History Main / BluffingTheMurderer

** In case 3-1, Mia Fey (the attorney the player controls in that case) proposes the theory that the real killer [[spoiler:put poison into Phoenix's cold medicine in order to kill him. Said "real killer" then dismisses these claims however Mia dares her to take some of the cold medicine stating that she should have nothing to worry about if the theory was not true.]] The killer then goes on to brake down and refuse to take some, therefore proving Mia's theory.

* [[PhoenixWrightAceAttorney Phoenix Wright]] gets the crook caught by using this in the third case of ''Trials and Tribulations''. [[spoiler:"The contents of this bottle prove you're the killer!" "Yeah, right! The poison was in a ''brown'' bottle, not... AAAARRGGGHH!"]]
** It could be argued that Phoenix does this in ''every single case''. When the evidence is overwhelmingly against his client, he manages to use the existing evidence to find the real killer.
** A kind of adverted version of this occurs in case 3-1. Mia Fey (the attorney the player controls in that case) propose the theory that the real killer [[spoiler:put poison into Phoenix's cold medicine in order to kill him. Said "real killer" then dismisses these claims however Mia dares her to take some of the cold medicine stating that she should have nothing to worry about if the theory was not true.]] The killer then goes on to brake down and refuse to take some, therefore proving Mia's theory.

# The most dangerous kind: a character is put into a position where they're dangerous to the murderer's schemes. A common way of doing this is trying to blackmail the murderer. In any case, when the murderer attempts to kill this new obstacle, the police burst out from hiding and the murderer is caught red handed.

** It could be argued that Phoenix does this in ''every single case''. When the evidence is overwhelmingly against his client, he manages to use the existing evidence to find the real killer ''every time'', and often without knowing exactly what really occurred until late in the trial.
*** In fact, in case 3-5, when he figures out what happens in the middle of the trial, he gets his Shocked look and says, "OH MY GOD!" He's not ObfuscatingStupidity, people, he really doesn't know.

* In the AlPacino/ RobinWilliams film ''Film/{{Insomnia}}'', the police find the murder victim's backpack in the woods, and Pacino orders them to replace it and then put out a reward for any information about it, so that the murderer will return to collect it before anyone else finds it.

* The climax of the film ''AFewGoodMen'' has the defense lawyer provoking the base commander into a rage in the hope that he would admit to ordering the beating that killed the Marine. It's the sequence that the very famous line comes from. The bluff hinged on the base commander lying about the time of a particular flight. The defense attorney brought in two airmen that he implied were going to testify as to the actual time of the flight. Turns out that the airmen had absolutely no recollection of anything.

* SherlockHolmes pulls one of these in ''The Valley of Fear''. Deducing that some vital evidence has been dumped in the moat, he announces that it must be drained - then catches the murderer [[spoiler: (actually the victim, who overpowered and switched identities with his would-be assassin)]] when they come to move the goods. Pure bluff, in that it was impossible to actually drain the moat.

* Subverted brutally in [[AgathaChristie Dame Christie's]] ''[[TheMousetrap The Mousetrap]]''.All the witnesses/suspects are asked to to re-enact the murder, but to do so playing the part of one of the other witnesses. It seems an exceedingly clever ploy (or a bold bluff) to catch the murderer. [[spoiler: The murderer is - oh I can't do it! Sorry, you won't find out here.]]

* This is how Elijah Baley solves the case of roboticide in IsaacAsimov's ''Robots of Dawn'', getting [[spoiler: Amadiro to blurt out that he had had contact with the robot]].
** He does the same in a more cruel way in TheNakedSun.
* Porfiry of CrimeAndPunishment tries this many times on Raskalnikov. One particular instance involved Porfiry directly asking Raskalnikov about a detail at the crime scene when Raskalnikov was talking about his presence at the scene before the murder.
* Hannibal Lecter bluffed *himself* into this position by attacking Will Graham in a very self-incriminating way when little did Lecter know Graham had no real evidence on him and knew he was the Cheseapeake Ripper only because his own Lecter-level intuitive imagination led him to the conclusion. %%um, which book is this in?
* Jules Verne's ''{{Kéraban le têtu}}'' has the same trick as Napier uses (explained below in the Folklore session, except with a goat instead of a rooster.

