Current Events > How did murders ever get solved in the past?

(+) Yeah! (+)

No security cameras, no DNA, the very concept of forensics was barely a thing.

You find someone lying face down in their study with a knife in their back. Neighbors never saw anybody because it presumably happened at 3 in the morning. You're just kinda boned aren't ya?

Circumstantial evidence I guess

Kim_Seong-a posted...

No security cameras, no DNA, the very concept of forensics was barely a thing.

You find someone lying face down in their study with a knife in their back. Neighbors never saw anybody because it presumably happened at 3 in the morning. You're just kinda boned aren't ya?

That's the neat thing, they basically didn't. They correspondingly had far more lax evidence required before convicting someone, and far more deadly punishment if they did.

Kim_Seong-a posted...

the very concept of forensics was barely a thing

How far in the past are you talking about?

Accusing someone you didn't like of a crime and getting them killed was not exactly uncommon.

Just choose a suspect and beat them until they confess.

Most towns were "everybody knows everybody" back then, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out.

That and even the common cold could kill you it's not like life expectancy was very high to begin with.

like in Agatha Christie novels.

really depends when and where you're talking about, and also how important and well connected the victim was. I'd wager the most frequent answer was they weren't solved. The solve rate for murder in the modern day is not even close to perfect for reported murders.

I think it was half and half of everyone in the village knew everyone in the village, but also there was everyone in the village fell for the mob mentality and put innocent people to hang for no reason other than they didn't like them

never watched any killer documentaries or anything? alot of them just didnt get solved
as forensics grew, they reopened cold cases and found the killers

Try reading a few historical detective novels to find out how it's possible to solve crimes without those things. Books set in pre industrial times feature religious people - monks and nuns as they had access to knowledge about poisons, herbs, healing etc, For example:

Cadfael books (set in 12th century England)
Sister Fidelma books (set in 7th century Ireland)
Name of the Rose set in 14th century Italy.
And all the Agatha Christie books set mostly in pre Second World War Britain.

All except Fidelma have films/TV series as well.

They probably didn't solve much of the crimes and just go by circumstantial evidence and heresy from towns people like most other posters on here said. Look at the Salem witch trials.

sloppy murderers

Most murders are not whodunnits.

Police weren't above beating confessions out of people.

Forcing a (false) confession out of someone.

Basic investigation techniques work perfectly well for almost all murders.

Who had access? Who had a motive? Where did the weapon come from? Who gets caught selling the stolen goods? Who has a spouse/family member/friend who knows what they did? Who has been acting strangely?

Most of the time, this will give you the answer.

Sherlock Holmes solved them

ai123 posted...

Basic investigation techniques work perfectly well for almost all murders.

Who had access? Who had a motive? Where did the weapon come from? Who gets caught selling the stolen goods? Who has a spouse/family member/friend who knows what they did? Who has been acting strangely?

Most of the time, this will give you the answer.

Given that many murder cases are unsolved by police forces who can use more advanced techniques, you seem to be oversimplifying it somewhat.

WItch!
Warlock!

THis person is obssesd with cleaning, they must be sick with disease!

Like in skyrim , the only way guards know if you did it 100% is if someone saw you ( a witness) , and of course in real life witnesses can lie.

Incorrectly.

Glob posted...

Given that many murder cases are unsolved by police forces who can use more advanced techniques, you seem to be oversimplifying it somewhat.

The murder solve rate has fallen a lot in recent decades. People are more mobile, there's greater anonymity, cases aren't always prosecuted unless there's a near-certainty of conviction, juries want CSI level evidence, criminals are more forensically aware . . .

In ye olden dayes, you would have had a very much reduced pool of suspects, and people knew what their neighbours were up to.

Most murders aren't twisty whodunnits.

Unless a vengeful ghost showed up to his son demanding vengeance and explaining who murdered him, the murder is going unsolved. Even then it's up to the son to concoct an elaborate scheme to out the murderer instead of putting the vengeful ghost dream up to indigestion.

They used to believe that the last thing a person sees before death was recorded on their eyes.

This has been used at least once to get a confession. 'Sorry, sunshine, we've got your picture on the dead woman's eyeballs, you can save yourself a lot of trouble if you come clean now'.

Cops mostly just framed minorities and harassed them into false confessions.

