History Main / AlwaysMurder

* Most cases the title character of ''DetectiveConan'' has to solve feature one or more murders. You'd think people would worry about [[ThereAreNoTherapists how desensitized Conan and Ran]] must be.

* ''TheKindaichiCaseFiles'', which can have even more deaths per case than ''DetectiveConan''.

* Because ''DetectiveConan'' suffers from this rather--though there's a suicide or so, and plenty of non-murder episodes with the Shounen Tantei, like in Season One they deal with gold smuggling, a hostage situation, an assassination plot, and a case of mistaken identity--fanfic tends to decide he has a supernatural power to attract murder or be attracted to it, though the supposed methods vary. More common when the writer is engaged in an extensive crossover with [[PhantomThief Magic Kaitou]], which has actual supernatural elements much better attested, even if Kid never uses such things himself.

** Interestingly, [[spoiler:the case that ends up causing Phoenix to lose his attorney's badge was actually suicide.]]

* ''{{Cold Case}}'' usually plays this trope straight. However, there were at least four deaths ruled as accident ([[spoiler:"Fly Away", "The Boy in the Box", "Yo, Adrian", and "Roller Girl"]]) and at least three others ruled as suicides or as a result of suicides ([[spoiler: "Daniella", "Best Friends", and "Two Weddings"]]), at least one ruled as self defense / justifiable homicide ([[spoiler: "Justice"]]). Heck, one case even had the presumed victim still be alive ([[spoiler:"Fireflies"]]).

* ''{{The X-Files}}'' almost always had someone die before they rolled the opening credits, despite the fact that the FBI doesn't usually investigate plain old murder unless it's federal-such as when it occurs in connection to kidnappings across state lines and other things. However, they do consult on serial killings even when they occur within one state, which seems to be like how they get their jurisdiction for the show, called in for unexplained phenomena.

* ''{{CSI}}'': After 8 seasons and counting, this trope has only been averted a minuscule number of times, mostly in the early seasons; in the episode "Suckers", the ColdOpen shows us a dead body in a pool, but we soon find out that it's just a lifeguard training dummy used to distract hotel security from an antique theft (as usual for the series, the [[TwoLinesNoWaiting B Plot]] was a straight up murder). Another early season episode featured what appeared to be a murder victim found in a dumpster but after several false leads was revealed to be a complete accident.
** This trope is so prevalent that when they investigate an elderly couple found dead in their home (including one of them who had hit his head in the bathroom) the idea of even one of the deaths being an accident isn't even mentioned by the CSIs. [[spoiler: it was again a series of accidents, he slipped in the tub and she fell on the knife]]
** CSINewYork, on the other hand, has had a few deaths ruled accidents and whatnot.

* ''{{Bones}}'', mainly because half the cast only works with dead people. There's always a corpse, but it isn't always murder -- a few deaths have turned out to be accidents.

* ''Unforgettable'' so far has had every episode center around a homicide, though sometimes other crimes are discovered over the course of the homicide investigation. Justified in that the main characters are homicide detectives.

* Averted by ''WhiteCollar'', where, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin oddly enough]], white collar crimes are investigated.

* Subverted in ''GhostTrick'' as well. While many of the deaths ''are'' murders, there are a few deaths which are accidental as well, and even one instance where the deceased died of a heart attack.

* ''{{NCIS}}'' often averts this as they deal with a lot of kidnappings.

* ''FanFic/TurnaboutStorm'' has [[AceAttorney Phoenix Wright]], video game poster boy of this trope, getting pulled into [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Equestria]]. Why? Twilight Sparkle accidentally summons him while casting a spell to summon the best defense attorney in Equestria (allegedly, she forgot the Equestria part of the spell) while looking for a lawyer to defend her friend from (take a guess) murder charges on her. Yep, not even being in a SugarBowl can keep Nick away from this trope.
* Because DetectiveConan suffers from this rather--though there's a suicide or so, and plenty of non-murder episodes with the Shounen Tantei, like in Season One they deal with gold smuggling, a hostage situation, an assassination plot, and a case of mistaken identity--fanfic tends to decide he has a supernatural power to attract murder or be attracted to it, though the supposed methods vary. More common when the writer is engaged in an extensive crossover with [[PhantomThief Magic Kaitou]], which has actual supernatural elements much better attested, even if Kid never uses such things himself.

* All of the cases in ''AceAttorney'' seem to involve a murder of some kind:

*** If Conan ever found a reason to break his code and commit murder, he would ''never'' be caught. Nerves of steel, an encyclopedic knowledge of criminal technique, and the perfect cover. He's a ''fucking eight-year-old''.
*** Yes, he would. Hattori would notice something was off with him, and has the data to put it together. For someone whose life is a lie, Shinichi is crap at actual lying.

* ''{{Untraceable}}'' is a cybercrime movie that managed to end up being about murders. (Of course, something like identity theft would make a pretty boring thriller.)
** Whether or not ''TheNet'' proves the latter point is up to debate.
*** Look to ''The6thDay''. An action thriller about identity theft due to clones.

