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The Perfect Crime: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"[[Locard's Theory|There is no one in the world who can be somewhere and leave without a trace]]. [[Pluto|Any man who could isn't human]]."''|'''Inspector Lunge''', ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]''}}
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'''May contain unmarked spoilers.'''
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] ==
* The eponymous ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'', Johan Liebert, is pretty good at this. It takes around half of the seventy-four episode series for Tenma to prove that Johan even ''exists.'' And even then, the police ''still'' don't believe him.
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* A number of murderers in ''[[Detective Conan]]'' intentionally arrange to have "[[Meitantei]]" Mouri Kogoro witness their crime, so confident are they that they can have the "Great Detective" himself provide them with a foolproof alibi. (And usually they would be right, too, even with Conan on the job, save for some completely coincidental bit of bad luck that provides the crucial evidence necessary to link them to it.)
* Every episode of ''[[Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro]]'' is about some killer who pulls off either a ridiculously intricate murder or a ridiculously intricate alibi. Or both, or both at once. Neuro only manages to solve the case because of his "777 Underworld Tools."
* In-universe example in ''[[Bakuman｡]]'': The latest of Ashirogi Muto's manga is about kids who pull off
* This is a big plot point in the third arc of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]''. Keiichi tries to figure out how to commit one by talking to [[Taught by Television|his mom]] with whose help he decides that the perfect crime is one that was never committed (or leaves no trace of being committed). He then attempts to do this and murders Satoko's uncle, although the method he actually uses - burying the body in the woods - is pretty shoddy. It winds up working anyway, but only because {{spoiler|of Sonozaki intervention}} that really only winds up screwing him up even worse than [[Ax Crazy|he already was]].
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* ''[[Harry Potter and
{{quote|If you did commit the perfect crime, nobody would ever find out - so how could anyone possibly know that there weren't perfect crimes?
And as soon as you looked at it that way, you realized that perfect crimes probably got committed all the time, and the coroner marked it down as death by natural causes, or the newspaper reported that the shop had never been very profitable and had finally gone out of business... }}
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** ''CSI'' recycled this plot to good effect.
** So did ''[[Bones]]''.
** As did ''[[Castle]]''.
** This was also the plot for Jerry Orbach's last episode of ''[[Law and Order]]'', where two (rich) women killed each other's husbands. One of them got off because they didn't have any hard evidence.
* ''[[The Postman Always Rings Twice]]'': A woman and her lover kill her husband and get away with it.
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* ''[[Mr. Brooks]]'': The eponymous character's serial murders are exhaustively careful
* ''[[The Whole Nine Yards]]'': A slight subversion as the murderer makes the police think that ''he'' is the dead man.
* ''[[Double Jeopardy]]'': The husband manages to successfully fake his own murder and frame his wife, making it the perfect crime... until she gets out of prison. When she does, sets out to murder her husband, safe in the knowledge that a loophole protects her from prosecution: She was tried and convicted of his murder before he turned up alive with a new identity, and therefore the Bill of Rights prevents her from being tried again. Note that this wouldn't work in real life. She'd just be tried for a second murder.
* ''[[The Thomas Crown Affair]]'': An [[Eccentric Millionaire]] directs a bank robbery.
* The Korean film ''[[Memories of Murder]]'' about a real serial killer who was never caught. The film portrays this as a result of police incompetence rather than a diabolical master of crime.
* ''[[Inside Man]]'' is the story of "The Perfect Bank Robbery." {{spoiler|They take hostages, but don't hurt any of them (though they pretend to kill one, purely to scare the police). They continually switch around robbers and planted hostages, keeping everyone confused as to who is who. Instead of stealing money from the bank, they steal a drawer full of ill-gotten (and therefore undocumented) diamonds--so to the police, it looks like nothing was stolen. And they evade capture by hiding among the hostages.}}
* Parodied in the Bill Murray movie ''[[Quick Change (film)|Quick Change]]'', in which the highly complex robbery the characters plan and execute in the movie really ''is'' perfect, and goes off flawlessly. The [[A Simple Plan|relatively simple matter]] of the getaway, on the other hand, becomes a complicated and mishap-strewn nightmare, until the characters are reduced to wandering around the streets of Queens in the middle of the night with millions of dollars taped to their skin under their clothes trying desperately to hail a taxi or catch a bus.
* Although not the main point of the movie, ''[[Match Point]]'' features a perfect crime that could,
* ''[[Murder by Numbers]]''. Epic failure, no thanks to [[Fair Cop|Cassie]].
* ''[[Ocean's
* ''[[
* ''[[
* In ''[[
* The first fantasy in ''[[Unfaithfully Yours]]''.
* ''[[Kelly's Heroes
* ''[[The League of Gentlemen (film)|The League of Gentlemen]]'''s heist would have gone off flawlessly if a random little boy hadn't been collecting license plate numbers outside the bank. This, coupled with the fact that they rendezvous at Hyde's house afterwards, allows the police to catch them all cash in hand.
