"Whoa! With a rock like that left behind, I doubt we have a robbery. This was personal!"
— Warrick Brown noticing an expensive ring on a dead woman's body, CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder
The show is a Police Procedural, and we see two detectives standing at a crime scene, with a white outline marking where the body was found. The opinion of the local police is that it was a burglary gone wrong, and our detectives are starting to agree.
...But hold on! Someone just found some jewelry or an open safe with plenty of money inside. If this was a thief, how could they have missed something so valuable? Something else is going on.
When a seemingly random murder occurs, theft is usually the first assumption. Most people don't have enemies who want them dead, but they do have valuables that others would want to steal.
The true crime may not always be murder — it might actually be theft, just of something very specific rather than something financially valuable, which they don't want the police to know about as it might point to the criminal. It may be other types of crime — like planting false evidence — but the important point is that the crime looks like attempted robbery at first glance until closer examination shows the flaws in that reasoning.
This trope is most frequently found in murder mysteries, as a sort of act one twist to set up the Driving Question for both the audience and the investigators about the killer's true motive.
Related to Absence of Evidence and Revealing Cover-Up. Smokescreen Crime is when items are stolen from the crime scene to cover up the real motive.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Monster: Inspector Lunge investigates a series of murders of childless middle-aged couples, noting that while several of them had missing valuables, there wasn’t enough missing for the motives to have been robbery.
Comic Books
- The Avengers: In The Avengers #168, set during The Korvac Saga, when government agent Henry Gyrich broke into the Avengers Mansion (to demonstrate how easy it was to do so), he ransacked everyone's rooms, then waiting calmly for the Avengers to arrive. When they arrived, the Vision swiftly inspected all the rooms and noted that nothing appeared to have been stolen, causing him to suspect something far more sinister was going on.
- Damnation Crusade: The Black Templars advance on hastily abandoned Chaos positions, wondering why they left heavy weapons and even vehicles behind. A moment later, they got their answer: they were trying to unearth a pair of Chaos-tainted Titans and retreated to hold out until they received reinforcements.
- Fables: Invoked in the first arc, when Jack and Rose Red stage the latter's death in a violent murder. It's pointed out that there is indeed a lack of burglary, so it had to have been premeditated murder. Bigby however finds a lack of signs of an actual struggle and deduces that this was a scam since Rose Red's favourite CDs weren't damaged and her toaster found its way from the untouched kitchen.
Fan Works
- Elementary, My Dear Natsuki: A My-HiME fanfic set in the world of Sherlock Holmes, with Shizuru in the role of Great Detective and Natsuki as her chronicler. The pair are lodging together at 221-B Baker Street, and Shizuru invites Natsuki to be her bodyguard on a case at the docks on the waterfront. When Shizuru examines the body of Mr. Vambery, she notes he has "a gold pocketwatch and chain, a wallet containing two £10 notes note , a coin purse with three pounds two shillings four pence, and a silver card case." What is missing are the dead man's keys to the loading bay doors, and a case of wine had been moved, because the one by the body had a void in the blood spatter, showing that someone had taken a case and put another in its place to hide it's absence. This leads Shizuru to conclude that the warehouse was being used as part of a smuggling operation and the owner had tipped to it, necessitating his death and the removal of the contraband goods.
- Son of the Sannin: Someone breaks into Karin's house after the Chunin Exam finals but doesn't do anything other than make a mess of the place. It's only on the following day that she learns that Fu wanted to buy her a new pair of glasses as an apology for breaking the old pair during their match and was looking through her belongings to find out what her prescription was.
Films — Live-Action
- Alien Nation: At the beginning of the movie, Detectives Sykes and Tuggle respond to a convenience store robbery in which a group of Newcomers shoot and kill a Newcomer store owner, which turns into a shootout in which Tuggle also gets killed. During the investigation afterwards, one of the officers notes that "there was a half-hearted grab for the register", implying that the purpose of the robbery was as a cover for the killing of the owner.
- Devil's Express: When the demon's second victim is discovered, Sam notices that the guy still has all of his cash, so it must not have been a mugging gone wrong.
- The Fugitive: At Kimble's trial, the detectives testifying against him note that on the night of his wife's murder nothing was missing from the house and there was no sign of a break-in.
- The Happytime Murders: The first murder is initially written off as a robbery gone wrong, though as Phil notes, the register wasn't even touched.
- Heat: Downplayed with the opening armored car heist in - while it is a robbery, McCauley and crew take only a shipment of bearer bonds, ignoring any and all other valuables. This is noted by the police, who quickly deduce that this was a targeted theft, and the robbers were very well aware of police response times, leading to the obvious conclusion that the robbers are highly skilled.
