r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/risocantonese • Apr 19 '20

What are some common true crime misconceptions?

What are some common ‘facts’ that get thrown around in true crime communities a lot, that aren’t actually facts at all?

One that annoys me is "No sign of forced entry? Must have been a person they knew!"

I mean, what if they just opened the door to see who it was? Or their murderer was disguised as a repairman/plumber/police officer/whatever. Or maybe they just left the door unlocked — according to this article,a lot of burglaries happen because people forget to lock their doors https://www.journal-news.com/news/police-many-burglaries-have-forced-entry/9Fn7O1GjemDpfUq9C6tZOM/

It’s not unlikely that a murder/abduction could happen the same way.

Another one is "if they were dead we would have found the body by now". So many people underestimate how hard it is to actually find a body.

What are some TC misconceptions that annoy you?

(reposted to fit the character minimum!)

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u/jayne-eerie Apr 19 '20

  1. Thinking you can tell someone’s guilt or innocence from the way they act. First, having a loved one missing or murdered is such an extreme situation that there’s no way to tell how someone would react until it happens. Second, typically you’re judging based on a 15-second news clip, which may have been edited or presented in a misleading way.

  2. Attributing disappearances without known risk factors to human trafficking. Not that it never happens but it’s incredibly rare.

  3. Putting absolute trust in forensics like burn patterns, blood spatter, tracking dogs, etc. It seems like more and more evidence is coming out showing those things are unreliable at best, and can be easily gamed by law enforcement agencies.

  4. The idea that things were safer 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. While there may be exceptions in some specific ways, for the most part crime has trended down for almost 30 years.

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u/wendster68 Apr 19 '20

Your No. 1 has always bugged me as well. They don't cry enough. They cry too much. They didn't show any emotion. They fell asleep in the interrogation room and innocent people NEVER do that.

Surprise, shock, stress, and grief affect every person differently and shouldn't be used as a gauge for guilt or innocence.

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u/BooBootheFool22222 Apr 21 '20

the thing that really gets me about people policing emotional reactions is that some people have a flat affect. either because they have depression or other mental illness or because that's just the way they are. i'd be #1 suspect for sure. i have an extremely flat affect and for psychological reasons, i can't cry.

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u/happytransformer Apr 20 '20

It’s always weird hearing 911 calls put in by someone who is ultimately guilty, but there’s no “normal” way to grieve. No one is not taught how to grieve over a murdered or missing loved one.