The great killer-motives thread

[Headshotkill]

So in the past there have been a couple threads suggesting better killer-motives to make investigations more interesting. I want to combine all the reasons why I think it's the most important feature to add at this moment and all the different motives I can come up with.
If you know any other motives please share them.

Right now investigations are quiet repetitive because your only concern is collecting hard physical evidence. There's no point in figuring out why the murder was done, what type of person the victim was or reconstructing the events that took place before the murder.
This also means there's virtually no elimination process, I never really had multiple suspects at once which I had to reduce to one killer. Now there must always be SOME hard evidence present at the crime scene or a case would be impossible to solve, but with better motives this wouldn't be nescessary. A person with a motive to kill and who lacks a good alibi at the time of murder is a prime suspect without hard evidence. This would require a way for us to interrogate people and ask them where they were at a specific time.
The fact that every killer is a SERIAL-killer is also highly problematic for realistic motives and should be replaced with killers often killing just one person and stopping at that. Other killers shouldn't wait for you to solve an ongoing case before committing their murder.
The rest of this post I'm gonna sum up all the motives I can think of right now.


1. Crimes of passion
These are the most common and easiest cases to solve cause they happen without much preparation and are performed by people that aren't very skilled at murdering and make mistakes.

1a. Love-triangles
Any couple where one of the partners is cheating with a stranger, within these situations anyone of the three participants can kill the other for various reasons.
-Partner kills cheater out of anger and feeling betrayed
-Partner kills stranger who cheater is sleeping with cause of jealousy and anger.
-Cheater kills partner cause he/she was about to find out or just wants them gone
-Cheater kills stranger he/she's sleeping with because of regret, blackmailing, ...
-Stranger kills partner out of jealousy
-Stranger kills cheater because cheater wanted to stop the affair or out of possesiveness.
Because these murders are often done without much planning there's usually plenty of hard evidence found at the crime scene. If they're a bit smarter they'll be able to cover up their crime better and reduce the amount of hard evidence. In these cases you'll have to rely more on figuring out the context of the murder, lookout for clues which point to a love triangle like secret messages or the cheater having secret dates recently which you can verify at the bar/restaurant with camera footage.

1b. Rivalries
These murders happen within the context of a workplace between colleagues and bosses, these can range from very messy murders in the heat of a conflict with plenty of evidence to more calculated murders out of a festering hatred where the killer acts more cautiously.
The murder itself doesn't nescessarily have to happen at the workplace.
-Colleague kills colleague out of irritation or competition for a promotion.
-Colleague kills boss out of anger for being disrespected, denied promotion, forced to work too much or being fired.
-Boss kills colleague for being disrespected or to make room for a better worker and he doesn't want to pay them leave this way.
If there isn't a lot of physical evidence you'll have to interview workers to understand the context, they'll probably have noticed verbal fights and tensions in the days leading up to the murder. You should also check work related V-mails to find out what happened.

1c. Hitman variants
An interesting spin-off for any crime of passion murders is the hitman variant, this is where the murderer doesn't commit the murder themself but instead pays someone else to do the murder for them. This of cours is reserved only for the more wealthy citizens because the payment isn't cheap. The murder will be performed skillfully so it won't leave a lot of evidence and may see the use of a sniper rifle.
But any good detective should still be able to figure out the context of the murder, and have a list of people who have reasons to have the victim killed.
One thing that always happens before or after the murder is the transfer of money between the suspect and the hitman, this is a physical event which takes place in a public space (restaurant, bar) and should be recorded and included in the resolution.
The prime goal is to arrest the suspect, a bonus but very difficult task is to also figure out who the hitman is.


2. Organised crime
These murders are done by people who are part of a criminal organisation. They're usually performed skillfully and without too much hard evidence left at the scene. first you'll have to figure out clues that a criminal organisation was involved, then possibly need to locate and infiltrate this organisations' base to find out the person who actually commited the murder. Quiet often members will have a tattoo or wear a specific piece of clothing.