- Home Alone 3: During the first part of the film, Alex spots Beaupre and his team snooping around two of his neighbors' houses. Unfortunately, when the police arrive, they either have left or are hiding, and nothing appears to be taken. This baffles Alex at first, until he suspects that the villains are actually looking for something in particular, only they don't know which house it's in.
- Inside Man: The first half of the film is an elaborate bank heist, after which all of the robbers successfully escape and it appears that nothing has been stolen. This causes the lead detective to dig a little deeper and find the true target of the heist: a secret safety deposit box that contains evidence of the founder of the bank's Nazi ties, as well as diamonds he had stolen from a Jewish friend he had betrayed.
- Men in Black (1997): When Jay and Kay go to Rosenberg's (the murdered disguised Arquillian Prince) jewelry store to find clues about the galaxy he mentioned, they find the store in shambles with the glass display cases smashed opened, but no missing jewelry. They conclude that "Edgar" the giant roach has been there recently with the specific intent of finding the galaxy's location.
- Sailor Suit and Machine Gun: A police detective tells Izumi that her father may have been a smuggler and may have been murdered for the smuggled items. Izumi returns home to find her apartment ransacked, but apparently nothing was stolen.
- Soylent Green: Detective Thorn dismisses the possibility of Simonson's death being the result of a robbery gone wrong, since everything else in his home, his well-stocked pantry included, was left untouched.
- Transformers: The Last Knight: Dreadbot was detained by the TRF for a bank robbery in which he killed nine people. However, he didn’t take any money from the bank. For this reason, the TRF refuse to initially release him until Megatron “convinces” them otherwise.
Literature
- Alex Cross: The first vigilante murders in Cross the Line are targeted against drug dealers. Alex Cross notes the amount of drugs and cash at the scene, and rules out hitman by rival dealers who would steal such items.
- Different Seasons:
- Apt Pupil: In chapter 28, Todd is interviewed by two cops regarding his relationship with the late Mr. Dussander, who has just been identified as a Nazi war criminal. They mention Dussander has likely received a letter from another fugitive in the past couple of days, but the document could not be located. Mrs. Bowden speculates that Dussander's house may have been broken into, but Todd dismisses her theory by pointing out that it wouldn't make sense for a burglar to steal a letter and nothing else. This turns out to be the slip the cops needed to conclude Todd was involved in Dussander's crimes: He couldn't possibly know that the letter was the only thing missing in the house, except if he was the one who went inside and took it.
- Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption: Discussed during the trial, the prosecutor notes how the murder of Andy's wife and her lover must have been committed by Andy because nothing was missing (so it couldn't have been a robbery). Upon further reflection, Red wonders how the prosecutor could have come to that conclusion, given that he wouldn't have known what they had on them when they were killed, so how could he have known if anything was or wasn't missing? When Elwood Blatch claims credit later for killing the two, he tells Tommy he stole a good amount of cash from the scene. Red dismisses it as a lie, saying "Every con wants to pretend they got away with the equivalent of the Hope Diamond on every job."
- The Element of Fire by Martha Wells: When Captain Boniface finds an apprentice sorcerer murdered, he immediately notes that the victim is still wearing his valuable jewels, which rules out a simple robbery. He correctly concludes that the sorcerer was murdered in order to stop him from giving Boniface important information.
- In the Usborne Mystery Story Murder On The Midnight Plane, there is a news article about a baffling bank raid, where nobody has any idea how intruders deactivated the alarm and broke in; and doubly perplexing is that the only thing stolen was an apparently worthless roll of parchment. This turns out to be an ancient treasure chart.
- Never Flinch: Trig, the Serial Killer who is one half of the books Big Bad Ensemble, kills a reverend named Mike Rafferty because they know each other from the Narcotics Anonymous meetings they both attend, and Trig fears Mike could link him to the murders Trig already committed. Trig tries to distance this particular murder from the other ones by stealing Mike's wallet and watch and making a mess of the house so the police will hopefully think it was a random, unrelated break-in gone wrong. Detective Izzy Jaynes however was already suspecting Rafferty's killer is the same serial killer she was looking for, and this is confirmed when, while looking through Mike's house, she finds a bunch of medaillions from NA/AA meetings. A regular thief would likely have taken those, believing they might be valuable, so the fact that the murderer of the reverend left them behind proofs they are looking for someone familiar with the AA/NA program, who knows the medaillions have no value.
