Bernie Madoff, for decades, probably thought he'd committed the perfect crime. He was rich, well-known, loved by his family, and respected by his colleagues. But Ponzi scemes are not perfect crimes, and Bernie got caught. The financial sociopath lost his fortune, his reputation, his freedom, and a son to suicide. His wife (whose boo-hoo memoir is out) and his surviving son have disowned him. And like a true sociopath, Bernie has recently insulted his victims by calling them greedy.
Unlike Bernie Madoff, a lot of people get away with crimes big and small. Shoplifters, employee thieves, and even murderers avoid arrest and prosecution. But getting away with a criminal act doesn't make it a perfect crime. Offenders escape criminal detection and punishiment because their crimes, if reported, weren't professionally investigated. So-called perfect crimes are made possible by imperfect police work.
To avoid a murder conviction, the killer should make sure he doesn't leave part of himself at the scene of the homicide and take part of the death site with him. Ideally, the murder victim should not be a spouse, an ex-lover, a business competitor or someone the killer owes money to. Moreover, the homicide should be committed as far from the killer's home as possible. There should be no eyewitnesses or accomplices. The murderer should create a believable alibi and not tell a soul what he has done, not even a priest or a shrink. And if there is financial gain involved, the killer should avoid spending large sums of money for at least a year. If arrested, the suspect should say nothing except he wants a lawyer, ideally a free one.
Killers get away with murder all the time because police officers often compromise the crime scene and too many detectives are either overworked, lazy, or incompetent. O. J. Simpson commited the opposite of a perfect crime and walked. According to my criteria, a perfect murder must entail the following:
1. The coroner or medical examiner must rule the death either natural, accidental, or suicidal.
2. The killer does not come under serious police or media suspicion. (It shouldn't be too hard to fool
Nancy Grace. Geraldo Rivera, not so easy.)
3. The killer gains significant direct or indirect financial gain from the victim's death.
4. There is no one who years later will come forward with evidence that incriminates the killer.
Before the emergence of modern toxicology and pharmacology, when wives got away with slowly poisoning their abusive husbands to death (usually arsonic found in rat poison), the perfect murder, under my criteria, was possible--perhaps even easy. Today, committing the perfect murder is much more difficult, and in my view, extremely rare. William Rothstein, the mastermind behind the 2003 Erie, Pennsylvania pizza bomb case thought he had committed the perfect murder. Had Rothstein not died a year after murdering Brian Wells, he would have been caught, eventually. He committed a sloppy crime ladden with physical evidence, an insane partner, and at least three accomplices who were idiots. The highly intelligent but pathologically narcissistic Mr. Rothstein was more ingenious than clever.
Unlike Bernie Madoff, a lot of people get away with crimes big and small. Shoplifters, employee thieves, and even murderers avoid arrest and prosecution. But getting away with a criminal act doesn't make it a perfect crime. Offenders escape criminal detection and punishiment because their crimes, if reported, weren't professionally investigated. So-called perfect crimes are made possible by imperfect police work.
To avoid a murder conviction, the killer should make sure he doesn't leave part of himself at the scene of the homicide and take part of the death site with him. Ideally, the murder victim should not be a spouse, an ex-lover, a business competitor or someone the killer owes money to. Moreover, the homicide should be committed as far from the killer's home as possible. There should be no eyewitnesses or accomplices. The murderer should create a believable alibi and not tell a soul what he has done, not even a priest or a shrink. And if there is financial gain involved, the killer should avoid spending large sums of money for at least a year. If arrested, the suspect should say nothing except he wants a lawyer, ideally a free one.
Killers get away with murder all the time because police officers often compromise the crime scene and too many detectives are either overworked, lazy, or incompetent. O. J. Simpson commited the opposite of a perfect crime and walked. According to my criteria, a perfect murder must entail the following:
1. The coroner or medical examiner must rule the death either natural, accidental, or suicidal.
2. The killer does not come under serious police or media suspicion. (It shouldn't be too hard to fool
Nancy Grace. Geraldo Rivera, not so easy.)
3. The killer gains significant direct or indirect financial gain from the victim's death.
4. There is no one who years later will come forward with evidence that incriminates the killer.
Before the emergence of modern toxicology and pharmacology, when wives got away with slowly poisoning their abusive husbands to death (usually arsonic found in rat poison), the perfect murder, under my criteria, was possible--perhaps even easy. Today, committing the perfect murder is much more difficult, and in my view, extremely rare. William Rothstein, the mastermind behind the 2003 Erie, Pennsylvania pizza bomb case thought he had committed the perfect murder. Had Rothstein not died a year after murdering Brian Wells, he would have been caught, eventually. He committed a sloppy crime ladden with physical evidence, an insane partner, and at least three accomplices who were idiots. The highly intelligent but pathologically narcissistic Mr. Rothstein was more ingenious than clever.
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