I love good detective movies; my favourite ones are Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder and the entire Columbo series. In all of those films, the murderer conceives one fantastic plan, and the audience thinks “This plan is perfect, they will never find any evidence against him”, but then he does one little mistake, and that gets him to the court. When the killer at the end says something liek “And I thought this was the perfect murder”, the TV investigators often point out that “a perfect murder is not possible”. But would a real “perfect” murder be possible? Of course, it’s difficult, especially with modern genetic technology that allows your identification with one hair or whatever. But if I paid very much attention and cleaned up the locatiobn very carefully, couldn’t I destroy everything that points at ME? Or would this 100.00000 per cent perfectness be utopic? What do you think?
[sup]Not that I were planning something like this; I’m just curious :-)[/sup]
What if someone sees you approaching and leaving the scene of the crime, and you have a strong motive? I would imagine that a decent district attorney could get a conviction on those grounds.
There’s no doubt that it is possible to commit a perfect murder - numerous murders are unsolved. The question is if it is possible to *guarantee *that you will not be cought. In this I would incline to agree with Arnold.
IANAL, but I seem to recall that motive is not an “element” of the crime, in that the People do not need to prove one has a reason for committing the crime. In other words, if you shoot someone in front of twenty witnesses, you’re not going to go free if the prosecutor can’t tell the jury why you did it.
Otherwise, I agree with the old chestnut that any unsolved crime is a “perfect” crime.
Revtim I think it means “impossible to solve”. And no, that can’t exist. It presumes a level of control impossible in a chaotic (or simply very, very complex) universe.
Arnold, absolutely, but lots of people have really good reasons for killing other folks (as we see ably illustrated in the Pit) but if all the prosecutor can present is motive it’s not enough to convict us.
This makes me want to go and check out Fargo again. That was an almost imperfect perfect murder. On the other hand OJ’s case was a perfect imperfect murder.
I would think in a chaotic universe you couldn’t guarantee a perfect crime, but it would still be possible.
Here’s an example, an extreme. You kill everyone. Clearly, since there is no one left to solve the crime, that sounds pretty perfect to me.
Another example, not quite so extreme. You and your victim drive out into the desert, where there is a nuclear bomb. Nobody else is around. There are no satellites overhead. The victim is friendless and has no family. Nobody sees you together ever. You kill the victim, and drape the corpse over the bomb. You set the timer for enough time to get away. You get away, the nuke vaporizes all evidence a crime ever took place.
To get away with murder all one has to do is ensure there is as little forensic evidence as possible. Circumstantial evidence and witness testimony can be discredited easily enough by a competant defence lawyer but forensic evidence sticks. A sniper attack from a rooftop across the street would leave very little physical evidence. It’s certainly possible
Except now there’s a lot of evidence that a nuclear device was detonated in the middle of the desert. In itself a crime, and also, the investigators would be very suspicious of the one who set it off. Maybe you could find someplace, like a launch site or a munitions testing ground, to leave the body. Or better yet, get some animals that’ll eat it up quickly, then scatter the bones.
This thread put me in mind of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians (which may or may not also go under the title “And Then There Were None”). This falls in the category of “unsolved unless you’re told how”. The victims are stuck in complete isolation from the rest of the world, a big help for committing the crimes. However, it hinges on the psychological reactions of several of the victims, so maybe wouldn’t be perfect in all times and places.
If time travel is ever possible, I would say a perfect murder might then become possible as well. Not only would the murderer be personally untraceable & uncatchable, but even if they made a mistake, they might have a chance to redo the crime.
That’s more or less what I was trying to say - you can minimize the chance of failure as much as humanly possible, but you cant guarantee success. It’s the difference between saying “Unless we have some seriously bad luck, we’re gonna get away with this” and saying “there is no way on Earth this could ever possibly fail!!!”
Lots of people have executed a perfect crime; none have ever planned one.
The statute of limitations for murder in Japan is 15 years. If you killed someone, eluded capture for 15 years, then went public with what you had done, would that count? Do you have to remain completely free from suspicion for it to be perfect, or can you just play hide and seek until time runs out for the police?
In the US, there is no statute of limitations for murder. They convicted that klansman for killing Medgar Evers ~40 years after it happened.
There is no such thing as a perfect murder. If you detonate a nuclear bomb to eliminate forensic evidence, there is still the trail to the bomb. The FBI has a lead…find somebody who had access to a nuclear bomb. You had to have left some traces…the alcoholic Russian physicist you bought it from, the mafiosi you paid to smuggle it into Afghanistan, the Taliban leaders who carried across the border for you…
The best “perfect” murder is to be in a potentially dangerous situation with your victim, and only you come back. How can they prove that he didn’t slip off the summit of Mt. McKinley? But, suppose someone was flying overhead in an airplane? Or there was a CIA spy satelite overhead. Or it was discovered that you had taken out a million dollar life insurance policy on them the week before, and they get you in a room and start going over your story. Or you can’t help but brag to your buddies about how you committed the perfect murder.
You befreind your victim. You invite your victim to go on a sailing trip with you(couple of days, maybe to the Bahama’s and back). You wait until your miles out to sea in the middle of the night. You clunk your victim on the head as he sleeps, with a ten pound weight wrapped in a pilow case. Attach the spare anchor(a pretty heavy one, paid for with cash months previously) you have brought along to his legs and torso with a steel chain. Toss body overboard. Also, place sheets from bed you whomped him in into a a duffel bag with a ten pound weight(from your battered weight set) and toss it overboard. Remake bed with spare sheets and roll around in it. Drink lots of beer and pass out, letting boat drift.
In the moring, call Coast Guard. Say you and you victi, er buddy, got righteously drunk and passed out and when you awoke, he was gone!:eek:
You have no body, no physical evidence of the murder and no motive to kill yer bestest buddy! It’s ruled an accidental drowning, yet another reason why drinking and boating don’t mix.
I think it’d be very easy to kill a perfect stranger. Just wait until they’re alone and pop them. Don’t leave any evidence directly pointing to you and don’t tell anyone.
Then again, why kill someone for no reason? Any sane person wouldn’t kill someone just because they felt like it. A motive connects you to the crime. There’s no way around that unless people think that it was an accident or don’t know that the person died at all.
