I Never Said It Was Poison: Difference between revisions

 

{{endingtrope}}

{{examples}}

* Happens all the time in ''Case Closed'' aka ''[[Detective Conan]]''. Things like, "I have an alibi for 8 to 9 pm!" "How did you know when the victim died?"

* L tries this strategy on Light ''several'' times in ''[[Death Note]]''. Unfortunately for him, Light is [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|too smart to fall for it]], always carefully keeping his comments to common knowledge and believable deductions.

* A non-harmful version in ''[[Nisekoi]]'': Haru tells Raku about a fellow, whose face she never saw, who helped her when she got lost at a school festival. To calm her down, the mystery [[Good Samaritan]] bought her ice cream. Now it crosses her mind to wonder if it might've been Raku, who is well-established as suffering from [[Samaritan Syndrome]]. He denies it (Haru has accused him in the past of trying to cash in on other people's reputations). "I never bought you vanilla ice cream!" And she realizes....

 

* Used in ''[[Identity Crisis]]'', when {{spoiler|Jean Loring mentions the note at Jack Drake's crime scene to Ray Palmer, despite Batman removing the note from the scene before the press found out. Oops.}}

* In ''[[Get Fuzzy]]'', Rob asks who took his package. Bucky says he never saw that sweater, leading Rob to ask "How did you know it was a sweater?" Grounding ensues

* In ''[[Hellboy]]: Conqueror Worm'', local guide Laura Karnstein is leading Hellboy and Roger to an abandoned castle. While making conversation, Laura casually mentions that she read Hellboy's file and was impressed by his past exploits. As they reach the castle, Laura goes on ahead, but Hellboy stops Roger to warn him that Laura couldn't have read his file. Sure enough, Laura is not who she claims to be.

 

* Ed Exley from ''[[L.A. Confidential]]'' likes doing a variant of this in his [[Perp Sweating|interrogations]]. In particular, he tends to say something about them being guilty as if it were a fact, and note that the person never protests or reacts as an innocent person would. For example, in his first interrogation he tells the perp "It's a shame you didn't pull this a few years ago when you were a minor, you being an adult makes it a gas chamber offense." Later, after he's done and is leaving the room, he stops to say, "You know Ray, I'm here talking about you getting the gas chamber, and you never asked me what this is about. You've got a big guilty sign on your forehead." The kicker though is that {{spoiler|the guys he's interrogating are guilty but not of the crime he's investigating.}}

* ''[[Minority Report]]'' has the villain realize the protagonists are onto him when he's caught in one of these. {{spoiler|Anderton's wife asks about Anne Lively's death, and Burgess pretends not to know about it, but says he'll see if "anyone drowned a woman by the name of - what did you say her name was?". "Anne Lively...but I never said she drowned."}}

* In ''Alone with Her'', the tip off that the protagonist has planted surveillance cameras in the house of the girl he's courting is when she rejects him and he starts ranting: "...I did everything for you, but you want to go back? To what? Huh? To being alone? To this empty room? '''To that brush'''?" Earlier in the movie, he'd caught a live feed of her masturbating with the hairbrush.

* Used lightly in ''[[1408]]'' when Mike Enslin calls a hotel for a reservation in the eponymous room, which the staff says is unavailable, despite not knowing ''when'' he'll be visiting, since they don't want anybody staying in the room ever.

* Averted in ''Sleuth''; Wyke mocks Inspector Doppler for trying this tactic on him.

(A few moments and [[Chewing the Scenery|more exposition from Khan]] later)

'''Khan''': You didn't expect to find me; you thought this was Ceti Alpha VI! Why are you here? }}

 

* This happens in ''[[Encyclopedia Brown]]'' books quite a bit. Not generally for murders, but it happens.

** One story had Encyclopedia figuring out which member of a gang robbed a grocery store, his only piece of evidence being a knife left stuck into a watermelon. When confronting the gang, one of the members says his knife is an inch longer...despite the knife never having been taken out of the melon, and the watermelon specifically having been described as "huge" so that even the longer knife blade would still be completely hidden.

