History Main / BluffingTheMurderer

[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]

* ''Series/TheMentalist'' features this a few times.
** Sometimes rather cruelly such as [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt pretending]] to dozens of people that they have been infected with a deadly biological weapon (which killed the victim of the episode) and that the laboratory will be bombed by the air force to prevent it spreading. The killer was known to have recently taken the drug which would protect them from infection and is the only one who tries to escape.

* In ''Film/KnivesOut'', Benoit Blanc announces that [[spoiler:Harlan Thrombey's autopsy showed no morphine]], clearing Marta of responsibility and allowing her to take full possession of the estate and all its holdings. Marta then claims that Fran has recovered from her own case of morphine poisoning. This prompts the would-be murderer to unleash their frustration at their plan's total failure while also gloating that they can get away with everything since their ''attempted'' murders failed--and then Marta pukes all over their face, revealing that she was lying about Fran's condition.

* In ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'', this is the entire point of ''The Murder of Gonzago'' (the play within the play). Hamlet has a suspect (Claudio) and a method of murder (pouring poison in the victim's ear), but he isn't sure if the apparition of his father is the real deal. So he contracts a troupe of actors to replay the murder scene, reasoning that if Claudio was innocent, he'd just see it as a mildly unrealistic plot point, whereas if Claudio was guilty, he'd recognize the similarities and react either out of guilt or the implication that someone else knows how the old king died.

* The Theatre/MrsHawking play series: At the conclusion of the third installment ''[[http://www.mrshawking.com/?page_id=1913 Base Instruments]]'', [[spoiler:they catch the murderer Yulia Sherba by tricking her into think Justin Hawking wants to leave the country with her, thus luring her to meet them with the immigration papers that prove she killed Raisa Sergeyeva in hand.]]

** In ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', Sigma uses this technique against [[spoiler: Dio, by pretending to be someone sent by "Brother", the leader of Free the Soul, a religious cult associated with the Myrmidons, the terrorist group Dio is the leader of. While trying to deny it, Dio says that he doesn't know some "old fuck" called Brother. Sigma then points out that he never mentioned Brother's age. Dio also slipped up by instantly denying that he knows ''who'' the Myrmidons are, even though Sigma hadn't mentioned that the name refers to a group of people.]]

* Done accidentally in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "They Saved Lisa's Brain", when the local Mensa group goes to complain to Mayor Quimby about a gazebo they'd reserved being used by someone else. [[OneDialogueTwoConversations However, they phrase their complaints in very vague, accusing ways,]] insisting that the document they're carrying (gazebo reservation bylaws) will "blow things wide open". Quimby, thinking they're referring to [[CorruptPolitician one of his countless other, more serious crimes,]] freaks out and immediately flees the city.

* One of [[Manga/TheKindaichiCaseFiles Kindaichi's]] favorite tactics is to put the suspect in a position where they'll be killed by their own death trap unless they take action (and thus implicating themselves, since an innocent person wouldn't know about the trap).
* The heros of ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'' write a manga "Detective Trap" around this trope.
* During Part 3 of ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'', Jotaro and co. are trying to suss out an enemy stand user aboard a ship full of seamen and a stowaway. With the captain of the ship within earshot, Jotaro makes up some fact about how cigarette smoke (he had lit one up moments earlier) makes a vein on a stand user's nose bulge out. Everyone in Jotaro's party checks their noses...including the captain (though he reveals that he had no idea who the stand user actually was, and was planning on using the same trick for every individual crew member).

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Film/{{Star Trek VI|The Undiscovered Country}}'', 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 protégée]], heads straight to sickbay to finish the job...and finds Kirk, Spock, and [=McCoy=] lying in wait instead.
* In the Creator/AlPacino / Creator/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. It worked, but he still got away at the time.

* In ''Theatre/{{Doubt}}'', [[spoiler:Sister Aloysius bluffs Father Flynn by claiming that she had spoken to a nun at his previous Parish that had confirmed his pattern of child abuse. But she didn't make that call, and she takes the Priest's resignation as a confession.]]

