Murder, She Wrote

I have always liked a good mystery, although I have never been good at solving them. When I watched “Mission Impossible" on TV, I was always fooled by the real perpetrator. When I read mystery books, I always go for every red herring, convincing myself of the merits of the case against nearly every character. I never would have been friends with Jessica Fletcher of “Murder She Wrote,” because everyone around her in her small village seemed to suffer a fatal end. But when boredom set in during the quarantine (after about 48 hours) I found myself watching more episodes of real-life murder mysteries than ever, and the supply was bountiful.

Sure, there’s “Colombo” and “Monk” and a zillion other fictional crime dramas, but as Marvin Gaye says, “Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing.” Besides, you really can’t make up some of this stuff.
You can find something in the crime genre on TV at any time of the day or night. There are “Deadly Vows,” and “Homicide Hunter,” and a plethora of other mysteries that air on the OG crime network, the ID Channel, but ID isn’t the only source. I found one show, “Unsolved Mysteries,” completely unappealing because, as the title says, they never solve the case!

My personal favorite mystery show is “Dateline,” which calls NBC home on Thursday and Friday nights, but you can catch episodes of the series re-airing on ID, on Oprah’s OWN Network, USA, and CNBC – which apparently thinks murder shows are good business.

There is always the case of “whodunit.” You see what looks like the perfect family only to find that the husband or wife has been carrying on a torrid affair that seems way out of character (of course he TOLD the paramour he was divorced and not still married to his high school sweetheart after 36 years). You know this because the friends of the couple get to go on TV and tell you why he never would have poisoned her food or left the hotel where he was staying on a business trip to come home, shoot her, set the house on fire and then calmly return to the hotel and claim he was there all along (oops, forgot about those security cameras, didn’t you?). The friends are always shocked and the families devastated by the loss of their loved ones, and, by the end of the program, the family is sometimes divided in their loyalty to the accused – who may be one of them. Sometimes the friends immediately have that sneaky suspicion that the spouse did it and they set out to solve the case or help the authorities bring the criminal to justice. On a recent show, the adult son grew up with a single father because his father killed his mother but was never charged with the crime. Even when his father was finally convicted of the murder, the son still loved him because he was his only parent.

To me, the worst crimes are the ones where little children are involved. If these are your kids, you probably have just ruined their lives. No 6-year-old should have to take the witness stand to say they heard mommy and daddy yelling right before mommy left the house and never came back. 

And then there are the random crimes, the kidnapping and killing of college students and innocent victims who are murdered and left for dead in a vacant field or thrown into a stream. The worst are the serial killers, who are the scum of the earth. It’s hard to identify the next Ted Bundy, who may just be sitting at the desk beside you.

Sometimes these cases yield no clues for the police to use in tracking down the culprits and they end up in the “cold case file” where they languish indefinitely, unresolved and heartbreaking to the loved ones of the victim. Kudos to the determined, dogged police detectives who are assigned to pursue a case that no one could solve until they looked at it with a set of fresh eyes or who are able to use forensic tools that may not have existed when the crime happened. And thanks to the original investigators who captured and retained evidence just in case it might come in handy decades after the crime was committed.

Having watched so many episodes of these programs and having seen so many different crimes, I can’t help but detect (pun intended) a few themes that run through many of them. Criminals might not be the sharpest knives in the drawer – even though they use those knifes to commit their crimes. So, for all you would-be killers and criminals, here are my observations and advice.

1. You might want to consider just divorcing your spouse rather than killing him/her and depriving your children of a parent – or potentially both parents if you get caught, convicted and sent to prison. And disposing of the body is always a hassle.

2. If you do intend to kill the former love of your life or even a stranger, know that the authorities can easily get your cell phone records, bank transactions and any other information that might be incriminating. They will know where you were by the location of your phone – those sneaky cell towers enable the authorities to pinpoint your location at the time of the murder.

3. If you are making arrangements for a friend or hired killer to do the dastardly deed, it probably isn’t a good idea to call that person 22 times the day before the crime is scheduled to be done (seriously, that was in a recent episode). Coincidence? I think not. Personally, I don’t know anyone well enough to ask them to either kill someone for me or find someone who would. 

