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Crime-solving question

theprestige said:
There's one case, I don't recall if it's been solved or not, where a spouse is suspected of striking their partner on the head, killing them. However, there is a competing hypothesis, more consistent with the available evidence, that the victim was struck by an owl. Apparently owls swoop on humans at night sometimes, and can hit very hard.
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It also helped that they found her acceptance letter to Hogwarts near by.
 
I thought of one!

Fun fact: The most likely murderer is the victim's partner.

Keeping this bit of trivia firmly in mind has enabled the police to solve many murders, over the years.
 
theprestige said:
I thought of one!

Fun fact: The most likely murderer is the victim's partner.

Keeping this bit of trivia firmly in mind has enabled the police to solve many murders, over the years.
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Does that count as "trivia" though, since its probably been pretty well known by law enforcement (and by the general public) that the partner is often the culprit?
 
acbytesla said:
You haven't seen it for a while. It definitely did.
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In a roundabout way, yes, but it wasn't the trivia that solved the crime, but it did give the sheriff a lead on how to find the real killers.

Finding the murder weapon is what really solved the crime.
 
Segnosaur said:
Well, it also helped the sheriff look for the suspects who actually committed the crime.

(The real culprits had been apprehended on unrelated charges, but they were driving a specific make and model of car that the Sheriff was told about. +)
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I agree, but the trivia was only a lead that helped the sheriff find the murder weapon, and that's what really solved the crime.
 
AmyStrange said:
I agree, but the trivia was only a lead that helped the sheriff find the murder weapon, and that's what really solved the crime.
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I guess the question is, had the sheriff not been tipped off to "look for suspects driving a certain type of car", would they have bothered linking that arrest to the murder in the movie.

After all, there was probably less inter-connectivity between police departments back then. Would the arresting officers have noticed a weapon and bothered to do a search about "outstanding crimes involving the same type of gun"?
 
Segnosaur said:
I guess the question is, had the sheriff not been tipped off to "look for suspects driving a certain type of car", would they have bothered linking that arrest to the murder in the movie.

After all, there was probably less inter-connectivity between police departments back then. Would the arresting officers have noticed a weapon and bothered to do a search about "outstanding crimes involving the same type of gun"?
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I really can't argue with any of that, but remember, the sheriff didn't want to do it at first. He was very, very reluctant.
 
AmyStrange said:
I guess the question is, had the sheriff not been tipped off to "look for suspects driving a certain type of car", would they have bothered linking that arrest to the murder in the movie.

After all, there was probably less inter-connectivity between police departments back then. Would the arresting officers have noticed a weapon and bothered to do a search about "outstanding crimes involving the same type of gun"?
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I really can't argue with any of that, but remember, the sheriff didn't want to do it at first. He was very, very reluctant.
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I wasn't thinking about the sheriff in this case. I was thinking of the officers who arrested the actual murders on unrelated charges. Was it protocol back them to try to match people with other crimes outside their jurisdiction? Did they even have the technology?

I know now they have databases with all sorts of info that can do that type of matching. But My Cousin Vinny came out decades ago, and I'm not sure what type of searching/matching they could do.
 
Segnosaur said:
I wasn't thinking about the sheriff in this case. I was thinking of the officers who arrested the actual murders on unrelated charges. Was it protocol back them to try to match people with other crimes outside their jurisdiction? Did they even have the technology?
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Good question.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
You are probably thinking of the Michael Peterson case in Durham, North Carolina, and it has not been definitively solved to everyone's satisfaction. A knowledge of owl attacks, one or two of which were fatal, might constitute trivia that is useful in understanding one hypothesis. I think we have a thread on that case here.
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Or the case of Sepulchrave, 76th Earl of Groan, at the Tower of Flints. I mean, that these were the Death Owls was a bit of a clue.


Sorry, Chris, couldn't resist a silly.
 
I didn't know specificallly amount general trivia but sometimes odd speccialisd knowledge can be important. One of my chemistry lecturers at college was involved in a case, as an expert witness, were the age of some lead scrap was important; this was determined by the quantity of silver present as an impurity.
 
I'm hard put to think of an actual real world case solved by trivia, though it also doesn't help that people seem to differ on what they consider trivial. But I've just been catching up on the PBS series (and its earlier Dutch counterpart) Professor T, in which the title character is a professor of criminology (and also obsessive-compulsive with a complex back story), and it relies heavily on the professor's observation of trivia that most people would overlook. Which makes it an amusing show to watch, but not likely very realistic.

I enjoyed the old Columbo clip. My first car was a Peugeot 403, but alas not a cabriolet, a rare classic.
 
bruto said:
I'm hard put to think of an actual real world case solved by trivia, though it also doesn't help that people seem to differ on what they consider trivial. But I've just been catching up on the PBS series (and its earlier Dutch counterpart) Professor T, in which the title character is a professor of criminology (and also obsessive-compulsive with a complex back story), and it relies heavily on the professor's observation of trivia that most people would overlook. Which makes it an amusing show to watch, but not likely very realistic.

I enjoyed the old Columbo clip. My first car was a Peugeot 403, but alas not a cabriolet, a rare classic.
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I think part of the problem is that once it becomes useful for solving a case, it stops being trivia and starts being one of the things you always check for. "It's probably the spouse" was trivia once. Then it became SOP.
 
acbytesla said:
Very interesting story. And yes, I wouldn't say that qualifies. It also an example how scientific findings are sometimes abused.
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As I have thought this over, I am increasingly of the opinion that it does fit. The scientists who became involved had to have knowledge about the symptoms and genetics of methylmalonic acidemia that was at least esoteric.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
As I have thought this over, I am increasingly of the opinion that it does fit. The scientists who became involved had to have knowledge about the symptoms and genetics of methylmalonic acidemia that was at least esoteric.
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Fair enough.
 
theprestige said:
There's one case, I don't recall if it's been solved or not, where a spouse is suspected of striking their partner on the head, killing them. However, there is a competing hypothesis, more consistent with the available evidence, that the victim was struck by an owl. Apparently owls swoop on humans at night sometimes, and can hit very hard.
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I can vouch for this, having been the victim of a rather large owl. Left 3 nasty talon scratches on my hairless head but didn't knock me over.
 
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