* In ''[[The Life of David Gale]],'' this is played straight. An anti-death penalty activist is found dead, and the eponymous character, a fellow activist, is convicted and executed due to an abundance of evidence, despite claiming his innocence. Doesn't sound like the perfect crime, you say? Well, {{spoiler|the actual crime was the "victim" and the "murderer" conspiring to be respectively "murdered" and executed for the murder. Evidence would then be released that the "murder" was really a suicide, which would in turn show that an innocent man was executed and hopefully gain sympathy for their anti-death penalty views.}}
* In ''[[The Master of Disguise]]'' the [[Big Bad]] Devlin Bowman ''claims''
* ''[[Rampage]]'' the film, how to pull of the ultimate murder spree/robbery in small town hell.
* ''The Perfect Crime'' is a Spanish film about a meticulous mall employee who tries to off his [[Abhorrent Admirer]] with the perfect crime. He rents a bunch of crime films as research and is alarmed that one of them is mis-labeled ''[[Rouge Angles of Satin|El Crimen Ferpecto]]'', "The Ferpect Crime." This was the original Spanish title of the film.
== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[Agatha Christie]]'s ''The Mysterious Affair at Styles'', the killer uses a very convoluted method and an obvious one for which he has an unbreakable alibi. He intended to be tried for the obvious method and produce his alibi, because the British law prevents you from being tried twice for the same murder. Unfortunately, he blabbed too much and Poirot saw through his ruse...
* Agatha Christie's ''[[And Then There Were None]]'' has one of these rare cases in which the criminal actually gets away with his/her crime in the
* Most of Agatha Christie's stories involve an attempt at the perfect murder. However, Curtain, her last story, topped them all, as {{spoiler|even Poirot calls the murderer the perfect murderer, as he could never be tried, couldn't even be connected to the crimes, and gets away with over 6 murders. In fact, the only way to stop him was to kill him.}}
* In ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'', Raskolnikov thinks that his research into why criminals are caught, and his own [[Ubermensch]]-iness, will give him the edge to murder and get away with it. He panics and very nearly gets caught during the crime, and gets stuck in playing cat-and-mouse with Inspector Porfiry Petrovich.
* ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'': Professor Moriarty is especially good at doing this. Made all the more intriguing because it's implied that he and Holmes have history before The Final Problem, and several fans have decided to start looking for the other cases he's been the cause of. And the police wouldn't believe he was a criminal.
* Ultimately, committing the perfect murder was the real motive of the murderer in the [[Lord Peter Wimsey]] novel ''Whose Body?''.
* A thief in the ''[[Matador Series]]'' admitted to Sleel that years before he'd stolen a rare document from a museum for a wealthy collector. It was a perfect crime because he replaced the document with a copy so good that the theft was never even noticed.
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
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* ''[[Hustle]]'', in a few cases. Mostly, something gets screwed up, though...
* Exaggerated in ''[[Meitantei no Okite]]'' when the criminal ends up helping the detective solve it (though it ignored the truth because of his pride).
* ''[[Jonathan Creek]]'' revolves around this, with Creek using his stage-magician knowledge to help suss out many a
* One episode of [[Psych]] involved a thief who never left any trace and managed to steal things out of sealed buildings. {{spoiler|The "victims" just gave him the stuff so that they could collect insurance}}.
* George Marks, a serial killer from ''Cold Case'', perpetrates an example of the second variety. He works filing the case reports, so his knowledge of the murders doesn't give him away, his home is totally clean of all evidence, and he says just enough that the detectives know it was him, but can't prove a thing.
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* The eponymous character from ''[[Dexter]]'' is quite proficient at this: tranquilizing his victims and binding them in a room completely covered in plastic sheeting. He then kills them with an edged weapon to avoid ballistic evidence, often while wearing a face shield, rubber gloves and apron, and saws them into pieces which he [[Disposing of a Body|disposes of]] in biodegradable trash bags and dumps into a strong ocean current. The victims then all appear to be missing persons cases and are rarely ever mentioned again. It helps that he's a blood spatter analyst; it's his job to figure out other people's crimes, and he got training in the matter from his cop foster father.
** [[Averted Trope|Averted]] in Season 2, when divers stumble upon one of his dump sites, leading to an investigation that comes uncomfortably close to exposing him and forces him to improve his method.
** In later seasons Dexter regularly screws up. He only gets away because he is good at [[Indy Ploy|covering up his screw ups]]. If the cops and/or FBI start investigating the disappearances seriously, he would be exposed. A number of people could have exposed him already but they consider the people he killed to be far worse and will not turn him in.
== Newspaper Comics ==
* One ''[[Dick Tracy]]'' Crimestopper panel simply stated "When a crime is not reported, and no arrests are made, a "perfect crime" has been committed."
