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The Killer Was Left-Handed: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}
{{quote|'''[[Lord Peter Wimsey]], [[Gentleman Detective]]''': "On the left, from behind downwards. That looks like another of our old friends"
'''Harriet Vale, [[Mystery Writer Detective]]''': "The left-handed criminal"
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This can clear one suspect, and convict another. But, of course, if the determination comes early in the show, you can bet that there will be two lefties connected to the case.
In any case, even though about a tenth of the human beings on Earth are left-handed, being left-handed is good enough to make you the prime suspect. And as any rightie can tell you, sometimes you just use the other hand for killing people.
Even [[Sherlock Holmes]] resorted to this at times.
This trope is discredited in real life, though it was once a common tool in detection. Several scholars believe that the search for [[Jack the Ripper]] was stymied by the ultimately unfounded belief that
"Non-secretor" status may be the next generation of this trope. About 10% of people do not have antigens in bodily fluids other than blood, so sweat, saliva, semen, etc., cannot be used for blood type comparison purposes. This particular variation is currently rare on TV, though it is more common in novels.
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{{examples}}
== Anime
* In one ''[[Kindaichi Case Files]]'' story, Kindaichi proves that a victim whose handedness was unknown was left handed based on his use of left-handed scissors, specifically designed to only function efficiently for lefties.
* This trope is used a few times in ''[[Detective Conan]]''.
** Most notably in ''Captured In Her Eyes'', the fourth movie. {{spoiler|But of all the lefties, somehow, it was the psychiatrist who did it! Yes, he's a lefty, but he trained himself to use his right hand. He slipped up though, and dialed the phone with his left.}}
* The ''[[CSI: Crime Scene Investigation]]: Intern at Your Own Risk'' Tokyopop manga has the killer be a Non-secretor.
== [[Film]] ==
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* ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'' used this trope in the court-room scene. It made a lot more sense in this case, as the accused's left hand was badly mangled in a childhood accident and he couldn't use it.
** The actual strategy used was a little more complicated. The accuser said that she was held down and beaten, at the same time; something not possible when the alleged assailant only has one properly functioning arm. The main invocation of the trope, though, comes when the accuser has bruises on her right eye - it would be very hard for the accused to hit her on that side of her face when his functioning arm is on his right. (The accuser said that they were facing each other on the ground.) Unfortunately, despite the fact that this was overwhelming, if circumstantial, evidence that the accused was innocent, he was still convicted because he was [[Values Dissonance|black.]]
* [[Sherlock Holmes]] used this exactly once and it was handled somewhat more sensibly than usual: the victim was killed by a blow to the head (delivered with the strong arm) and the footprints indicated that the killer was standing right behind him.
** Inverted in an episode of the ''New Adventures of [[Sherlock Holmes]]'' radio show. In the episode, Holmes and Watson meet a radiologist who [[Chekhov's Gun|casually describes]] his head assistant as ''adroit'' and his other two assistants as ''gauche'', then chuckles that this is literally true as well as metaphorically. When the radiologist is (naturally) murdered by one of his assistants, Holmes deduces, in his brilliance, that it must have been delivered with someone using their right hand. Thus, only the "adroit" (right-handed) assistant could've killed the radiologist.
*** Messed with in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' while Data and Geordi are doing one of their Holmes and Watson routines. An error in the holodeck messes with Data's deduction - a character is right handed when he's meant to be left.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[CSI: Crime Scene Investigation]]'', ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'', and a Patricia Cornwell novel each did a more unlikely variant, though, where the killer had two separate sets of DNA, so saliva samples did not match blood or semen. (The reasons differed: in one, this was the result of a rare birth defect. In the Law and Order episode, it was the result of a bone marrow transplant.)
** The birth defect version was probably [[Ripped from the Headlines]], as this troper recalls an episode from a [[True Crime]] show that covered the same thing.
** In the ''CSI'' episode, the killer's semen DNA did not match the swab in his mouth, but it did point to a sibling. All his brothers and cousins were tested and came back negative.