- Subverted in the science fiction short story "Time Travelers Never Die" by Jack McDevitt. The time traveler protagonist can't prove that he didn't kill his friend who deliberately killed himself, and has to fake up a body from a car crash into actually being his friend. He breaks into a dentist's office to x-ray the corpse's teeth and replace his friend's x-ray (which the cops would use to identify this body) with that of the corpse so they match. His accomplice points out that when the police investigate the broken-into dentist's office they'll wonder why nothing was stolen, so they steal the drugs from a cabinet.
- Two-Minute Mysteries: The presence of an untouched pocketbook, containing hundreds of dollars, in the apartment of a deceased woman, is a key clue to the fact that the death, for once, was accidental rather than murder.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5 episode "Objects in Motion": A security guard is found dead on an elevator, and Franklin gives Zack his initial impressions. Clean wound, no sign of a fight, meaning it was over before he had a chance to react. It doesn't make sense to Zack, nothing was stolen, and the guy was new, no one had a grudge against him yet. Franklin floats the idea it was just random.
Zack: I don't believe in random attacks. Maybe there's not an obvious reason, but there's always a reason. Besides, if you're gonna knock off somebody for fun, you're not gonna take on an armed peace officer. Whoever did this was a professional.
- Castle: Many episodes will have the detectives note that a victim still has a wallet full of cash or valuables undisturbed when dismissing robbery as a motive for a crime. The episode "Overkill" has the CEO of a company that produced toiletry items for men, such as shaving cream that came out of the can already hot, was found murdered in his home. Some key items were stolen, such as a rare book collection, but the killer seemingly also wrote part of the word "Murderer" (stopping at "Murdere") in the victim's blood on the vanity mirror. Castle notes that it wasn't a robbery, mostly to be contrary to rival Love Interest for Beckett, Detective Demming, but correctly pointing out that several high-end electronics and jewelry weren't stolen.note
- Columbo episode "A Friend in Deed": Played with when a corrupt police commissioner tries to pin a murder on a known burglar. When Columbo arrives on the scene he's quick to note that the victim is still wearing her jewelry, suggesting the robbery may not have been a robbery after all. However, the robbery detective explains that the jewelry is actually fake, something a professional burglar could identify with a glance, and the victim's actual jewelry box was cleaned out. Later though, Columbo finds out that all of the victim's jewelry was fake. She had sold the real ones for cash and replaced them with convincing replicas to hide it from her husband. Of course this goes back around to prove it couldn't have been done by the burglar, since he wouldn't have stolen fakes.
- Criminal Minds:
- "The Return": A restaurant shooting is believed to be gang-related, but Agent Derek Morgan disagrees. He notes gang shootings are based on money and power, nothing was stolen from the register and the killer did not swagger around during the killings.
- "Tribute": After the killer's first Son of Sam-based killing, the BAU concludes he might be some sort of drug dealer. After the second killings, they notice an expensive wristwatch shoved down the victim's throat and note that a drug dealer would steal the watch.
- CSI: NY: The murdered victim of a mugging in "The Real McCoy" is found beside a spilled deposit bag, having been jumped on the way to the bank with the nightly proceeds from his bar. The deposit slip shows that he had over $15,000 cash with him, but the perp had taken an even $10,000, leaving the detectives scratching their heads.
Mac: Why rob someone and not take all the money?
- TV movie Fatal Vision: Alfred Kassab realizes that his son-in-law Jeffery Macdonald killed his wife and daughter, who are Kassab's daughter and granddaughters, after being shown the crime scene. Among the many issues are the drugs found at the scene, something the alleged hippie intruders would have stolen.
- Foyle's War: Zigzagged in an episode where there's suspicion that someone is carrying out a series of thefts of opportunity during air raids when many valuables go missing; what throws the police (at first) is that just as many valuable items are left untouched. It turns out, however, that the thieves are a group of auxiliary firefighters, who steal waterproof items that they can hide in their station's cistern (so they leave items like a stamp collection but take things like old coins or jewellery).
- Grimm: "Let Your Hair Down" has a drug dealer with an illegal hemp farm in the middle of the forest killed. The initial idea is that he was murdered by a rival drug dealer, but there's one problem; the killer left millions of dollars of hemp plants untouched and stole the food and sleeping bag from his camp.
Renard: Who kills a pot grower in the middle of the woods for a sleeping bag and some food?
Nick: Somebody hungry and cold. - In the The Irrational episode "Kicked in the Teeth", Alec and Marisa investigate an apparent burglary-turned-murder at the home of a newscaster. Almost immediately, they notice that the burglar only stole a few relatively minor items and killed the newscaster first, whereas most burglars try to avoid a confrontation with the owners of the homes they're burgling. This suggests that the robbery was actually a cover for the murder.