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
* The ''perfect'' crime? We'll never know, will we?▼
** There was the Zodiac/Jack The Ripper Murders. No one ever knew who was the killer.▼
* [[The Man Who Never Was]] : in [[Real Life]] it worked so well that they had to [[Rule of Drama|throw a minor wrench in it]] to make a movie.▼
* The TV show Masterminds re-enacts real life cases, some of which might be considered the perfect crime. One episode was even titled "The Perfect Score" and had an FBI agent admitting that the crime was perfect. There were only a few clues that went straight to dead ends. The only reason the criminal was caught was that he tried to pull it off again, and the FBI noticed how similar the second (failed) crime was.▼
* It was [[wikipedia:Leopold and Loeb|Leopold and Loeb]]'s goal to commit the perfect crime when they murdered fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks. They were bright young things who thought they might be [[Ubermensch|Ubermenschen]]. They made about a frillion mistakes. Just to demonstrate how far from perfect this attempt was, some of the more notable ones are: Leaving the body right by railroad tracks, where it was quickly discovered. Leaving a pair of eyeglasses belonging to one of them with an unusual hinge mechanism that had been bought by ''three'' people in the area. And on questioning claiming that they had been out in their car, even though their ''chauffeur'' was repairing the car that night. Being seen together in their rented car at the time and place the kidnapping had occurred. Yeah, Moriarty these guys were not.▼
* In an early HBO special, [[George Carlin]] joked about what he considered the perfect crime; [[Grievous Harm with a Body|You pick up one person and use them to beat another person to death.]] [[Insane Troll Logic|They both die and there's no murder weapon!]]▼
{{quote|'''"Cop":''' [[The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much|Seems like a pedestrian accident to me. Must've been moving at quite a clip.]]}}▼
* Two Malaysian men escaped hanging for drug trafficking because they were [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7876221.stm twin brothers], and the courts couldn't distinguish between the guilty brother and the innocent brother.▼
* Averted in Real Life according to David Simon's book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Rule #10 in Homicide: There is too such a thing as a perfect murder. Always has been, and anyone who tries to prove otherwise merely proves himself naive, romantic, and a fool who is ignorant of the first nine rules.▼
== [[Video Games]] ==
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** {{spoiler|Luke Atmey's plan to murder Kane Bullard used the Double Jeopardy law to get him convicted for being [[Phantom Thief|Mask*DeMasque]], because since the theft and murder occurred at the same time, being declared guilty of one legally makes him innocent of the other.}}
** Third case, third game. Kill someone. Plant evidence. {{spoiler|Re-enact crime to manipulate witness testimony.}} [[Serial Escalation|Impersonate lawyer, represent accused, do intentionally poor job]]. The only reasons it fails are because a guilty verdict ''can'' in rare instances be overturned, and they decided to impersonate someone with quite a reputation.
* In ''[[Heavy Rain]]'', one of the games hardest trophies to get is called ''Perfect Crime''. {{spoiler|Scott Shelby goes loose, whereas Lauren, Hassan, Kramer, Madison, Norman, Ethan, and Shaun all die. (Though the last two are optional)}}
* A minor version in Persona3 where you can intentionally not catch the Junpei peeping at the girls at the hot springs as the female Main Character. The boys will be quite happy to see the girls bathe and not get in trouble for once.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In one of the shorts that ''[[The Simpsons]]'' originated from, Bart claims that stealing freshly baked cookies and blaming it on Maggie, who is pre-verbal and can't defend herself, is the perfect crime. After eating an entire sheet of cookies, getting chocolate smeared all over his face, he is caught and his attempt to scapegoat his sister understandably fail. As Bart gets taken away for punishment (stating that there is no such thing as a perfect crime), Maggie steals ''one'' cookie - whose theft will be blamed on Bart if it's noticed at all.
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* The ''perfect'' crime? We'll never know, will we?
▲** There was the Zodiac/Jack The Ripper Murders. No one ever knew who was the killer.
▲* [[The Man Who Never Was]] : in [[Real Life]] it worked so well that they had to [[Rule of Drama|throw a minor wrench in it]] to make a movie.
▲* The TV show Masterminds re-enacts real life cases, some of which might be considered the perfect crime. One episode was even titled "The Perfect Score" and had an FBI agent admitting that the crime was perfect. There were only a few clues that went straight to dead ends. The only reason the criminal was caught was that he tried to pull it off again, and the FBI noticed how similar the second (failed) crime was.
▲* It was [[wikipedia:Leopold and Loeb|Leopold and Loeb]]'s goal to commit the perfect crime when they murdered fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks. They were bright young things who thought they might be [[Ubermensch
▲* In an early HBO special, [[George Carlin]] joked about what he considered the perfect crime; [[Grievous Harm with a Body|You pick up one person and use them to beat another person to death.]] [[Insane Troll Logic|They both die and there's no murder weapon!]]
▲{{quote|'''"Cop":''' [[The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much|Seems like a pedestrian accident to me. Must've been moving at quite a clip.]]}}
▲* Two Malaysian men escaped hanging for drug trafficking because they were [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7876221.stm twin brothers], and the courts couldn't distinguish between the guilty brother and the innocent brother.
▲* Averted in Real Life according to David Simon's book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Rule #10 in Homicide: There is too such a thing as a perfect murder. Always has been, and anyone who tries to prove otherwise merely proves himself naive, romantic, and a fool who is ignorant of the first nine rules.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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