* [[Timothy Zahn]]'s last book of ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy]]'', ''The Last Command'', features {{spoiler|Niles Ferrier attempting to accuse Talon Karrde of hiring an imperial assault team to attack a group of smugglers as [[False-Flag Operation|an example of the threat the Empire posed.]] He slips up when he mentions the name of the lieutenant leading the assault team ''before'' it's brought up by the person reading the planted evidence.}}

* In [[Jo Walton]]'s novel ''[[Small Change|Farthing]]'', the murder victim appears to have been stabbed. The police forensic techs figure out that he actually died of carbon monoxide poisoning, but don't reveal this to the press. A bit later, one character reveals that they know that the victim was gassed.

{{quote|'''Moist''': Look, [[Lampshade Hanging|I know how this sort of thing goes]]. You just [[Perp Sweating|sit here and ask questions]] and eventually I slip up and reveal something incriminating, right?

'''Carrot''': Thank you, sir.

* At least one of Tom Savage's stories (specifically {{spoiler|''Scavenger''}}) has the ''protagonist'' mention something he shouldn't have known. This leads to a [[Tomato in the Mirror]] scene with a literal mirror.

** Actually, there's some questionable writing here on Savage's part - the protagonist gives information that could easily be explained away, while the antagonist is the one who gives far too much information to authorities - yet the book acts like the protagonist has said something absolutely incriminating.

* At the end of the ''[[A to Z Mysteries]]'' book ''The Lucky Lottery'', the three main kids confront their prime suspect over a stolen lottery ticket.

{{quote|'''Ruth Rose:''' And ''your'' fingerprints are on the mantel where you stole the Christmas card!

* In the ''Waco'' series by [[J. T. Edson]], Waco uses this trick a few times to trip up a killer.

 

* In the various ''[[Law and Order]]'' shows, the detectives will often hold back certain details of the crime from the press, so they can test the veracity of any account from a suspect or witness. As many times as it's used to trip up the guilty, it will also expose someone attempting to confess falsely. For instance, a father taking the rap for his son's crime, not being able to describe at his allocution in court how and where he hit the victim.

** Also [[Truth in Television]] not just for debunking people trying to protect the "real killer," but also, the higher profile a case, the more likely it is to have kooks falsely attempting to confess. Either because they're insane, they want attention, have avoided punishment for something else and want to atone out of guilt or [[Too Stupid to Live|they just enjoy fucking with the police]].

::: Had she not made that mistake, she still would have had to explain why their first reaction upon seeing each other was to pull a gun on each other.

** In the episode "Bushwacked" an Alliance official tries to use this one on Mal, telling him they're looking for a brother and sister without mentioning the two are adults. Without batting an eye, Mal pretends to assume he's talking about children.

'''Mal:''' No children on this boat.

'''Harken:''' I didn't say "children." Siblings. Adult siblings.

{{quote|'''Crown Prosecutor Kaye''': Or was it just because he looked like a rapist?

'''Defendant''': [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|This has nothing to do with him being black!]]

* Frequently used in ''[[Columbo]]''.

** One episode had him find a witness, but it was a blind man. So they bring the suspect in, and {{spoiler|have a guy in shades walk in, sit down, and identify the suspect as leaving the murder scene right after the murder. The suspect, a psychologist, claims to be able to use his medical training to tell the man is blind, and hands him a newspaper...which he reads perfectly. Columbo reveals it's actually the blind man's similar-looking brother, and there was no way the suspect should've thought he was blind. Unless, of course, he had seen him while fleeing the scene of the crime.}}

* ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]'' featured this often. One episode had Jessica Fletcher tell a group of suspects the murder weapon was found and the killer was identified because he later referred to it as a pizza cutter.

