The Perfect Murder
This is an absolutely true story.
Years ago, when my daughter was three, I was at work and received a phone call.
"Are you trying to kill me?" came the breathless voice on the other end.
"What?"
"Have you taken a contract out on my life? Are you trying to kill me?" asked my significant other. With a voice filled with horror and panic. Like he wasn't kidding.
Now, I will admit . . . my relationships have never been particularly easy, but I thought, perhaps, a contract killing was a stretch.
"First of all, if I was going to have you killed, I wouldn't do it while my child is home." (True enough, but perhaps not the answer he was looking for.)
"But if you hired someone . . ."
"What happened?"
"I just started the garbage disposal, and it blew up and burned all the hair off my arms and face. It shot flames to the ceiling! It exploded!"
"Oh." Just "oh."
"What do you mean 'oh'?"
"I forgot to tell you something."
"Yeah?"
"Last night, I was trying to light some candles in the kitchen on the windowsill, and I dropped my lighter down the garbage disposal. I was afraid to put my hand down there. I thought it would somehow chop my hand off. So I was going to tell you when you got home after work, but it was close to 2:00 a.m., and I was half-asleep, so I was going to tell you this morning. But I forgot."
"You didn't do it on purpose?"
"No. But it is the perfect murder."
I thought about it. Everyone who knows me knows that I light candles all the time. If I had dropped TWO lighters down the garbage disposal . . . I would have been a free woman. And gotten away with it. The explosion would have ripped apart my kitchen. I would be counting his life insurance money.
Thus the perfect murder. Who KNEW that lighters explode in the garbage disposal like that? And now that I have posted this on my blog, any of YOU who use this method to kill your spouse or loved one . . . will have a hard time explaining yourself to the police if the cops find out about this blog post. But think about it. You visited http://www.ericaorloff.com/. No internet searches for murder methods or staging a suicide. It would have to be a very clever cop who traces your murder method to my forgetful episode many years ago.
I admit it. I think about the perfect murder all the time. Tom in The Roofer was seen building bookshelves before his little hit. There was a reason for claw hammers and electric saws. Because that often trips up a murderer. The back story. It has to be simple. And logical. Look at the Lacey Peterson case. Did anyone REALLY believe he was out fishing that day?
So tell me . . . have any of your books contained the perfect murder? And remember, whatever you 'fess up to here . . . you can't use it in real life.
Peace,
E
Years ago, when my daughter was three, I was at work and received a phone call.
"Are you trying to kill me?" came the breathless voice on the other end.
"What?"
"Have you taken a contract out on my life? Are you trying to kill me?" asked my significant other. With a voice filled with horror and panic. Like he wasn't kidding.
Now, I will admit . . . my relationships have never been particularly easy, but I thought, perhaps, a contract killing was a stretch.
"First of all, if I was going to have you killed, I wouldn't do it while my child is home." (True enough, but perhaps not the answer he was looking for.)
"But if you hired someone . . ."
"What happened?"
"I just started the garbage disposal, and it blew up and burned all the hair off my arms and face. It shot flames to the ceiling! It exploded!"
"Oh." Just "oh."
"What do you mean 'oh'?"
"I forgot to tell you something."
"Yeah?"
"Last night, I was trying to light some candles in the kitchen on the windowsill, and I dropped my lighter down the garbage disposal. I was afraid to put my hand down there. I thought it would somehow chop my hand off. So I was going to tell you when you got home after work, but it was close to 2:00 a.m., and I was half-asleep, so I was going to tell you this morning. But I forgot."
"You didn't do it on purpose?"
"No. But it is the perfect murder."
I thought about it. Everyone who knows me knows that I light candles all the time. If I had dropped TWO lighters down the garbage disposal . . . I would have been a free woman. And gotten away with it. The explosion would have ripped apart my kitchen. I would be counting his life insurance money.
Thus the perfect murder. Who KNEW that lighters explode in the garbage disposal like that? And now that I have posted this on my blog, any of YOU who use this method to kill your spouse or loved one . . . will have a hard time explaining yourself to the police if the cops find out about this blog post. But think about it. You visited http://www.ericaorloff.com/. No internet searches for murder methods or staging a suicide. It would have to be a very clever cop who traces your murder method to my forgetful episode many years ago.
I admit it. I think about the perfect murder all the time. Tom in The Roofer was seen building bookshelves before his little hit. There was a reason for claw hammers and electric saws. Because that often trips up a murderer. The back story. It has to be simple. And logical. Look at the Lacey Peterson case. Did anyone REALLY believe he was out fishing that day?
So tell me . . . have any of your books contained the perfect murder? And remember, whatever you 'fess up to here . . . you can't use it in real life.
Peace,
E
Labels: murder
posted by Erica Orloff at 9:32 AM
33 Comments:
Okay, I'm laughing so hard at that story, I can hardly write.
Sadly, while I have murder in my books, none of them has been perfect (yet). I think about murder a lot. About how and when and why and how it could be done better. But only for the writing. Really.
Liz:
Sure . . . that's your story and you're sticking to it.
And I suppose the funniest part of the story, in a sick way, was his belief that I was hot-tempered enough to really DO something like that. Maybe that's the lesson . . . are ALL people capable of it if their buttons are pushed the right way?
E
Actually, nicotine poisoning. You can make it by yourself if you wanted to, sort of stewing cigars, but there are nicotine bombs used to kill pests in greenhouses, and I ran across some older buy-at-the-hardware store nicotine poison. The bombs are an aerosol. The pesticides are liquids and it doesn't take much to kill someone.
