David Simon wrote a book called Homicide, which became the basis of the T.V. series Homicide: Life on the Streets. In the (pretty good, but kinda “rambling”) book, one of the real-life Baltimore detectives was basically busting on suspects as general idiots, for not taking advantage of their right to remain silent.
He said even highly educated people (suspects of a homicide) talk themselves into prison by just talking to the police. You have the right to remain silent. Use it.
You have the right to an attorney. Use it.
Those are probably the first steps to commiting (and getting away with) the perfect murder.
The second is to not do anything beforehand to lead anyone to suspect that you might be the killer. If it’s an ex-spouse/lover/business partner/whatever, don’t bad mouth them, or say anything to anyone about how you feel about them.
Most murderers know their victims. Make sure the line between you and your victim is as obscure as possible. Have a very good alibi.
Don’t leave the murder weapon lying about the house. Get rid of it. If you use a gun, use a cheap one and get rid of it, or, if you use one of your own, swap barrels, extractors, and firing pins afterwords. Make sure the replacements are used. If they look brand new, it’ll arouse some suspicion, but I suppose you could always play it off as, “Oh, I haven’t taken it to the range yet.” Which will collapse it it appears to have been recently fired. But overall, best to use a “throwaway,” and throw it away. Someplace it will not be found. The middle of the Mississippi river is a good spot. Just don’t get spotted by another driver “tossing” the gun .
Use gloves, and cheap throwaway clothes/shoes. Don’t buy the same brand of “throwaway” clothes as you have anywhere in your house. Think of Mark Walhberg’s character in the movie The Departed, at the end when he kills Matt Damon’s character: shoe covers, gloves, cheap “running suit” that probably went over his regular clothes. As soon as the crime is done, strip off the throwaway clothes/shoes, and throw them away. NOT in your own trash can, or in any trash collection point in your’s or the victim’s zip code, or in any one in bewteen.
Try to make the crime look like a robbery, if you can. Take watch, ring, necklace, wallet, purse, etc. Take the money from the wallet and drop the wallet near the crime scene. Dump any other identifying items with the gun (into the bottom of the Marianas Trench, if possible).
Most likely, you will be driving your car while you do this. Don’t run a red light, speed, etc. If you know certain streets are under police camera surveillance, avoid them if it won’t “bust” your alibi (“Mr. Jones, you said you left the theater at 10:00 PM, and drove home from the theater along Main St. How come your car doesn’t show up on any of our traffic cams?”). Check and see of the theater has camera surveillance on their parking lot. An untimely video of you getting in your car and leaving the theater five minutes before the movie starts is going to be bad for your alibi.
The hard part: [del]if[/del] when the police show up for routine questioning, and tell you your ex-spouse/lover/whatever is dead, you gotta act the part. Bad acting will arouse suspicion. Lawyering up will arouse suspicion.
Have your alibi (ticket stub to a theater, and know details of the movie “you saw”) and stick to it. Another person as an alibi creates “conspiracy,” and is also a potential weak link; if they cave, and roll over on you, you’re screwed. You want to prove you were someplace else, but no place where anyone will positively remember you. You want to be vaguely specific, but not specifically vague.
If they ask you to “come in” to the police station for further questioning, lawyer up. And take advantage of the right to remain silent. Say nothing. Make no declarative statements that can later be contradicted by evidence (traffic cams, credit card activity, any memorable/notable activity that might crack your alibi, etc.).
Basically, I think the hardest part of committing the “perfect murder” nowadays is the ever-increasing ubiquity of video surveillance. Don’t give the police a reason to start checking you out.
Oh, yeah: don’t post a lengthy, detailed post on a public message board on how to get away with murder.
See? I have my alibi.
“It was all just hypothetical, detective. I swear.”
You can kill anyone, the magic question is why you want them dead. Just want the experience…homeless guy, hooker, no easy connections, cops probably wont even look very hard, hookers get killed all the time.
The big thing is having a plan and covering contingencies, you already know when and where, you know how, you already have a plan for disposing of body (or not), you already know who may or may not come around. Wear gloves, identify victims habits and schedules, determine ideal time to strike, work your plan.