* The majority of SherlockHolmes' cases are murders, making this OlderThanRadio.

*** Also subverted, however, by cases like ''The Man With the Twisted Lip'', ''The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor'', ''The Adventure of the Yellow Face'', and ''The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter'', where Holmes investigates what looks like a criminal matter and finds there isn't even anything illegal going on.
** And because he isn't the police, he only gets cases after they've broken; they don't typically break in front of him in the style of latter detective novels. 'Copper Beeches' is notable for being such a mysterious mystery that ''not one part of it makes the slightest sense'' at the time it is presented to him, and it turns out to involve very bad parenting, star-crossed lovers, and dopplegangers.

*** The precincts or the Chief of Detectives usually bring Major Case in on the case. It's true that Major Case generally investigates theft & kidnapping, but the Chief of Detectives may assign cases to any unit. Sometimes the murders are connected to crimes within the purview of MCS. There is no homicide in "Homo Homini Lupus" (unless you count [[spoiler: Eames shooting a perp]]) and in "Folie a Deux" [[spoiler: the police investigate an alleged kidnapping that only later turns out to be a homicide (by negligence)]], so it's not AlwaysMurder (merely almost AlwaysMurder).

* ''{{Bones}}'', mainly because half the cast only works with dead people.
** I think there was one kidnapping.
*** There's always a corpse, but it isn't always murder - a few deaths have turned out to be accidents. Most recently, [[spoiler:The Elephant in the Room]].

* In ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', almost every "case" the brothers take on begins with someone dying horribly. Of course, the killer is usually a ghost, demon, or monster of some kind, so whether it's technically murder is open to question (is it still homicide when the perpetrator died before the victim?).

*** Why did Sam run away to Stanford again?

* ''MurderSheWrote'', appropriately to its title, plays this painfully straight in every single episode. Jessica Fletcher was an [[AmateurSleuth incidental bystander]] for twelve seasons and six TV-movies, making for [[UnfortunateImplications implications]] that are [[FridgeHorror difficult to ignore]].

* All of the cases in ''AceAttorney'' seem to involve a murder of some kind. Indeed, the one case Phoenix took that wasn't a murder [[spoiler:turned out to be a cover for a murder across town]]. Maya lampshades this in the 3rd game:

** Also, in Ace Attorney Investigations, the third case [[spoiler: starts out as a kidnapping, until someone ends up dead. He turns out to be a kidnapper. Sort of.]]

** I would count the whole series as being a huge lamp-shading of this trope, seeing as how this is pointed out in the first game. If you present Mia's autopsy report to Gumshoe, Phoenix says how unusual it is for a newbie lawyer to take on two murders in a row. Then in Rise from the Ashes, Gumshoe once again lampshades it by pondering why they seem to be no other crime reports apart from murder in this district.

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* ''{{Columbo}}'' : Kind of justified since he's a homicide detective, but he's quite often called out to investigate cases that look like accidents or suicides but turn out to be murder.

** This trope is so prevalent that when they investigate an elderly couple found dead in their home (including one of them who had hit his head in the bathroom) the idea of it being an accident isn't even mentioned by the CSIs.

*** There are attorney's badges now?

** In ''LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'', it's Always Rape instead. (But often there's a murder too.)

[[AC: ComicBooks]]

* This is discussed in an episode of ''Anime/LuckyStar'', the characters out loud wondering why detectives on TV always keep finding murders to investigate. Series lampshaded by this scene includs...

* Early on in ''QuantumLeap'', usually the thing that Sam had to [[PutRightWhatOnceWentWrong put right]] was, though life-altering, not usually fatal (like winning a baseball game, stopping a girl from marrying the wrong person, or inspiring Buddy Holly to write "Peggy Sue"). However, in later seasons, nearly every episode involved Sam having to take action, or else X...would die!

* In {{Supernatural}}, almost every "case" the brothers take on begins with someone dying horribly. Of course, the killer is usually a ghost, demon, or monster of some kind, so whether it's technically murder is open to question (is it still homicide when the perpetrator died before the victim?).

* ''LawAndOrder''. Notable is the fact that characters will occasionally be called out for something that isn't murder (being homicide detectives) whether by a mixup or someone thinking something doesn't add up, they will be annoyed until they learn it ''was'' a murder, but in other episodes they will investigate crimes that aren't murder (kidnapping seems to be the biggest one) without objections only to find a body somewhere along the road.
** The early episodes of ''Law and Order'' notably averted this by mixing up crimes once quite often.

* Subverted in an episode of {{Quincy}}: The corpse of the man who had apparently been beaten to death in an alley really died of natural causes: he'd had a medical condition which caused convulsions, and he'd beaten himself to death.

* This is discussed in an episode of ''LuckyStar'', the characters out loud wondering why detectives on TV always keep finding murders to investigate.