- Law & Order often uses this to signal that the crime-of-the-week was not a robbery gone bad.
- "Blue Bamboo": A wealthy Japanese businessman collapses in a swanky hotel lobby. At first, responders thought it was a heart attack until a detective notices a small caliber bullet hole in the victim's armpit. Detectives also remark that the victim wore a tailored suit and a Rolex watch. When they check his hotel room, they find the victim's ID, a wallet with cash, the latest model cell phone, and no sign of burglary. This leads the detectives to think the victim was targeted for murder, which proves to be correct.
- "Blood Libel": Sarah Aronson was strangled with her handbag strap. CSU Technician Bailey notes that no money or valuables were stolen. When colleague Dr. Alvin Sabloff thinks that a criminal from the neighborhood broke in and killed her (there were break-ins the previous year during which equipment was stolen and rooms were vandalized), Curtis notes that nothing was stolen or vandalized, and Briscoe says that there's no sign of a break-in.
- In Murder, She Wrote, this trope is often what makes Jessica believe a crime was meant to be a murder, even if it was disguised as a robbery:
- In "Broadway Malady", a rising Broadway star is shot and nearly killed by a would-be robber (who is killed by her brother in claimed self-defense). What Jessica and a few bystanders find odd is that, despite demanding the victim's money and jewelry, he shot her before she had a chance to hand over anything. She later finds out that his real intent was simply to kill her, and that the "robbery" was meant to simply be a cover.
- In "Murder Takes the Bus", one of the fellow passengers on a bus trip is found dead on the bus while everyone else is inside at a rest stop. When she and Sheriff Tupper investigate the scene, she finds his wallet and sees money in the billfold, noting that this means whoever killed him didn't intend to rob him.
- In "Murder by Appointment Only", a woman is found strangled to death in her apartment, which has been trashed in what looks like an interrupted burglary. Jessica, a friend and former teacher of the deceased, investigates alongside the woman's fiancé. Said fiancé is the CEO of a highly successful cosmetics company, who was footing the bill for the woman's lavish apartment and bought her many expensive gifts. Despite the police chief claiming the crime was a robbery gone wrong, Jessica points out that nothing of value (including a bejeweled lipstick case) was stolen.
- In "Murder Among Friends'", The murdered script-writer's safe has been left open and a significant sum of bank-notes have been left untouched, causing Jessica to conclude that the murderer's true interest was the script for the climactic episode of Buds (which was rumored to include a major character being written out of the show).
- Murdoch Mysteries episode "On the Waterfront Part 1": Detective Murdoch investigates the murder of Richard Dawkins, who was beaten to death at the dinner table by two masked men just as he was about to make an important announcement to his business associates. Since nothing was stolen, Murdoch's new boss, Inspector Hamish Slorach, calls the killing an assassination.
- In Salamander, the action begins with a break-in at a secure bank vault in Brussels. Almost straight away, as the gang begins breaking open security boxes for their contents, the viewer is privileged to see the the gang leader rebuke an underling who is taking the opportunity to steal cash and jewels, "Leave that, that isn't what we're here for!" The investigating police officer also notices this, later, and asks what the raiders really wanted. They were there for documents and photographs that implicated the security box owners in various historic crimes, including collaborating with the German occupiers of Belgium in 1940-45.
- In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Firstborn" our heroes are searching for the Duras sisters. They know that they have illegally mined X amount of ore and are trying to sell it. When the Enterprise finds the client the amount of ore is less than they were expecting. Riker concludes that they interrupted the sale and the Duras' ship is cloaked and nearby. So he buys the ore, beams it into space, and fires on it to make a cloud that exposes the Duras' ship.
Puppet Shows
- Dinosaurs: Parodied in "Nature Calls". Earl comes to the false conclusion that a burglar broke in, stole Ethyl's wheelchair, drank Baby's juice and flushed the latter down the toilet. He then notes that the fact that this supposed crook didn't even steal his wallet probably means that the perpetrator is a moron. In actuality, Baby had stolen Ethyl's wheelchair and ran away from home.
Video Games
- CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder: In the first case, "Pictures at an Execution", a woman is found dead at an art gallery, but the fact that she is still wearing a precious ring tips off the CSI team that the killer was not out to rob her but likely acting out of personal motivations.
