Unsolved Murder Mysteries

"Oh dear, I never realized what a terrible lot of explaining one has to do in a murder!" - Dame Agatha Christie, author of best-selling murder mysteries

There is not a day that passes when you pick up the morning newspaper and not find a macabre tale of murder. You want to read it. But you find the literary piece unfolds a very common underlying story; it is the deed of murdering that makes it uncommon. You wonder at the commonalities on reaching the end of the news piece and simultaneously, at some corner of your mind, you try to figure out as to who could be the murderer. The act of murder mostly has its foundation in the psychology of the murderer. Whether the murderer is a sociopath or a serial killer, an impulsive killer or a person who is forced to commit murder due to mental or physical abuse... violent crime cannot be condoned, whatever the reasons behind it.

Murder, of any kind, is an indictable or serious offense. It is defined as the unlawfully taking the life of one human being by another. Over past decades, murder mysteries have tested some of the best brains in crime investigation. Solving a murder mystery means finding the person who has killed the victim. So there should be a killer and a victim at the crime scene, when the murder is committed. The crime scene, is therefore the best place to get clues to the murder. These clues are then submitted in the court of law as evidences.

Evidences gathered at the crime scene should be adequate and substantial proof to pinpoint the murderer. Why people commit as heinous a crime as murder? The reasons may be revenge, lust, greed, property disputes, rage, hatred, or no apparent motive. Let's take a look at some types of murders or criminal homicides:

• First Degree Murder - When the murder is done with another crime, like robbery or arson; including the murder of a police officer, or a witness to a crime; serial murders or heinous murders.
• Second Degree Murder - Any other premeditated murder.
• Voluntary Manslaughter - Murder committed following provocation which would incite a normally reasonable person to kill.
• Involuntary Manslaughter - Death caused by criminal negligence or recklessness.
• Vehicular Manslaughter - Reckless driving that causes death.
• Misdemeanor Manslaughter - A murder by accident that occurs while committing a misdemeanor.

A homicide or murder case is regarded to be unsolved, until a suspect is not caught and tried for the crime and prosecuted.

At a crime scene, the victim's body is found with a gunshot wound. The homicide investigation team arrives and cordons off the area, so that the crucial physical evidences are not lost or tampered with. The dead body has a gunshot wound and the ballistics expert is called in to find out what type of gun was used by the murderer. With the help of blood spatter pattern analysis, experts find out the place where the killer stood and his posture, when he fired the fatal shot at the victim. A forensic entomologist is called in to determine the time the murder was committed. (He studies the bacteria at the crime scene to decide the time of murder. Surprised?... but, this is possible with modern forensics.)

The forensic psychiatrist helps investigators decode the psychology behind the crime; while the crime recreation animation specialists try to piece the homicide investigation together. Sometimes, the remains of the murder victim may be found a decade later. At another crime scene, the human skeletal remains are uncovered in a rural area at the outskirts of a city. In this case, forensic anthropologists, forensic odontologists and skull/face re-constructionists recreate the face and body structure of the victim. In most cases, criminal forensic investigations are successful in trapping the murderer; but it's not all hunky-dory for investigators all the time, as they could face obstacles.

Many experts would agree that the best way to solve a murder is to find the motive of the murderer. Quite often at the crime scene, it happens that the relatives of the victim or some other people may advertently or inadvertently tamper with the evidences. This may be a reason why the murder hasn't been solved. It is necessary that the first people on the scene should keep everything as it was when the body was first seen. Some homicide cases may remain unsolved due to lack of evidence or the witnesses are not forthcoming with a statement. Some murder cases may remain unsolved, when a witness who is to submit crucial testimony in the murder trial is found dead.

In spite of the investigative technology available, murder cases may remain unsolved; some of them, for many years. Unsolved homicides may be designated cold cases. Generally, cold cases are violent crimes. The homicide investigators may declare the investigation a cold case for want of evidence or the eyewitness testimony is proven false or there is no substantial evidence to nail the obvious suspect at present. As the investigations are ongoing in case of cold cases, these cases are not subject to current criminal investigation and civil litigation. Cold cases are also not subject to statute of limitations (limiting the time of prosecution), i.e. they can be reopened when fresh evidence or information (new witness testimony or new evidence discovered after reexamining case archives) is found or a new technique of investigation is developed. Quite often, after reviewing the case, fresh evidence may point towards a new suspect. Retired homicide detectives with significant experience from the NYPD, FBI or DEA, are deputized to follow up on cold cases and are also quite successful in closing them, albeit these seeming tough cases to crack at some point of time.

Well, if you think the murder mystery you read about in the morning paper, was the perfect crime... think again! Some murders may challenge the intelligence of crime investigators and criminalists; but most murder mysteries don't remain unsolved for long.