the perfect murder

Great Debates
21

the more I think about it, I doubt there is one magic way to get away with murder… I think it would all depend on the situation of your target. eg suppose they lived in arizona, just go wrangle up a scorpion and place it in their shoes over night… or if the person is a metal worker, just sneak in and slightly open their acetyline tank, the gas will slowly build up in the shop, with the first spark of electricity in the morning, BOOM (and that would be one hell of a big boom)…

but I’m still interested if there is just one way to thwart forensic science…

22

break into victims home install bomb in their computer. bomb is microprocessor controlled and detonates when certain bizarre sequence of characters recieved by modem. go on vacation to hawaii. send message from beach with wireless laptop computer. victim blown up and hawaii alibi airtight. this assumes cops don’t read this post.

how about a weapon on a remote control car, bomb or poison dart? they might suspect people who knew electronics tho.

Dal Timgar

23

“But Your Honor, we all thought Bobo was kidding.”

As for the hunting accident idea, there was an M.D. found guilty of murder not long ago who used this scenario. Many years previously, he went hunting with a friend who died as the result of an “accidental” shooting. The M.D. (who later married the friend’s wife) smashed the weapon against a tree at the crime scene (supposedly because he was so upset at the accident). Even with the passage of time, they developed new evidence and nailed him.

24

I’m not sure that would be considered a perfect murder, since even if you are not charged with murder, having other people believe that you accidentally killed someone is not a good thing.

25

One always could murder a complet stranger out on the street (preferably on another city). If you are careful and smart enough the police will ever have reason (or will ever be able)to come after you.

26

how about smearing peanut butter on their brake-line and then letting a few really hungery rats loose under their car…

course like I said… there’s probably a big problem with that too… any takers on why?

27

I seem to recall in one of the Nero Wolfe books that Wolfe mused about a perfect murder. His idea was that the only way to pull it off would be to do it ‘impromptu’ - i.e. be extremely patient, keep your wits about you, strike swiftly when you see opportunity. He was not a fan of cleverly planned murders - brtual simplicity was the concept.

28

I have no intention of killing anyone, but I have a lot of free time riding transit buses back and forth to college and so I have a lot of time to think, heh…Here’s the result:

Easily. The people that get caught are the stupid people who act without thinking, then leave obvious clues behind.

If I wanted to just vent my anger and HAD to kill someone, I would simply go one evening and drive out to another city, then knife a random stranger on a lonely street. Odds of people even noticing are kind of slim, but even if they do, they likely won’t see me due to the darkness (same with the numbers of my license place). In fact, I could tie a shirt around my head (ninja mask style) and take off my license plates and be even more safe. No one would suspect someone from another city with no connection to the victim.

If I wanted to kill a crowd of people, that would be almost easier. Well maybe not kill, but at least severely injur a good amount of them. The whole problem with brining a gun and taking shots into a crowd (ala Columbine and others) is that everyone KNOWS who’s doing the shooting and where you are. What I would do is take a knife in each hand, in my pockets, then walk through a crowd (where everyone is moving around, trying to get onto the subway or something and not really paying attention) and discreetly knife people quickly as I went by, moving on instantly. If someone shouts, hide the knives quickly, but odds are only a few people (if anyone) will even react to the shouting. And by the time everyone realizes what’s going on (it’d be difficult to try to explain someone is knifing a crowd of people during confusion), I’d be out the other side of the crowd and on my way home. I imagine you could pull off a good number of these (especially in a different city than that which you live) and not get caught.

If I wanted to murder a specific person that I know, that would take a great deal more effort/planning to pull off. I’d have to make sure that no one would suspect me (I’d have to kill someone I didn’t hate, which would be kind of pointless since there’d be no reason for me to want to kill them…if it HAD to be someone I hated, I’d have to plan a lot more), first off. Then I’d simply hide in the tree in their front yard or (because that would be hard to get into without someone seeing) hide in the bushes nearby or something and just pick them off with a sniper rifle (this is assuming I have access to one and no one else knows it). Or I could sneak into the house (steal one of their keys, make a duplicate, replace their key without them knowing) wearing gloves of course (and not leaving them behind, oyy…stupid people. I’d burn them that night), drug them (so there’s no struggle or anything that could suggest foul play), put them in my car (drag them out in a garbage bag at night wearing dark clothes and probably a mask), go to a bridge over a river or deep lake, and drop them in with heavy stuff attatched to them (a few bags of sand or something) with chains/ropes (something that won’t dissolve and have them float up if there’s a current). No one would ever find them…for all we know the floors of many city rivers/lakes are lined with bodies where it’s too murky to see anything. Then simply act surprised that they disappeared. Even with a motive and suspicion and all, there’s no evidence as long as you can cover where you were (say you were watching TV and fell asleep).

…well that should pretty much scare anyone away from ever posting replies to me here at the SDMB, heh. I assure you I’m not a violent psychopath, but if I were, I’d get away with it. :slight_smile:

  • Tsugumo (heh…a smiley face for good measure)
29

here’s a fun one for a crowd of people… the only problem might be aqcuiring some of the hardware without having a trail leading back to you…

it’s called a ‘fuel air device’… these are extremely nasty (for those of you with power boats, that little switch marked blower that you’re supposed to run for 5 minutes before turning the ignition key, that’s so you don’t have the same effect in the bilge of your boat)

<author’s note: I just deleted a very detailed description of how to make a fuel air device that would probably destroy a city block or so… I did this not because I don’t believe in the fair exchange of ideas of all kinds, but because I wouldn’t trust the average american with anything more dangerous than cheese.>

<author’s note part II: besides, if you want to build one, just look it up somewhere else on the internet, that way it’s not my fault when some kid destroys his elementary school>

30

I read a short story in high school about a woman that murdered her husband by whacking him in the head with a frozen leg of lamb, which she proceeded to cook and then offered dinner to the investigators who were looking all over for the blunt instrument.

