Murder by Mistake: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

For criminals, hitting the wrong guy means that their intended victim might be alerted that someone's after them. Even worse, the wrong guy might be a person they actually care about.

 

 

In [[Real Life]], this is common enough for the rule of "transferred intent": intent follows the bullet, so that the intent to kill someone makes your killing anyone intentional. The [[Other Wiki]] has [[wikipedia:Transferred intent|more here]]

 

 

* In ''[[Legally Blonde]]'', the murderer wanted to kill her step-mother, and planned to kill her as she stepped in to their home. So when the door opened, the murderer took a shot. It ended up being her father.

* In ''[[The Cats Meow]]'', Thomas H. Ince is shot by William Hearst from behind because he was wearing a bowler hat and Hearst mistook him for [[Charlie Chaplin]], his intended target.

 

 

* In ''The Kennel Murder Case'' by S. S. Van Dine, one of the victims is killed because the killer mistook him for his brother (the intended victim).

* In the [[Nero Wolfe]] novel ''Please Pass The Guilt'' by Rex Stout, a person is killed by a trap bomb, but it isn't clear for whom the bomb was intended.

 

 

* This happens very often in ''[[Law and Order]]''. Often, the intended victim will just be wounded, while an innocent bystander is killed.

** Subverted in the ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' episode "Raw", where a sniper shoots several children playing in their school's yard. One of the murdered children is the authentic target; the sniper shot the others intentionally to muddy the waters and make it seem like a random crime.

In the music video of Party at the C.I.A. by [[Weird Al]] the protagonist accidentally shoots, and kills, a head of state, when he was supposed to kill another head of state (the 2 Head of States were in close proximity at the time).

 

* In ''[[Hamlet]]'', the title Prince stabs Polonius through a curtain, thinking him to be his [[Evil Uncle]], Claudius, who he has sworn vengeance again.

** Later, Queen Gertrude drinks from a poisoned goblet of wine that Claudius had intended for Hamlet.

 

 

* ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' involves this as well. Acro wanted to kill Regina for not realizing how she was responisble for his brother's coma. He has a plan to drop a heavy weight once she arrived a certain spot. However, he could not see who arrived at the spot due to his condition and placement, and ended up killing Regina's father, a man who he looked up to very much.

* In the ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star Fox]]'' series, the Nintendo Power comics had Andross, the main [[Big Bad]] of the series, plan to get rid of James McCloud, father of Fox McCloud as he was in love with Vixy Reinard McCloud, Fox's mother and James' wife. However, she didn't love him back... at all (it was implied he was more of a [[Stalker with a Crush]]). So, he decided to kill James with a car bomb. Unfortunately, on the day he planted it, James let Vixy use his car to get to work, as hers was broken down, and she was killed in the following explosion.

 

 

* The very first attempt on the life of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria involved the would-be assassin throwing a hand grenade at the Archduke's car and missing. The explosion injured several innocent bystanders instead. Ironically, the Archduke was finally assassinated while he was on the way to visit several of the casualties of the explosion.

** The Archduke's wife, Duchess Sophie, was shot by mistake as well. She was sitting next to her husband in the back seat of their open touring car, across from General Potoriek, the military governor of Bosnia, another intended target of the assassination conspiracy. Gavrilo Princip testified that he was so shocked by the presence of the lady right in the path of his intended victims that he didn't even take aim when he fired, but shot with his eyes closed. He expressed great remorse over Sophie's death, stating that he had never intended to deprive the Archduke and Duchess' children of their mother. (Additionally, some accounts of the murder have Princip's arm being grabbed by a plainclothes police officer who was standing next to him, thus deflecting the bullet that was meant for General Potoriek so that it hit the Duchess instead.)