I think many murders throughout history either went unsolved, or an innocent person was blamed.

Ricemills posted...

Sherlock Holmes solved them

Tbh this was the inspiration for the topic. Just read one of his early stories and started thinking about how to commit crime in Victorian England. >_>

Plenty of crimes did (and still do) get solved by things unrelated to forensics. Witnesses, records, tracking of movements, confessions (for the sake of argument I'm only counting legitimate confessions), etc. Plus, as mentioned earlier, most cases aren't whodunnits. Even in ancient times close relatives and obvious adversaries were the first to be investigated for murders for example.

That's not to say forensic science hasn't improved crime solving greatly, but it's never had a monopoly on solving cases.

They had a better work ethic back then.

With good ol' fashioned canvasing.

threetimes posted...

Cadfael books (set in 12th century England)

These seem interesting, thank you.

It depends on how far back you want to go. Municipal police departments were very rare before the 19th century, so any police work fell to the local sheriff and whomever they saw fit to deputize whenever the need arose. As mentioned earlier in the topic, "legwork" was how most crimes were investigated prior to the rise of forensic investigation (which slowly began in the last quarter of 19th century, but didn't become largely standard until the Edwardian era). It probably goes without saying that because of the lack of organization and manpower, whether any investigation was made really depended on who was murdered and, to a lesser extent, where.

GranQroppoop posted...

These seem interesting, thank you.

There are quality TV adaptations of them starring Derek Jacobi.

The books are good too. I recommend both.

Magnifying glasses

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Literally just blame a minority.

There are more than a few old people who secretly killed someone like 60 years ago.

https://i.imgur.com/DnqLOHm.jpg

IIRC a large amount of murders still go unsolved today despite what the news would have you believe.

Edit: looks like 40% go unsolved for murders roundabouts, and nearly 70% of violent crimes.

IIRC a large amount of murders still go unsolved today despite what the news would have you believe.

Wow. I thought it has risen. Because nowadays cops dont need an exact DNA match to get the lead and catch you. If your relative or even a very distant relative like a 4th cousin uploaded their DNA to one of those ancestry sites cops scan that. Since those sites give up that DNA no questions asked. Find your relative and can then catch you based off that. That is how several serial killer who got away with it for decades got caught over the last 5-10 years.

Police Blame a black guy , or some poor person and call it a day.

Fingerprints have been around for decades. And wasn't there a thing about hair follicle analysis back then?

if you are interested in that Cadfael series, there is actually an entire subgenre called Historical Mystery. Just look up your favorite time period and add "murder mystery" on Amazon and you can find all kinds of stuff. They have Roman murder mysteries, ones set in ancient Egypt and a ton of ones set in all different periods English/British history.

Look up the Hugh De Singleton series. That's one of my favorites. Set just like 10 years after the Black Plague ravages England if I remember right. The main character is a survivor of it. He is a doctor who gets involved in solving murders

ai123 posted...

The murder solve rate has fallen a lot in recent decades. People are more mobile, there's greater anonymity, cases aren't always prosecuted unless there's a near-certainty of conviction, juries want CSI level evidence, criminals are more forensically aware . . .

In ye olden dayes, you would have had a very much reduced pool of suspects, and people knew what their neighbours were up to.

Most murders aren't twisty whodunnits.

Im not suggesting that they are. Just that you might be oversimplifying. I still think you are.

Solved via fall man

Glob posted...

Im not suggesting that they are. Just that you might be oversimplifying. I still think you are.

Sure. I may be overcorrecting the 'how on earth did they solve anything without CSI?' viewpoint.

There was still a lot of things they could do, and a lot of murders are mundane with obvious perpetrators.

Glob posted...

Given that many murder cases are unsolved by police forces who can use more advanced techniques, you seem to be oversimplifying it somewhat.

"Many murder cases" is vague at best.

Verdekal posted...

Fingerprints have been around for decades.

130 years or so, as a tool for solving crime.

ai123 posted...

Sure. I may be overcorrecting the 'how on earth did they solve anything without CSI?' viewpoint.

There was still a lot of things they could do, and a lot of murders are mundane with obvious perpetrators.

Yeah, I can agree with that.

vigorm0rtis posted...

"Many murder cases" is vague at best.

Thats because its not a consistent number by chronology or geography. It is pretty much always a significant number though.