Certain high-profile murder cases have made me wonder (particularly as I’m trying to fall asleep at night) how in the hell these people could possibly have thought they would get away with it.
I sometimes lay awake in bed wondering how in the hell these “normal” people can commit such brutal crimes and then think that they are somehow smarter than the police who are inevitably going to come and question every possible thing about them.
I don’t watch CSI too often, and I completely realize the absurdness of the program, but it does highlight the many, many techniques that are available to police detectives. By God, these guys can look at finger prints, DNA evidence, fibres, cell phone records, transaction records, bill payments, Internet browsing history, movie rental records, and on and on and on.
Anyone who thinks that committing a murder can be covered up by pleading ignorance and washing their hands is a fool. The police are way too sophisticated and it really blows my mind that these sociopaths think they have a leg up.
Does anyone else think about these jerks and what their minds must work like? Maybe it’s just me, but the whole plotted murder of a loved one scenario is especially intriguing. How the hell do you expect to get away with it?
To see whether or not if they think they can get away with it, we would first have to see the success rate of not getting caught. How many cases in a given area are solved vs. those that are not? If there’s a lot of unsolved murder cases, it’s not that much of a stretch to think you could get away with it. IMO, a lot do get away with it. Couldn’t quantify it though.
The clearance rate for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter was 61.2% as of 2007. That number is not further broken down, though; you’ve got to figure it’s going to be harder to get away with it if you off your own spouse, collect on the insurance money, and then marry your secretary or the pool boy three weeks later; as opposed to rival gang members killing each other in drive-by shootings; or a serial killer who murders victims who had no prior connection to him at all.
I dont think I would call them normal, other than that most crimes are usually resolved in 72 hours, after that the trail gets cold and the officers case files start getting longer, then the DA or Crown wants a high turnover, so stuff gets backburnered till new information comes in. So ultimately its a race.
For someone like Jon Bonet Ramsay etal, I believe ya the cops will vaccum up every shred of evidence, but thats normally not the case. Real cops are saying that results on televison programs v real life are about ten days difference and of limited utility.
And they showed it at OJ’s trial, the original trial that is
Not to condone or promote such activities and everything else is for educational purposes, you want to give the cops and open and shut case that they wont even bother doing more than a cursory check.
[spoiler]For our hypothetical case , on a weekend night the victim is visibly inebriated in various clubs goes walking home or out for fresh air , and passes out in sub zero weather or falls through thin ice on a lake , depending on where you want to do the dirty deed.
What you desire is that the cops deem it death by misadventure[/spoiler]
However most of em , seem like they want to be caught so they can proclaim how smart they were, even if its unvoiced.
When you engage in deception, you have to constantly remember what information the relevant parties do and don’t know. You have to worry about if people are going to be suspicious and go prodding for more information. You have to worry about if something will come to light that will damage your story. All this and the deceit itself cause stress. When you’re stressed about something, you’re more likely to make mistakes doing it.
A person who is killed is usually killed (I’ve heard 80 percent) by the husband/boyfriend, or Betty White. It’s a lot easier when you already know who did it.
Do not off your SO. Do not hire someone else to do it, and especially, don’t let it happen randomly, because the they will wrongfully convict your ass for it and not let you out when some serial killer confesses just before his execution and knows details.
Any home murder scene can probably be made to look like the husband/boyfriend did it. His prints are everywhere (he lives there!), and his blood is on the bathroom sink (from shaving), case closed.
In Scott Peterson’s case it’s simple stupidity. This is a man who told his mistress that he was spending New Year’s at the Eiffel Tower with his new friends Francoise and Pasquel. Of course she saw him on the news at a candlelight vigil in Modesto about 10 minutes later
Well, that’s basically my point. How in the hell do these people think they can get away with it by simply avoiding the truth. Avoiding the truth like police detectives are idiots. Avoiding the truth like a 6 year old who broke the crystal ornament and decides to deny it from Mommy and Daddy.
Honestly, I think about these things way more than I should, but it really boggles my mind. The police are very, very , very adept and these clowns seem to think they’re smarter.
Or perhaps not “unvoiced”, but subconscious. There’s a theory that a great deal of male murderers’ behavior is driven by a leftover instinct from the Stone Age to kill rival males and show off how dangerous you are. Supposedly one of the more common ways the cops find murderers is because sooner or later they boast to someone about it, and statistically a man is more likely to commit murder impulsively if witnesses are present than if not.
It’s known that people are prone to make errors that favor inclinations and prejudices they have; if there’s some leftover instinct that makes a man want to show off how dangerous he is to the “tribe”, it’ll be pushing him constantly to make errors that favor him getting caught. The fact that getting caught isn’t a good idea in a modern society is going to be lost on an instinct.
This question reminds me of some Alfred Hitchcock movie (sorry can’t remember which one) wherein a dinner party discusses how to kill someone and get away with it…
And as I recall, the point was that nobody knows about all the “perfect murders” that have occurred. IOW, if you’re smart, nobody knows it was a murder so you’re not part of a statistic. You can’t be.