** Beckett/Castle and Esposito/Ryan are investigating different murders, which they determine are related in a {{StrangersOnATrain}} scenario. While interrogating the suspects separately, Beckett/Castle rush into Esposito/Ryan's interrogation room to announce that their suspect confessed first, prompting the second suspect to immediately confess everything and blame the first guy (who hadn't confessed to anything.)

** Also inverted in the episode ''Mr. Monk Meets the Godfather'', where Monk actually did think the FBI Van parked nearby recorded the killer's confession, but it turns out they hadn't because Monk inadvertently wrecked the bug (he had the tie washed in a washing machine due to a stain earlier in the episode), although the killer did end up begging to be arrested anyways.).

Note that spoilers will abound in the examples.

Our Hero is certain he knows who committed the crime. Unfortunately, he doesn't have much evidence, so he maneuvers the criminal into panicking in a way that's likely to be self-incriminating.

Our Hero is certain she knows who committed the crime. Unfortunately, she doesn't have much evidence, so she maneuvers the criminal into panicking in a way that's likely to be self-incriminating.

* Subverted brutally in [[AgathaChristie Dame Christie's]] ''[[TheMousetrap The Mousetrap]]''.All the witnesses/suspects are asked to to re-enact the murder, but to do so playing the part of one of the other witnesses. It seems an exceedingly clever ploy (or a bold bluff) to catch the murderer. [[spoiler: The murderer is the policeman-- the one person not involved in the reenactment because he's running it.]]

* In ''Memory'' by LoisMcMasterBujold, Miles bluffs [[spoiler: Haroche]] into trying to swap out an incriminating air filter.

* In the graphic novel ''Camelot 3000'', Merlin has been betrayed by one of the reincarnated Round Table knights. King Arthur orders the suspects to hold Excalibur and attest to their innocence, claiming his sword will magically strike down anyone who lies while holding it. The guilty party panics and confesses, after which Arthur admits that Excalibur has no such power.

** {{QI}} discussed the subject in series C:

** There are lots of old variations on this, such as a judge who hands out "magic sticks" to everyone in the village and tells them that the thief's stick will grow an inch in the night. The thief is the one who returns his stick with the end sawn off.

Compare EngineeredPublicConfession (which plays off the villain's overconfidence rather than their panic), PerpSweating, FramingTheGuiltyParty. Often a supertrope of the RumplestiltskinPloy.

* Subverted brutally in [[AgathaChristie Dame Christie's]] ''[[TheMousetrap The Mousetrap]]''. [[spoiler: All the witnesses/suspects are asked to to re-enact the murder, but to do so playing the part of one of the other witnesses. It seems an exceedingly clever ploy (or a bold bluff) to catch the murderer. But what ends up happening instead...the... I'm sorry, I just can't do it. [[FightClub The first rule of the Mousetrap is you don't give away the ending to the Mousetrap]].]]

* In one episode of {{Bones}}, they suspected that a guy helped his friend with the murder [[spoiler: and also tried to kill his friend, who was currently in a coma]], but didn't have enough proof. Instead, Bones bluffed that his friend ratted out on him and when he demanded for her to [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay say something his friend would say]], she calmly told him that his friend made a comment that he had difficulty putting on the sleeve on the corpse, proven by the corpse's broken arm. At that point, the guy promptly told her everything in order to get back at his friend.
* Done unintentionally (OrWasIt?)in ColdCase, the team had a witness to a crime scene where his mother had been killed. They called in a woman whom the witness had recognized. As soon as they mentioned there was a witness saying she had helped with the murder, she quickly denied it, claiming it was impossible for anyone to see that night.

* In ''DeathNote'' L tricks Light with one of the aforementioned variants very early on. Light usually reacts coolly as part of his acting skills later on. Of course, this being ''Death Note'' this happens something along the lines of every episode, and is probably one of the most common {{Xanatos Gambit}}s used.

* In the graphic novel ''Camelot 3000'', Merlin has been betrayed by one of the reincarnated Round Table knights. King Arthur orders the suspects to hold Excalibur and attest to their innocence, claiming his sword will magically strike down anyone who lies while holding it. The guilty party panics and confesses, after which Arthur admits that Excalibur has no such power.

