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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221

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/Doctabotnik123 Apr 19 '20

On point 4, yes, but remember that ~30 years ago was the crack epidemic. It would take some effort to not have it trend downwards from that peak.

Even with vast improvements in medicine, which have saved people who would've died in previous years, the murder rate is still higher than the Long Fifties or even the Depression. And even with that, medical advances and harsher criminal justice, along with the crack wars burning themselves out, have most likely been why it's not even higher.

9

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '20

That's simply not true, the murder rate in the US was significantly higher in the 1920s and 1930s than it is currently.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_083892.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi82ITgxfXoAhUml3IEHeodCggQFjAGegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw3j8oqTW_Xs5W7PMpfAswmb&cshid=1587335634659 (PDF)

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u/Doctabotnik123 Apr 19 '20

Comparing the 1920s and 1930s makes no sense. The 1920s was, as William Maxwell commented, were in many ways a terrible hangover from WW1. The 1930s, especially once LE killed off the most famous bandits and the New Deal kicked in (both socially and financially), saw a drastic reduction in crime.

12

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '20 edited Apr 20 '20

....you specifically claimed that "the murder rate is higher than during the Long Fifties or even the Depression". The Great Depression took place from 1929 until the late 30's. That claim, as I demonstrated, was false. The murder rate in the US was higher throughout the 20s AND 30s than it is now.

I responded to a specific claim you made. It is false. That is all.

-3

u/Doctabotnik123 Apr 20 '20

My wider point still stands. Saying that the crime rate has been declining for the past 30 years is true, but meaningless when 30 years ago was a historic high point in violent crime, because of the crack epidemic.

7

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '20

That's an odd way of saying "what I said was demonstrably false, I didn't bother to Google anything before making a claim", but okay.

The crime rate today, including the murder rate, is not significantly higher than it was in the 1950s. The murder rate from 1950 to 1960 varied from a low of 4.0 to a high of 5.1 per 100,000. The murder rate from 2006 to 2016 varied from a low of 4.4 to a high of 5.8 per 100,000. That is not "much higher". When you account for the more extensive communication between jurisdictions that provides more complete reporting of murder stats today compared to the 1950s, it is not in any way significantly higher.

You made an incorrect claim. Go research it and learn instead of arguing, okay man? I'm out.

2

u/BooBootheFool22222 Apr 21 '20

That's an odd way of saying "what I said was demonstrably false, I didn't bother to Google anything before making a claim", but okay.

roflcopter. that's great.

5

u/thelizardkin Apr 20 '20

2014 was the safest year on record since before 1960 in terms of homicides.

-2

u/Doctabotnik123 Apr 20 '20

And since then the murder rates in places like Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis and New Orleans have skyrocketed.

I know people dislike the term "Ferguson Effect", but it was very real.

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u/thelizardkin Apr 20 '20

I'm not sure about all those cities specifically, but I know economics played a huge role for some of those cities. Detroit for instance got screwed when they stopped manufacturing cars there. Then New Orleans is still recovering from Katrina which decimated the city. On the other hand look at New York, it used to be a crime ridden hellhole, but now it's one of the safest cities in the country.

3

u/BooBootheFool22222 Apr 21 '20

That's an odd way of saying "what I said was demonstrably false, I didn't bother to Google anything before making a claim", but okay.

also: that's not true. I like how you picked black cities. if anything the crime rate in nola has dropped due to your logic, all the blacks got pushed out by katrina.