Which I found (and still find) quite creepy. Like, if you’re some old lady with no obviously valuable assets, and it appears that you died in your sleep, or from a heart attack…from “natural causes…” nobody’s going to do an autopsy and nobody’s going to care. If money isn’t involved, neither is the interest of the proper authorities. Autopsies are only performed AFAIK when there’s a question mark as to the obvious cause of death. And/or if there’s a reason somebody would want you dead.
I could be totally wrong on that, but the fact remains that there are no statistics on flawless murders. We simply have no idea.
wasn’t that they came to the conclusion that the perfect murder would be to bash the victims head in with a lead pipe and put the victims fingerprints on it too make it look a suicide?
Everyone who commits a crime starts with the idea “Well, I won’t get caught.” We all know people who think any explanation, no matter how implausible, will be taken at face value. (I was chipping golf balls at the time my wife was being cut up like a filet). And who think “they deserved it” is as good a defense as any.
I had a very uncomfortable “conversation” in a local pub yesterday afternoon about murder. It wasn’t so much a conversation as an insane (maybe right so) rant.
I ran into the local to see if my Irish boys were there. They weren’t, so I sat down next to two friends and ordered a soda. The man on my other side, turned to me and suddenly and loudly informed me that “the bitch” who was involved in his daughters murder was going to spend at least 3 more years behind bars. Apparently, her parole came up some time recently and was denied.
I didn’t know this man and wasn’t sure what to say about such a horrible thing. I mean, it’s GOOD that parole denied, but I didn’t know how to react a stranger discussing his daughter’s murder with me. However, my discomfort did not dissuade him. He continued to fill me in on all the details of the murder. Three men and a woman picked his daughter up in an alley and raped and killed her while they were on meth.
What really scared me about this is that the rant disintigrated into his telling me what expense he and his family had gone to in order to catch the killers. The DA hadn’t taken an interest. He made it sound like the police and other authorities had zero interest in finding out what had happened to his daughter. He claims that he spent his OWN money to do such things as hiring private investigators, doing research, travelling, in order to track down the killers. His claim is that until he handed it to them on a silver platter, no real investigation was done and it was all due to his OWN legwork and finances that the criminals were brought to justice.
Refrain here: listened to his complete “victim’s statement” rant that he gave in court, bragging about how victims had rights in the area all due to his efforts, drooling and crying, etc. I just sat there looking horrified.
Anyway, I wondered how likely it really was that an investigation got left to civilians in this manner and why that might happen. I mostly assumed the story was full of half-truths. But if any of it IS true, killers might have gone free while the DA played golf. And they weren’t smart killers at all, according to the story. Just a bunch of hopped up kids. Weird.
I’m not sure how much forethought goes into most killings in the first place.
“Columbo” style murders, in which a guy devises a master plan that he’s sure will give him an airtight alibi and confound the police, are extremely rare. Most murders are committed in the heat of the moment, and the killer has a relatively short time in which to cover his tracks and try to come up with a B.S. cover story.
It’s not that killers think they’re geniuses- they’re just improvising, and HOPING they get lucky.
Well, to be “fair” to Scott Peterson, he did put some effort into disposing of the bodies. They didn’t arrest him until after they washed ashore a few miles from where he’d been fishing. I’d theorize the DA would have had a much tougher case if the bodies had never turned up.
Also, while the police do have all kinds of impressive tools at their disposal, not all cops are particularly hard-working, diligent or (sad to say) smart.
Some are lazy, some are clock-punchers, some form snap judgements and are too slow to let go of their first impressions even if evidence seems to contradict them. Others can be oblivious to what’s right under their noses (like the Milwaukee cops who handed a frightened teenage boy over to Jeffrey Dahmer).
Diligent cops who use all the crime-solving tools at their disposal are formidable, but they’re not all diligent and often DON’T use all the tools at their disposal.
I agree, most murders are spur of the moment affairs. They are mostly family affairs, and usually, the killer has no plan to dispose of the body.In contrat, a Mafia “hit” is usally professionally carried out, and the body is usally destroyed in a way that laves no evidence. Why is this so hard? The reason: if someone iskilled and a lot of blood is spilled, the blood can be detected years later. The moral: killing is best eft to professionals.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. The Crown prosecutors in Canada don’t have any supervisory role over the police and can’t tell them which cases to work on.
Oddly enough, I was just recently talking to my dad, a retired police officer with nearly 50 years of LE experience, about getting away with murder. He offered the following:
Whatever you do, do it yourself.
Don’t talk about it to anybody, either before or after the fact.
Outdoors is best.
He also gave me a method for the quick and untraceable disposal of the body that was_extremely_clever. I won’t recount it here because I don’t want some criminal scumbag getting useful tips on beating the law from me or dad.
Anyway, the first two points are the most important, according to dad. Most criminals in general get tripped up either by their own mouths or accomplices who rat them out trying to beat legal problems of their own. Or both.