* The climax of the film ''AFewGoodMen'' has the defense lawyer provoking the base commander into a rage in the hope that he would admit to ordering the beating that killed the Marine. It's the sequence that the very famous line comes from. The bluff hinged on the base commander lying about the time of a particular flight. The defense attorney brought in two airmen that he implied were going to testify as to the actual time of the flight. Turns out that the airmen had absolutely no recollection of anything.

* In ''StarTrekVI'', when the murderers of the Klingon Chancellor are themselves found dead on the Enterprise, Kirk and Spock have someone broadcast an order over the ship's P.A. system for a court reporter to report to sickbay to take statements from the two men. Naturally assuming that the men actually survived their assassination and are about to spill the proverbial beans, the assassin, [[spoiler:Lieutenant Valeris, Spock's protege]], heads straight to sickbay to finish the job...and finds Kirk and Spock waiting there instead.

** Another Discworld example; in ''[[Discworld/MenAtArms Men At Arms]]'', Carrot spreads a rumour that they have [[spoiler: [[TheDragon Edward D'eath]]]] in custody so that the villain goes to the place where they found [[spoiler: Edward's]] corpse.

** Subverted partly in that Miles was bluffing with a ''real test'' -- had the killer ''not'' moved the incriminating air filter, it would have been found in his private office. It did help his case enormously to catch the perp with the attempted evidence tampering red-handed than merely making him a strong suspect, as more than one person could have been in that office.

*** But Miles was prioritizing by places where Illyan spent most of his time, which included the killer's office, so he would have gotten there before he ran out of his test solution. (And it wasn't like he couldn't have more made. For all the killer knew he'd left a bunch of lab techs busy downstairs whipping up another batch.)

* SherlockHolmes pulls one of these in ''The Valley of Fear''. Deducing that some vital evidence has been dumped in the moat, he announces that it must be drained - then catches the murderer [[spoiler: (actually the victim, who overpowered and switched identities with his would-be assassin)]] when they come to move the goods. Pure bluff, in that it was impossible to actually drain the moat.

* Porfiry of CrimeAndPunishment tries this many times on Raskalnikov. One particular instance involved Porfiry directly asking Raskalnikov about a detail at the crime scene when Raskalnikov was talking about his presence at the scene before the murder.

* ''SilentWitness''. While investigating a murder in Zambia, Nikki Alexander convinces a group of villagers that she is using witchcraft to "speak to the bones" of a murdered woman. First she describes the victim (information obtained from the post-mortem) then she gets the villagers to lay their machettes in front of them. When flies are attracted to the invisible blood droplets on the machette used by the killer, she picks it up and declares that the spirits have told her the owner is the killer. He promptly flees in panic and is grabbed by the police.

* The Closer had a variation on this. They left two criminals handcuffed in a police car outside their house while the team searched it. By listening in on their conversation the team not only got the confession they were looking for, they also found all sorts of incriminating evidence.

* The entire plot of ''{{RehearsalForMurder}}'' is one of these... sort of. [[spoiler:The twist is that the "cop" in the supposed EngineeredPublicConfession is the real killer whose knowledge of the contents of desk drawers after a staged killing prove that he was at the crime scene. It turns out to also be an actual EngineeredPublicConfession of a REAL cop hidden elsewhere in the theater. All the supposed suspects were in on it (the bluff I mean).]]

* [[PhoenixWrightAceAttorney Phoenix Wright]] gets the crook caught by using this in the third case of ''Trials and Tribulations''. [[spoiler:"The contents of this bottle prove you're the killer!" "Yeah, right! The poison was in a ''brown'' bottle, not... AAAARRGGGHH!"]]

* {{Duckman}} does this to humorous effect in thwarting one of King Chicken's plots. After Cornfed gets him exonerated of all the charges, Duckman then calls King Chicken to the stand and proceeds to "interrogate" him by rambling senselessly until a fed-up King Chicken finally confesses just to shut him up.

* In ''{{M*A*S*H}}'', Hawkeye unveils a thief by tricking him with this sort of ploy. He tells a group of people that the last object stolen had been treated with a substance that would turn the thief's fingers green. When one of the people tried to hide his hands, Hawkeye knew he was the thief.