2a. The maffia
These are criminal organisations who are in control of the black market, dealing illegal goods and criminal rackets. Some possible situations:
-Member of a criminal organisation kills member of another rival criminal organisation.
-Member of a criminal organisation kills person who was indebted to them.
-Member of a criminal organisation is killed for making a mistake, wanting to leave or betrayal.

2b. Cults
These are fanatical worshippers who follow a charismatic leader.
They commit murders in a very ritualistic way so you'll quickly know what you're dealing with, the real challenge comes in locating the cult's hideout.
-Cult members sacrifise stranger
-Cult members sacrifise fellow cult member for disobedience
-Cult members mass s**cide
I guess the main goal would be to arrest the cult leader cause ultimately he's responsible for his follower's actions.

2c. Political terrorists
These are ideological extremist groups who oppose the current ruling class, their main goal is to sow terror and destabilize society.
-High profile politician murder
-Murdering law enforcer
-Mass murder/terrorist attack
The most gruesome act they can commit is a full blown terror attack on random citizens in a gathering place like a bar or restaurant, either by detonating a bomb or going in masked up and guns blazing.


3. Disorganised crime
These murders are commited by minor criminals amongst the lowest ranks of society, the murder wasn't the goal itself for the criminal but rather a by product of his actions.
Even though you'll often find hard evidence at the crime scene it's still more difficult to solve because the suspect and victim are often not related in anyway.

3a. Home invasion
During a robbery the home owner is killed, the house is trashed and some items are missing. Identifying which items are gone and scanning the black market for these items can help lead you to the suspect. some smart murderers from the crimes of passion section will make the crime scene look like a home invasion to fool you.


4. Psychopath killers
At last we have our classic serial killers, they're the most interesting and creative group. Often highly skilled with little hard evidence left at the crime scene, however they kill all their victims with a very stable pattern and often stalk them before hand. Retracing the last hours of the victim is a good way of revealing any weird figures who keep showing up by coincidene.
-Misogynist/misandrist killers
-Notoriety killers, they'll adopt a killer name and make the murders extra gruesome.
-Sadisitic killers, they sometimes force or lure their victims to an isolated place and torture them to death. It starts as a missing person case, if you're quick enough you might save them.
-Cannibal killers, this would start as a missing person case, hurry up or there will be no evidence left.
-Late game special killer obsessed with YOU, he's the type who calls your phone in the middle of the night and loudly breathes before hanging up. He's the type who leaves cryptic messages at the murder scenes for you to solve. He knows EVERYTHING about you. Paradoxically his deepest desire is for you to find him, what happens next is a mystery.

[schwarzrotes]

and than the game onl runs with 5 fps cause how the heck should it be able to hande that much, i am just realistic here

i mean the killertyps are a nice idea but you dont want to have multiple killers running around, i am not really sure the game can handle this

beside that your idea would asume the killer like a stalker would really stalk his victim what is not happening, these notes are generated as hints for you, cause then the game would have to simulate that in a way, and it not really simulates, npcs have pre-made chedules who get already messed up if partners keeping semselfs awake by fightig about the lighswitch

[Headshotkill]

Ursprungligen skrivet av schwarzrotes:

and than the game onl runs with 5 fps cause how the heck should it be able to hande that much, i am just realistic here

i mean the killertyps are a nice idea but you dont want to have multiple killers running around, i am not really sure the game can handle this

beside that your idea would asume the killer like a stalker would really stalk his victim what is not happening, these notes are generated as hints for you, cause then the game would have to simulate that in a way, and it not really simulates, npcs have pre-made chedules who get already messed up if partners keeping semselfs awake by fightig about the lighswitch

I'm sure you can make it work without bogging the game down, there wouldn't be multiple killers acting at the same time cause most killers only kill once.
If a killer only kills once and you're unable to solve this case than there's no point in preventing another killer from doing his thing. Yeah you'd have two cases running at the same time but we already have that when there's a killer and we do a side quest.
Besides, what's wrong with having a cold-case that you just can't let go and can still solve even after other murders happened?

I understand a killer physically stalking his victim might strain the game's FPS and if so we can leave that out, but there's still plenty of contextual evidence the game can generate when a murder happens like written notes, V-mails and NPC dialogue pointing to a number of possible suspects to create the illusion of a motive being at play.