 Mystery: October 08, 2014 Issue [#6586] |
  Mystery
This week: Case reopened Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week:Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.
~Henry Miller
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If you want to give your fictional detectives a tough case, let them work on a mystery that was already supposed to be solved. Even the best investigators can make mistakes if seemingly convincing evidence leads them in the wrong direction.
Reopening a supposedly "solved" case has unique challenges. Evidence may have been lost or destroyed, and witnesses could have moved away or died. An innocent person may have spent years in prison, and no longer be willing to talk to detectives, especially those who were part of the initial investigation. Police, prosecutors, and judges may not want to admit they were wrong the first time around. Your characters will need very strong evidence to open a closed case.
Make sure that the evidence that led to the mistaken solution seems believable. Your characters should have come to a conclusion that any reasonable person would reach with the evidence they had at the time. Or... maybe the original investigators had reasons to want the wrong person convicted. For example, maybe someone on the police force was actually involved in the crime.
Sometimes, the original investigators may have done the best they could with the evidence they had, but new evidence was uncovered, or a witness came forward and admitted he or she had lied. In other instances, new ways of analyzing evidence were developed. In several real life cases, people convicted before DNA analysis was possible were found to be innocent once that technology was available.
Something to try if you dare: Choose one of your finished mystery stories and write a sequel. In the sequel, the characters find out the person convicted in the original story was innocent, and the real killer is still out there .
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| Question for next time: What is your favorite mystery story? |
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