I watch episodic mysteries. I’ve seen several where someone was killed and then they found out they were already dead. All the ones I’ve watched recently - from Murder, She Wrote to Death in Paradise, had the killer set up a second murder attempt that they confessed to/deliberately got caught at to cover up their crime. I’m almost certain I’ve seen the victim “killed twice” when it wasn’t the same killer…but danged if I can remember it. Anyone got any examples?
Kenny was killed 98 times in the television series South Park, plus 14 times in shorts, 14 in video games, and 2 in the movie Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
I’m not sure I’m parsing the OP. You’re saying you watched a story where a person was murdered, then the murderer pretended to murder the same person again, in order to get caught fake-murdering them so they wouldn’t get caught for the real murder?
Can you provide an example, please?
Death in Paradise - a man smothered a woman who was on to his con (pretending to be the son she put up for adoption) when they were out in the woods with a few others for a team-building exercise for the company she owned. But then he didn’t want to get caught for the murder and there were few suspects, so he stole a gun a shot her (leaving fingerprints on gun). The in-universe explanation being that then he’d only go down for attempted murder because she was already dead and the shooting her would throw suspicion off him for smothering her.
Matlock (I think - been watching several 80s shows recently) - a man left poison for his cheating wife. Then he staged an incident where he “discovered” that she was cheating and (with a witness) “in a rage” shot her “sleeping in her bed.” Again believing that would throw suspicion off him and in-universe he’d basically face charges only for the corpse damage (not even attempted murder.)
Columbo sleuthed one of these in Murder In Malibu.
Spoilers?
This turns out to be the case in The Last Of Sheila
There’s an episode of The Rookie that starts with them arresting a woman who shot a guy in the head, only it turns out he’d already been stabbed, only when they solve the stabbing, they figure out he’d already been poisoned. which is what actually killed him.
Oh, a three-fer. But did the same person do all three? Or was it a different person in each case?
There’s an episode of Xena where a warrior named Meleager is convicted of a murder a witness claimed to have seen him do, and he even thought he’d done, but it turned out the victim was already dead, and Xena actually had killed him in defense of someone else.
As a kind of twofer, the execution proceeds-- hanging from gallows, which have a mechanical release, which I’m not even sure existed in the bronze age, but the plot doesn’t work without it, and it wouldn’t be Xena without a good, solid anachronism-- anyway, Xena manages to fake the hanging without the executioner even knowing, so everyone thinks the convict is dead, and he plays dead, then pretends to rise and scare the pants of the judge who presided at his railroading.
The episode is called “The Execution.” S2:E17
There was a TV movie from the early 1970s called “One of my Wives Is Missing,” that was remade either in the late 70s or early 80s, where a guy reports his wife missing, and then she turns up, but he swears she isn’t actually his wife, she’s an imposter. It almost fits your criteria, but I can’t say more without massive spoilers. If you like this kind of plot, you will probably like this movie.
Knives Out is a little like this…
although the actual killer is the victim! Murderer switches two different drugs, hoping that a lethal overdose will be unwittingly administered. However, the nurse instinctively uses the correct drug. But then panics that she’s used the wrong one when she sees the bottles, and the victim decides to take his own life with a knife so that she doesn’t get into trouble.
I think that was the gist of it.
One of my favorite under-appreciated films, although parts of it do drag a bit. I actually like the amoral result of the climactic fight scene, and especially the last discovery of the photo. James Mason was a jewel.