- Detective Beebo: Night at the Mansion: Inverted. A perceptive player might note that it's odd that Ángel wasn't also killed at the end of Round 1; it's later revealed that Eugene was stealing Vivi's photobook to remove the pictures of his arrest.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: When the player character discovers the corpse of murdered tax collector Processus Vitellius, he still has 200 gold worth of previously collected taxes on his person. This is taken as evidence that the motive for murdering him was personal rather than financial.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: The quest "Blood on the Ice" centres on a Serial Killer who keeps murdering young women in the city of Windhelm. The priestess Helgird is tasked with giving one of his victims funerary rites, and if the Dovahkiin asks her if she noticed anything suspicious about the body, she notes that the coin purse was intact so the killer isn't interested in wealth. His actual motive is necromancy, looking for body parts he can use to resurrect a dead loved one.
- Fahrenheit: During the investigation of the murder at the diner, Tyler can inspect the body and discover that the victim still has their credit card and cash on them, noting that the murder wasn't made for the money.
- PAYDAY 2: Defied Trope. During the stealth tutorial in the police station, your only goal is to access a secure laptop to delete all the leads the cops have on CrimeNet. Bain then has you boost a pile of gold bars from the evidence locker precisely so that when the break-in is noticed, they have an obvious motive and won't look hard enough to find the electronic sabotage on a back-burner case.
Visual Novels
- In the second case of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, the titular protagonist is accused of murdering Ackbey Hicks for cash due to the victim's wallet ending up in Edgeworth's pocket. His counterargument is that cash is seen scattered and untouched on the crime scene, making it clear whatever motive the culprit has, it's not theft. It turns out the real culprit killed Hicks to prevent him from exposing a smuggling operation, with the victim's belongings being scattered by the turbulence only after the body was moved and hidden in a suitcase.
Webcomics
- Schlock Mercenary: While acting as security for a Space Station-based mall, Tagon encounters a freerunner dressed as a ninja, in an area where the security cameras are disabled. The company's first assumption is a shoplifting ring, but none of the stores report any shrinkage.
Western Animation
- Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures: In the episode "Bloodlines", Jonny and co. visit Hadji's childhood caretaker, Pasha Peddler, only to discover his shop ransacked. Upon checking the register, and seeing it still full, Race is quick to rule out robbery.
- Superman: The Animated Series: The multi-part crossover "World's Finest" opens with the Joker killing the owner of an antique shop in Gotham. The GCPD arrive to investigate and are completely baffled at the fact that the only thing the Joker stole was a relatively worthless Jade Dragon statue instead of money from the safe or any of the other more valuable antiques. This is especially odd as Commissioner Gordon points out because word on the street is that the Joker is desperate for cash. Batman arrives and takes a sample of the jade back to the Batcave for analysis, which is where he discovers that this statue isn't actually made of jade, it's made of kryptonite and the Joker stole it so that he can travel to Metropolis and kill Superman.
- Teen Titans: In "Aftershock: Part 1", Slade sends Cinderblock, Plasmus, and Overload to attack three distant locations. The heroes separate to contain the trio of supervillains, but Robin realizes that something is off: Slade's past crimes were devoted to securing him some valuable asset, but this time there is nothing for him to capture or steal. As it turns out, Slade's real strategy was to separate the Titans, weakening them enough for his disciple, Terra, to take them out individually.
Real Life
- In 1942, a young woman named Louise Almodovar was found strangled in Central Park. The detectives were suspicious when they saw she still had a gold chain around her neck and realized it probably wasn't a mugging. The murderer turned out to be her unfaithful husband Anibal Almodovar.
- Investigators noticed amongst other things involving the murder of Jennifer Pan's mother and gravely injured father
, they initially believed it was a burglary-motivated crime, but none of the valuables were stolen. In fact, the keys to her father's Mercedes were left in plain view on the kitchen's island. After Hann Pan woke up from a coma, he revealed that his daughter was never tied up as she claimed and talked casually with the "burglars". Further investigation revealed that Jennifer put a hit on her parents, and was eventually charged with murder and attempted murder.
- The Richthofen Case refers to the investigation of the murder of Manfred and Marisia von Richthofen, a crime organized by their own daughter Suzane and executed with the aid of the Cravinhos brothers. After the couple was dead, the criminals opened the family vault and scattered jewels on the floor. Hours later, they called the police and said burglars had broken into Suzane's house. The presence of valuables at the scene of the crime served as evidence that their testimony was false, as no thief would leave jewels lying around.
- Thomas Bartlett Whitaker was suspected of the deaths of his mother and brother, and the wounding of his father. The "burglar" was actually a friend of Bart's, who left behind cash, jewelry, and a computer, as well as opening several cabinets in a neat and orderly manner.
- The 2011 Waltham triple murder involved three men murdered in one of the men's apartments, with $5,000 of cash and drugs found at the scene. The crime was never officially solved as suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev died during the manhunt after the Boston bombings.