My friends had this discussion once. They decided that one of those very large icicles, the kind that form on your house, were perfect murder weapons. Not only would there be no match ofor the wound, but the weapon would disappear without a trace.

31

That story was shown on an episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” – a classic!

32

Heh, good point…For all we know the OP was looking for ideas. :slight_smile:

I love that leg of lamb one…I mean, there’s pulling off a murder, and then there’s doing it with style, heh.

  • Tsugumo (who’s going to be checking the newspapers hoping not to find accounts of crowd knifing…agh)
33

I remember that story. I think it was based on a Roald Dahl story called Lamb to the Slaughter

34

Oh shit, my wife bought a leg of lamb at the grocery store last night!

35

So, bobo, are really asking how now to leave any forensic evidence of your crime behind?

There are several different kinds of what is known as “physical evidence”:

  • DNA/Blood evidence
  • “Presence” evidence (fingerprints, footprints, tire tracks)
  • Hair/Fiber evidence
  • Tool mark evidence
  • Ballistic evidence
  • The body, or artifacts, such as clothing or jewelry, in your posession
  • “Means of the crime” evidence (a gun, a knife)
  • Miscellaneous (includes “method” evidence, i.e. rope, handcuffs, plastic sheeting, gloves, etc)

Without some sort of phsyical evidence, or an eyewitness to the crime, it is extremely difficult for police to solve a case. They may have suspicions about your guilt, and may be able to create a chain of events that could possibly describe what happened, but without the physical evidence, it’s very difficult to prove.

So, it’s simple: If you don’t want to take the rap for a murder, don’t allow there to be any phisical evidence. Easier said than done, or course. :slight_smile:

36

Um, you do realize that when people get stabbed they generally bleed? If its a stab wound that would kill, they tend to bleed a lot. It would be pretty easy for someone to notice you with all that blood all over yourself. Now, there’s always a chance you’d be able to get away, but it’s hardly foolproof.

From a forensic standpoint, it’s almost impossible to leave no evidence. From what I recall, the method which leaves the least evidence is burking, aka putting a pillow over someone’s face to suffocate them. So simple, isn’t it? Still, they manage to catch people at this quite often.

After that, I’d go with poisons. Unless they know what poison to look for, some of these can be very hard to trace. Of course, if the symptoms of death look like what a poison would do, they’ll look for that poison. There are other problems with poisons, such as where to get them, but you have variety on your side here.

Nitrogen dioxide can be quite deadly to breathe, for instance. It can take several days (or weeks) for the victim to become ill and die. You could use that time to good advantage. Again, you have a big problem in aquiring the deadly gas (though it’s actually pretty easy to make) and in containing it, as it eats through most anything pretty fast, and especially in getting your victim to breathe it without killing yourself.

If you are really interested in this subject, though, there are several books by forensic scientists and medical examiners which you should read. Try Dead Men do Tell Tales for a start. There are many similar books with strange cases and how they were solved. For instance, I recall one story of a man who was commiting murder by injecting insulin into his victims IV tubing. The cause of death was clearly insulin related, but no needle puncture could be found on the corpses. He got away with it several times before a nurse found his used syringe in the garbage and the tubing was inspected.

37

True, but imagine the middle of some crowded place like New York (well, according to movies anyway, for all I know New York is farmland…), just as a subway car pulls or up something and everyone is pushing and shoving eachother…As long as you move FAST (don’t stand there twisting the knife in or something weird, heh…just slashing as you go), you’d be 2 or 3 people away before the person could make it known that “hey, I’ve been stabbed” (like how you put your hand on a hot stove and sit for a few seconds until you realize that it’s burning you and hurts like hell). Even then the shouting would probably just mingle with everyone else shouting to get where they’re going. And if you’re on the edge of the crowd, you’re not going to be watching for someone with blood on them because you’d have no idea something is up.

Or you could wear a red jacket, heh. :slight_smile:

…but please don’t. I should really quit posting ideas, heh…

Speaking forsenicly (heh), in a Science class back in High School we watched a video where a guy murdered some woman he knew and then drove way out of town, threw her body in an empty dumpster, filled it with gasoline, and lit it up on fire. In theory that’s a great idea (burn the gloves and any other evidence as well) because it’ll just look like ashes…Somehow the cops found the dumpster (a witness saw smoke or something that night, I don’t remember) and all they found was a piece of a TOOTH of the woman. From that they found out it was her, then checked out her “friends” and found the guy and they ended up catching him. Might have gotten away with it if he had covered his feelings better but I think people knew they had argued or something (I don’t quite remember).

A piece of a tooth solves a so far unsolvable case…that’s impressive, heh.

  • Tsugumo
38

If they are addicted to drugs, or willing to try them, put strychnine in their stash. Plausiable with LSD (yes, I read Cece’s article) or maybe coke. Heroin you could cut with arsenic or something else naturally occuring that a drug dealer might accidentally put in.

39

The bottom line with poisons is that they can all be traced and once the cops know which poison was used they are in a better position to ascertain who would have access to those poisons and if it’s a rare poison then it would be that much easier to trace back to you. If you’re gonna use poisin, best to make it one which anyone can get like rat poison or something.

40

Didn’t someone mention using that accomplice that looked like your wife, and that, perhaps, she was a lover? Now what would be the point of a lover who looked just like your wait. :slight_smile: Maybe your wife is rich…

Oh, I’d like to take this opportunity to mention Dial ‘M’ For Murder - what other movie actually has you ROOTING for the bad guy on account of his sheer wit and cleverness alone?