Has anybody ever had a murderer caught on surveillance?

[Tantalus]

I've solved a bunch of different murders, and so far one thing has been true of all of them: surveillance camera footage has never, ever caught a murderer coming to or going from the scene. Have any of you ever had a case where surveillance camera footage was actually useful in catching the perpetrator?

[Frenchy]

I've had one where the murderer killed someone in an office, so I caught them on camera walking in and out of the crime scene after syncing up the cameras with the estimated time of death.

[LouRagou]

It did help me once with a murder, I could clearly see the perp trying to open the victim's door, and that's how I got confirmation that it was him.

Another time, it helped me with a side mission : I needed to know where my client worked, and I found him AND the target going together to the same office.

[Tantalus]

Okay. I guess I'm just getting all the smart/fast murderers who are able to disable cameras and kill their victims in less than 20 seconds (real time).

[ThaumPenguin]

It seems most killers know to avoid the security camera directly outside of the victim's apartment, but they're not as careful about the rest. In one case, I found that one of the people who had walked down the stairs to the floor below the victim's home was a complete stranger to everyone who lived there. Everyone except one, who recognized the stranger on the camera as their coworker, and they were both coworkers of the victim. It wasn't valid as *evidence* of them doing the deed, but it certainly narrowed the scope of suspects.

[Maya-Neko]

I never really used it for murders (except for my current one, which doesn't have a body or evidence, but i still need to solve that one^^), but i've seen youtubers using it successfully.

[Aegix Drakan]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Thaum:

Everyone except one, who recognized the stranger on the camera as their coworker, and they were both coworkers of the victim. It wasn't valid as *evidence* of them doing the deed, but it certainly narrowed the scope of suspects.

HMMMMMMMM. Yeah I'd say that's a Capital C clue obtained by just walking around and asking questions. XD

Commander Samuel Vimes would be proud.

[Cooperal]

Only once. This was at the start of my housemates playthrough. It was a street murder. Looked very much like the camera caught the killer pointing their gun directly at the victim. It didn't really do much to inform us because we actually saw the murder with our own eyes.

The reason my housemate still checked the surveillance footage was because he could not find anything at the scene with the killers prints, but unfortunately it did not qualify as valid evidence to place the killer at the scene. Other than that their isn't much left to say except it was a very easy case.

So you can catch the killer on camera, which is helpful but just slightly less than you think. As long as you can get their face to flag in a photo you can just ask random people if they know them and you are golden.

[The FogDog]

I had a camera right outside the apartment door of a murder crime scene which helped identify the killer.

[VictorBraga]

I had a case that was bugging me immensely, that I only managed to solve on the second murder by the killer. What I had dismissed as just someone visiting a friend turned out to be the murderer, as they were standing outside the victim's door each time.

Honestly surveillance is the first thing I check once I get a time-of-death window, a lot of my cases have someone out of place nearby and from there I track down if they touched anything like the doorknobs or doors themselves.

[Tantalus]

Okay, finally had one where surveillance cameras turned out to be useful.

I've had two arrest cases open for what seems like forever. Both of them are the real tough kind where the job giver gives you nothing very useful. This particular one gave me: blue eyes, wears glasses, has facial hair, and under additional notes: likes music. Funnily enough, I knew who the job giver was because I had preemptively gone through the employee records of everybody in City Hall, but out of ALL of her contacts, only one person fit the physical description, and that guy wasn't it.

After canvassing the streets asking random citizens who seemed like they might fit the profile for their names, it struck me: the suspect might've been caught on street surveillance cameras. Picked the two busiest intersections, found the closest camera post, and went through the footage frame-by-frame for all four cameras, but it paid off: I now at least had a photo of the guy. From there, it was pretty straightforward: canvass randos until you get a name, search the database to get his address, and make the arrest. Dude had a high-powered rifle, a pistol silencer, and tons of ammo in his apartment, but no gramophone or hi-fi system. I think there's something he likes a LOT more than music.