*** sounds like they did their homework for a change. a 'chimera' has 2 sets of dna in different cells of his body, with both sets related in the same way brothers/sisters are related. it's basically the opposite of identical twins: instead of 1 zygote splitting in 2, 2 fuse into 1. as long as both are of the same gender this tends not to cause any problems for the child, otherwise the child might be inter-sex. the condition might be far more common then previously thought (most people never have their dna analyzed, so they'd be completely unaware they have the condition). there is f.i. the real-life case of a woman who gave birth to several children that (according to dna) weren't hers. the government moved in to investigate and officials were present when she gave birth to yet another child that wasn't hers. nobody understood what had happened (the mother herself least of all) until they stumbled upon a doctor who knew about chimeras.
* ''[[CSI]]'' also both subverted and plays this one straight. In one episode, Doc Robbins says that the whole
* In an episode of ''[[Angel]]'', while attempting to prove she didn't kill someone, Harmony uses the possibly-true fact that vampires tend to always bite on one or the other sides of their victim's neck.
** Makes sense. When kissing, people have a preferred side they tilt their head to, vampires are usually human-based, so it might carry over. However, the first person to tilt his/her head sort of forces the other party to counter-tilt, so in case of a deliberate exposing of the neck...
* "Mr. [[Monk]] and the Garbage Strike" had an inversion of the first [[Agatha Christie]] example above. {{spoiler|The left-handed victim was shot on the right side of the head. To make it look like a suicide, the killer wrapped the victim's left arm in a bandage to make it look broken.}}
* Used inexplicably on ''[[Fortier]]'' where a contract killer uses an expensive Ruger specially modified for left-handed use and discards it at the scene. While it isn't all that rare to discard a "clean" murder weapon, leaving such a distinctive calling card on the scene where it will definitely be found is...odd.
* Almost used in an episode of ''[[Diagnosis: Murder]]'', where the killer must be right handed. This lets the left handed man off, until it's revealed that everyone is innocent. Since someone must be guilty, it turns out the lefty is ambidextrous.
* An episode of ''[[Columbo]]'' had a slight subversion - the killer was ambidextrous, but used his left hand in the killing.
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** Not exactly. No-one states that the killer has to be left-handed, it's just that {{spoiler|the gun bears prints from the defendant's right hand, while the photograph shows the killer holding it in his left.}}
*** Thus, it is a [[Justified Trope]].
** I don't think people get what this trope is about...It's about moments when someone suspects a person because of the fact that the weapon was held in a certain hand, even though in reality no one brings up the fact that the killer could have simply used their opposite hand anyway. In Ace Attorney, when ever the fact about someone's dominant hand contradicting a weapon comes up, either said weapon is a gun or there's prove as too how the gun was held contradicting how the suspect apparently held the gun. In the former, it makes sense in that firing a gun with your none-dominant hand is very difficult so it's hard too believe someone would just swap hands because they would probably be unable too pull this off, and in the later you have proof as too the fact that the person held the weapon in a certain hand so there's no way they could just use this excuse.
*** On that note, the trope is subverted in that Edgeworth actually BRINGS THIS UP in case 5:3. Upon proving that {{spoiler|the culprit that hit him with a sword did so with there left hand, Kay says that Lance, the person who Edgeworth suspects did it, is right handed. Edgeworth however says that he simply used his none-dominant hand on purpose too throw suspicion away from him, stating that swinging a simple prop sword is easy, no matter what hand you use}}.
* Subverted/Averted in ''[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)]]'', where you can learn during the autopsy that the killer was left handed, from the angle of the knife marks. However, this fact does not appear in the later scene where you must link evidence to connect the killer to Lucas.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In one episode of ''[[Fillmore!]]'', the hall monitors (yes, it's that kind of show) find that someone has been shredding other students' important papers. From the angle of the shreds, they determine which hand the shredder used to place the papers in. Turns out, {{spoiler|it was ''all'' of the victims, working together to frame a non-existent shredder}}.
** Also, the episode where someone was tagging the bathroom stall doors. Fillmore figures it out because {{spoiler|the graffiti on the stalls was written with a marker, with each letter overlapping the letter to the right. This meant the graffiti had to be written from right to left and thus the culprit had to be left-handed}}.
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[[Category:Forensic Phlebotinum]]
[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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