Committing the perfect Murder

Here is a fantastic post by Jim Behrle, that starts of with an equally fantastic title: The Only Murdering Murder Guide You’ll Ever Need, You Murderer

First things first: Murder is wrong, OK? But let’s say, hypothetically, that you’re considering committing one anyway: how would you do it? … Maybe you want to murder novelist Jonathan Franzen. Let’s say you do. You want to stand over Jonathan Franzen’s wrecked body as it bubbles over with his own blood. You’re laughing and he’s just kind of lying there, gurgling. You beat him to death with an iPad and now there won’t be any more sprawling family angst novels from Mr. Handsome Fake Genius Man. Maybe that is who you want to murder. Maybe you would really enjoy wringing his skinny Brooklyn neck. His skinny, pretentious, overrated, Brooks Brothers neck. Hypothetically. Here are some things to think about while you’re totally planning the fake murder you have no intention of actually doing and by reading this sentence you hereby absolve the writer of any complicity in the crimes you will in no way go out and commit here comes the period and Jim is absolved.

You should definitely click through and read the whole thing.

I found this post, by the way, because I’ll be going to Archon in two weeks. Proof of vaccination, face mask, the whole deal, but nevertheless, I’m going. I do wonder how big a convention Archon will be this year compared to two years ago. Small, is my guess.

So, anyway, there aren’t a ton of pros attending, so the people running the con said, basically, If you don’t mind carrying a heavy load of panels, we will love you. So I checked off the box for “If you need me on this panel, I’m willing” on a LOT of panels, and therefore wound up on one about committing the perfect murder.

I mean, I’ve never written a mystery and probably never will, but at least I’ve read a lot of mysteries. As one does when reading mysteries, I have developed clear ideas about how I would commit an ideal murder (unrealistic) and how I would actually probably commit a murder (much more realistic).

Nevertheless, no matter how many murder mysteries I have read, I felt a certain amount of research was desirable on this topic. Almost at once, I found the post linked above.

Agreeing to be on this panel was worth it just for this great advice:

Always do it all yourself. The fewer people you include, the fewer people you will have to kill later. If you want to get away with murder, no one else can know about it. Not your mom, not the cat. You should probably avoid even making eye contact with anyone while you’re thinking about the murder. Maybe that person is clairvoyant. You don’t know. The more people who know about your murder the more people you may have to someday murder to keep them quiet. Because they’ll blackmail you and stuff; people are such creeps. And word to the wise: if you build an awesome killer ninja robot to be your accomplice, then you will have to take the whole thing apart after the murder is done and then hide all the bloody pieces. Don’t accumulate witnesses or conspirators. It will only increase your chances of getting caught.