History Main / AbsenceOfEvidence

** The absence of certain valuable deeds is a vital clue in "The Norwood Builder".

* In ''VideoGame/Persona4'', one of the most important pieces of evidence is that no one suspicious was seen at or near various crime scenes, such as the murders, the various kidnappings, and threatening letters being dropped off at the protagonist's house- and since Inaba is such a small town, a stranger would be immediately noticed. Therefore, the killer has to be a ''not'' suspicious visitor; i.e., someone who would have a valid reason to hang around all of these places, and witnesses would recognize as such and ignore. [[spoiler:The one behind the ''kidnappings'' was a delivery man who of course wasn't questioned driving up to people's houses, but he isn't the killer. With him out of the running, the list is narrowed down to the one person who had unquestioned access to the police station and often visited the Dojima household- [[BumblingSidekick Adachi]], of all people.]]
* Invoked as part of the hunt for the "Identity Thief" in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''; the killer's third discovered victim has had all trace evidence left by the killer destroyed with bleach, but Batman is able to track the traces of bleach used to find a vital witness.
* This is actually a big part of game sense in MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena titles (''VideoGame/Dota2'', ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', etc.). These games typically come with a mini-map that displays the entire level, with icons showing the location of every enemy you can see, but some of the map -- and possibly, some of the characters -- obscured by FogOfWar. If those enemies aren't visible on the mini-map, what does that mean? Who knows... but the wise player expects trouble. (This is then {{exaggerated|Trope}} by various characters that have {{Invisibility Cloak}}s and can disappear from the minimap no matter ''what'' they're doing.)

* ''VideoGame/StarControl 2'': Spoofed by the Spathi and their insistence that some kind of ULTIMATE EVIL exists. Their "proof" that the ULTIMATE EVIL exists is that they've never detected any hint of its existence, [[InsaneTrollLogic which must mean it's hiding just beyond the range of their best sensors, which is proof that it is evil]].

* In ''{{Manga/Monster}}'', Johan's crime scenes are "devoid of feeling" -- the kills are executed as coldly and methodically as household chores. In one arc, this enables Runge to determine that a certain murder was [[CopycatCrime committed by a copy-cat]] and not Johan -- [[spoiler:blood spatter clearly shows a man had been [[http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Monster/Monster-40?id=7370#10 slouched in front of a mirror]], but his body is found several feet away because the killer hesitated upon [[http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Monster/Monster-41?id=7374#11 seeing himself in said mirror]]. Johan would have killed the man without a second thought, but the real killer -- the man's nephew -- was shocked to see himself in the process of killing]].

** In "Rise from the Ashes", the extra case from the [[UpdatedRerelease Nintendo DS remake]] of the first game, ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'', [[spoiler:Damon Gant has just "proven" Ema Skye pushed Neil Marshall onto a spear using a fingerprint-laden piece of cloth he personally cut from Marshall's vest. However, Phoenix notes that while Marshall was impaled and was coughing up blood on himself for a while before death, the piece of cloth has NO blood on it, meaning Gant had to have cut the cloth after Ema pushed Marshall but BEFORE the latter was impaled. Gant becomes [[OhCrap a bit unnerved]] at this]].

** In the third game's second case, the emergency buzzer at the crime scene, which was pressed at the time of the murder, had no traces of prints on it. This is used by Phoenix to prove the victim didn't press it, but the real killer did, resulting in the trope name almost being mentioned.\\\
In connection to the above, later on, the absence of prints is used by Luke Atmey to show that it was Ron who pressed the buzzer, seeing as how Ron was in his Mask☆[=DeMasque=] outfit, which meant he was wearing gloves. [[spoiler:This statement by Luke would come back to royally bite him in the butt, as there's no way Luke should have known Ron was wearing the outfit; that bit of information had only been revealed in the earlier part of that day's trial (and not mentioned since), and Luke had been in a completely different courtroom at the time.]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': People with silver eyes are powerful warriors with supernatural abilities, but this is a very rare trait. When Maria's father investigated the lineage of people with silver eyes, he found so little information that it made him suspicious. He concluded that such powerful bloodlines being so rare and under-reported meant that something was actively wiping them out. As a result of this suspicion, Maria spent her life hiding her identity by always wearing a mask and being known solely by a nickname instead of her actual name. Her father was proven right when her efforts failed to stop minions of the BigBad from tracking her down and trying to assassinate her for having silver eyes.

** Comes up occasionally when using the Mood Matrix in ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies Dual Destinies]]'', as it can easily notice that you're not feeling a certain emotion you ''claim'' to be feeling. The best example would be when [[spoiler:Athena and Blackquill team up to trick Fulbright into an "emotional" confession that was anything but]].

** This crops up multiple times across the franchise in regards to the Monokuma Files: Any time the file fails to mention a particular piece of information that's normally present (usually the time of death or cause of death) chances are very good that it'll turn out to be integral in solving the case, and the characters quickly figure out that if Monokuma deliberately leaves something out, they should probably take note. Specific cases include:
*** The final case of ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': The time of death isn't mentioned, [[spoiler: because the murder is fake and the body has actually been dead for a while]], and while the various injuries to the body are described, none are actually listed as the cause of death, [[spoiler: because if the students had realized that Mukuro Ikusaba had died in the same way they'd seen Junko die, they might have realized that a) Mukuro was killed right at the start, and b) Mukuro was posing as Junko at the time]].

** In TieInNovel ''Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop'', a senile old man supposedly walked across his wet lawn, stood on a chair, scaled a fence, and jumped into his pool to kill himself. Monk proves that it was murder because the man's socks would have been stained crossing the grass, and the socks were bleached white when the body was found. Also, the chair would have sunk into the ground under the weight of the victim, but it was simply standing on top of the grass.

** In the Season Seven premiere "[[Recap/DeathInParadiseS1E1MurderFromAbove Murder From Above]]", a woman supposedly killed herself by jumping from her hotel room's balcony. DI Mooney looks at the body and asks why only one of her fingernails is only half-covered with polish.

* In the Season Seven premiere "[[Recap/DeathInParadiseS1E1MurderFromAbove Murder From Above]]", a woman supposedly killed herself by jumping from her hotel room's balcony. DI Mooney looks at the body and asks why only one of her fingernails is only half-covered with polish.

* In the Season Seven premiere "[[Recap/DeathInParadiseS1E1 Murder From Above]]", a woman supposedly killed herself by jumping from her hotel room's balcony. DI Mooney looks at the body and asks why only one of her fingernails is only half-covered with polish.