It was a good story, but yet another one of my novels that probably never got marketed due to psycho agent trouble.
Anyway, I was listening to an NPR interview with Scott Simon about a month ago and he said he was on a plane sitting next to a federal prosecutor and they were swapping stories and he asked the prosecutor what the strangest case was he'd ever filed and he said, "Nicotine poisoning." And in that case, it was apparently a "home brew" which really isn't that difficult to do.
In my first novel the villain worked at an animal rendering plant. The victims ended up as pet food.
Mark
Good one. I'll tuck that away for future use. In real life.
;-)
E
Jude:
I do recall that pet food incident. Gross.
E
That's hilarious! My imagination doesn't run that way, yet, LOL. I can't believe he sounded so serious! I'll have to remember that one. That would be original!
Mark and Erica:
Wouldn't the unusually high nicotine blood level show up on an autopsy toxicology screen? I'm thinking it would, and since it would be practically impossible for the victim to have poisoned himself...
You're busted.
I think your instinct to keep it simple is right on, Erica. Go out sailing one night and then throw him/her off the boat. Or something.
Jude,
the problem with nicotine poisoning--or the cool part, if you're thinking that way--is that nicotine poisoning resembles a heart attack. Also, nicotine is not on a normal part of a standard toxicology screen.
Despite what CSI might indicate, typically a standard tox screen will cover a dozen or so drugs, usually illegal narcotics. If there's reason to think there's poisoning, they'll have to go looking, and nicotine (hey, maybe the victim's a smoker) would not be an obvious one.
I interviewed the local forensic toxicologist for the ME's Office about this and other topics and he had to admit, even cyanide, which would not be a common poison, would not be looked for unless the investigators had a reason to look for it.
Mark:
It definitely sounds like a cool way to off someone in a murder mystery.
OK. Here's my brain firing off in weird directions in the morning. After reading the CSI descriptions about tox screens, I wondered about gathering and storing locks of hair from everyone who dies. It wouldn't need to be a huge storage. Would need a really good retrieval system. Then we could test the hair further down the road, if need be, instead of exhuming the body.
My brain does think of random acts of murder that might be perfect as long as I don't care who the victim is.
Spy;
He was utterly serious. Perhaps because he knows my family too well.
;-)
E
Mark:
Something like that actually played into my book DOUBLE DOWN. A pretty common heart drug (can't recall which one I used) in higher doses mimics schizophrenia. But if someone died while being poisoned with it . . . it's clear and has no scent . . . it would no way be in a standard tox screen. Very few things are.
E
sarah:
Wow . . . Very george Orwell of you to think of that! ;-)
E
Thanks for the good laugh!!!
:-)
Note to self: install garbage disposal.
So how long should I wait between the installation and the accidental dropping of the lighter?
Glad everyone's ok!
Disposal is key. (Great story!)
Things disappear and are never seen again in the swamps of lower Alabama, Mississippi, and in Lousiana....
The only time I considered the perfect murder is when one of my character's had a heart problem. She took nitrogen tablets. Two ways for it to be perfect:
1. Replacing the tablets with placebos
2. Or keeping them from the person when having an attack would be the perfect murder.
My character already had a history of health issues related to the heart. Why would an M.E. need to look further?
Chris:
You're welcome. Glad my calamities amuse you. ;-)
E
Melanie:
I'd wait a respectable six months or more so it really looks accidental.
;-)
E
K.S.
I used to live near the Everglades. I had many murderous thoughts. ;-)
E
Mel
The M.E. would only closer if Bobby Goren from Law & Order Criminal Intent was on the case.
:-)
E
Nice post, and yes, I have murder in my manuscript...but it's not likely anyone would copy it. Being its not the run of the mill kind of murder.
Best thing about stories of murder, you have to stick to it, not change anything; or the cops'll nail you.
hahahaha that story is Awesome! OMG hilarious. Love it. You've got to put it in a book if for no other reason than I can have it in printed form and underline and dog ear it. (yeah, I'm one of THOSE readers.)
Never planned the perfect murder. When I was very first trying to figure out what my genre(s) was(were) I tried a little murder mystery, but I never got into it and certainly never came up with the perfect murder.
I think I'm more about making love than war, hence romance.
I think you just wrote a great query! Except for the part that he lived.
Wow, what a great way to kill someone.
I think about this all the time. I love that t-shirt that says: Mystery writer: I research how to kill people for a living, do you really want to make me mad?
Before there were cameras on street corners, I had a character push another character in front of a semi on a crowded street. I'm with Jude. I like simple. :)
Barbara:
Excellent point. Choose your story and stick with it.
E
zoe:
I have a book idea stewing with an almost perfect murder in it.
What I do love about so-called "perfect" murders these days is the CSI element. I.e., now so much MORE care must be taken by criminals if they want to get away with it. I remember that in the Scott Peterson case, one thing that tripped him up, too, was here was his wife, missing, and the cops said when they got there, the whole house reeked of bleach, and he said he had been cleaning the floors. Like . . . your pregnant wife is missing and you just felt like bleaching the place. Nonetheless, there was almost NO physical evidence in that case.
E
Aimless:
I could just imagine explaining to people . . . "He died in a tragic garbage disposal explosion." ;-)
E
edie:
More than one of my dad's friends died that way. The ol' "He was pushed in front of a bus" thing.
E
hehe maybe he was a nervous cleaner. :P
Yes, Bobby would know it was murder. ;)
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