4. If you need to research how to poison someone with antifreeze or must search for other lethal alternatives, don’t use your own computer and search from your house, where the authorities can find you from your IP address. Try the old-fashioned way: Go to the library and look up ways to kill someone in a book!

5. If you find the need to buy tarps, large plastic bags, shovels, hunting knives, gloves, rope or a gun – pretty much anything that could potentially be used to kill someone and dispose of a body – don’t go shopping the day before the murder, and certainly DO NOT use your credit card to pay for those items – use CASH! The cops will check your credit card records and see that you charged the knife at Walmart and then they will find the security footage of you in the store making the purchase. In one very notorious case that I read two separate books about, the murderer used his brother’s boat to dump the body in the ocean and shot a hole in the sturdy cooler he bought for disposing of the body to make it sink. Eventually, a fisherman found a cooler floating and it was traced back via a credit card purchase. Sometimes it can be excused as circumstantial evidence, but a good prosecutor will make the jury get past reasonable doubt.

6. Cameras and security devices are EVERYWHERE! Your neighbor’s Ring doorbell footage can spot you loading a large plastic bag with what appears to be a body into the trunk of your car. Banks, parking lots, buildings, gas stations and traffic lights can help find you driving in your own car to put you in the vicinity of the crime scene. I watched one case where the authorities pieced together a trip of several hundred miles by using this kind of footage.

7. If you try to outwit law enforcement by renting a car to get to the crime scene instead of using your own, easily identifiable car, don’t rent it in your own name!

8. If you are trying to get rid of the body, you can’t just throw a tarp over it (see point 5) and dump it in a field near the road. Those pesky joggers always seem to find things that seem amiss and alert the cops. You need to make more of an effort to hide the body.

9. If you are related to the victim by marriage or are a current or former significant other, know that you will almost immediately be considered a person of interest. Once that happens, the cops will be watching how you react and what you do from that point on. Did you sob when you heard the news about the death of your loved one? Did you ask any questions about how it happened? Did you immediately concoct a story that smacks of an alibi? Did you immediately demand an attorney? Did you participate in the community-wide search to look for your missing loved one?

10. You should know that no woman leaves the house without her keys, phone and wallet – unless she is jogging. And she probably didn’t leave scrambled eggs sitting on her plate on the kitchen table, either.

11. If you are taken in for questioning, don’t drink the water. Today there are new methods that didn’t exist years ago to get evidence. There is a burgeoning field of forensic genealogy where DNA can be matched against a database that might include cousins you didn’t know you had and you are identified. The authorities will want a sample of your DNA to tie you to the victim or crime scene and just by taking a sip from the bottle of water they politely offer you are providing it. If you forget that and do take a sip and then wipe off the bottle, rest assured that you have been recorded doing that and you look guilty. Of course, denying them the sample also makes you look guilty.

12. Don’t think you can outwit the lie detector. Chances are you can’t, and even if the results are inadmissible in court, you have cast doubt on yourself and your alibi.

13. Let’s say you are in jail, either awaiting trial or your appeal from the conviction. Remember that the guy you have befriended in the next cell is also there for a reason, so it is not a good idea to “confess” to him about what you did or tried to do. He is neither your attorney nor your priest. More likely, he becomes a snitch and turns you in to get a better deal for himself. And please don’t give him a map of your house so he can kill your wife when he gets out of jail.

I know that everyone is entitled to a good defense, but an attorney who overlooks the obvious guilt of his/her client and turns the tables to make them look like a victim is either evil or a sociopath himself/herself. Just don’t take the case if the person seems guilty despite their denials. Are we really supposed to believe that OJ is still looking for the real murderer or that Scott Peterson’s pregnant wife just left the house on her own? Don’t insult our intelligence.

I’ll admit that I watch too many of these cases and I have read all of the late Ann Rule’s books about hard-to-solve murders or hard-to-get convictions. More often than not, I will watch a "Dateline" on the DVR when I wake up too early and I’m not ready to start my day. I almost always fall asleep in the last 10 minutes, before I learn “whodunit,” but at least I can replay the show on the DVR to see how it ends. The fact that there are so many shows to watch and so many different ways people try to kill each other continues to amaze me. No wonder so many books, movies and crime programs exist. 

Scary, isn’t it?

So, wise up, people, and think about how to resolve your issues in a way that won’t find me watching you on an episode of “Dateline.”