 

 

* A ''Five Minute Mystery'' titled [http://www.otr.net/r/fmin/74.ram "The Return of Mr. Lawrence"] plays it by the book: a murdered woman's maid accuses the woman's former husband of poisoning her. The police never said it was poison.

* Parodied in Season 3, Episode 1 of ''[[Bleak Expectations]]'':

* In NPR's radio adaptation of ''[[Star Wars]]'', Leia's rebel allies inform her of the Death Star's existence. Later, she's being told about the weapon by an Imperial officer, and accidentally slips the weapon's name even though the officer hadn't mentioned it. Things get ugly from there.

 

* In [[David Mamet]]'s ''[[Glengarry Glen Ross]]'', {{spoiler|Levene}} blows it by admitting he knew Williamson had {{spoiler|already cashed Lingk's check}}, something no one but Williamson and the person who {{spoiler|robbed the office}} would have known.

* From ''[[Rent]]'':

'''Collins''': [[Go Look At the Distraction|CHAMPAGNE!?]] }}

 

* The ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' games use this a lot. One example in the third game has the murderer give himself away by {{spoiler|correcting the colour of a poison bottle after Phoenix does some [[Lying to the Perp]].}}. This includes [[Fridge Logic]] though, since the villain who gave himself away ''could have known'' that piece of information. {{spoiler|He was the defendant's lawyer for a little while, so it was likely he knew the poison bottle}}.

** It's actually ''very'' unlikely he could have discovered it while he was {{spoiler|impersonating Phoenix}}, as {{spoiler|the fact that the character was poisoned was a secret, and the actual poison bottle couldn't be admitted into evidence when Phoenix was doing the trial and ''trying'' to clear the innocent man, so it was ''very'' unlikely to have come up when the murderer was ''trying'' to lose the case.}} Even if it did {{spoiler|he alternately confirmed that he was impersonating a lawyer and trying to get his own client convicted, which is not exactly a minor crime itself.}}

* ''[[Baten Kaitos]] Origins'' uses the "innocent character taking the fall" variation. When Juwar is asked for more details of what he did in the city of Mintaka as [[Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters|the Mourning Mistral]], he tells Sagi that he planted the bomb in a nearby building after the election speeches...not knowing that the real Mourning Mistral broke their pattern of targeting buildings to target an airpod instead.

 

* {{spoiler|Souma Miou}} is outed as the one who had been bullying Rizu in ''[[A Profile]]'' because when confronted with a little evidence blurted out the location the evidence had been found in.

 

* [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1145 Whoopsy spleeny!]

 

* In one ''[[Shadow Unit]]'' episode, the gamma, whose manifestation involves causing real bullet wounds with a broken, unloaded gun, gives herself away by being the only person to have heard a gunshot at the death of her latest victim.

 

{{quote|'''Lawyer:''' Will you tell the court your whereabouts at the time of the carjacking?

'''Willie:''' I was alone in me Unabomber-style shack; I had nothing to do with that carjacking.

* Spoofed in the ''[[American Dad]]!'' episode "Black Mystery Month". A detective quizzes Steve at the scene of a murder and is instantly suspicious when Steve mentions details that are ''clearly visible at the scene''.

 

* This is the reason why newspaper reports about homicides tend to be deliberately vague: The police withhold crucial information until they have had a chance of interrogating the suspects and catch them in these situations.

* Suspicion that Wallace Souza had ordered or coordinated Brazilian gangland murders for his TV show ''Canal Livre'' grew when he approached a still-smouldering body in a forest, saying “It smells like a barbecue,” he says. “It is a man. It has the smell of burning meat. The impression is that it was in the early hours ... it was an execution”, even though the police had never given a time of death. Also, he tended to arrive a little too quickly at the scene of the crime. He died before he could be prosecuted.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Mystery Tropes]]

[[Category:Perp Sweating]]

[[Category:The Oldest Tricks in The Book]]

[[Category:Ending Tropes]]