* In ''Film/{{Crossfire}}'', Montgomery kills Floyd, the only witness to his murder of Samuels. Detective Finlay, who has no hard evidence against Montgomery, devises a ruse. Leroy, another soldier, leads Montgomery to believe that Floyd is actually still alive, then shows Montgomery a paper with the address of the boarding house Floyd is at. Montgomery then shows up at Floyd's room, claiming to have been sent there by Leroy — except that Leroy gave him the wrong address. Montgomery's arrival at the right room proves that he was there before and catches him out as the murderer.

* ''Film/{{Nighthawks}}''. New York cop [=DaSilva=] sees a man whom he thinks is the international terrorist Wulgar, but he's been altered by plastic surgery. So he stares at Wulgar until the terrorist notices him, then shouts out "Wulfgar!" as if he's just recognised him. Wulgar's instinctive response is to draw his gun and start shooting.

* ''Franchise/PerryMason''. He ''always'' does this, and he always does it in the courtroom, when the murderer is on the witness stand. (Which may be why that variation is known here as ThePerryMasonMethod). 32 movies (at least!), 245 television episodes, 11 years of radio shows, and 80 novels and short stories worth of Bluffing The Murderer.
** Which gets confusing when said murderer is a fan of Mason and it still works. You'd think that, when he got called to the stand, he'd just confess and save everyone some time.
** This was spoofed in Playboy with their cartoon series "Little Annie Fanny". Annie is accused of something and has to find a lawyer. As soon as she hires Mason someone jumps up screaming "I did it! I killed him!", leading Annie to say "I didn't even kill anyone."
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** In ''Literature/FeetOfClay'', Vimes confronts [[spoiler:Dragon King of Arms]] and hints that he's being surrounded by [[spoiler:holy-water-infused candles]], in a way that should only makes sense to [[spoiler:Dragon]] if he was behind the plot to kill Vetinari with [[spoiler: arsenic-infused candles]].
** In ''Literature/MenAtArms'', Carrot spreads a rumour that they have [[spoiler:Edward D'eath]] in custody so that the villain goes to the place where they found [[spoiler:Edward's]] corpse.
** In ''Literature/{{Night Watch|Discworld}}'', Vimes uses the ginger beer trick[[note]](the exact nature of which is never specified in the text, but is said by WordOfGod to be shaking a bottle of carbonated drink, opening it, and stuffing it up the victim's nose, an actual torture technique in some countries)[[/note]] on two of the [[SecretPolice Cable Street Particulars]] in order to get the third to talk. [[spoiler:It turns out to have been an elaborate bluff involving the popping noise made by a finger in the cheek, someone hissing through their teeth, and Fred Colon's "tendency" to give bloodcurdling screams at random intervals...]]

* In ''Literature/{{Memory}}'' by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold, Miles bluffs [[spoiler:Haroche]] into trying to swap out an incriminating air filter.
* This is a common tactic of Literature/EncyclopediaBrown.
* In the Literature/LordPeterWimsey novel ''Strong Poison'', Lord Peter eventually gets the murderer to confess in part by pretending to feed him arsenic-laced food; the murderer had committed the crime by becoming immune to arsenic and sharing a poisoned meal with the victim.
* In the Literature/BrotherCadfael novel ''A Morbid Taste for Bones'' by Creator/EllisPeters, Cadfael makes use of the superstition that a murdered body will bleed more if the murderer touches it by getting the daughter of the murdered man to ask the suspect to place a crucifix over his heart. [[spoiler:The man panics and confesses, but it turns out that he only stuck an arrow through the murdered man when he was already dead, and didn't murder him.]]
* Creator/EllisPeters' [[Literature/FelseInvestigates Felse novels]]:
** In ''Fallen Into the Pit'', Dominic, having figured out who the murderer is, but without any proof, tries to provoke the murderer into doing something incriminating by telling him he's found something that might be evidence.
** Dominic does it again, with suitable variations, in ''Death and The Joyful Woman''.
* The Literature/SherlockHolmes stories have a number of examples.
** Sherlock 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.
** He pulls a type 3 on Colonel Moran in "The Adventure of the Empty House". He knows Moran was Moriarty's [[TheDragon Dragon]], and he also knows that Moran was responsible for a high-profile murder case. He's in danger as long as Moran is free, so he uses a wax replica of his head to trick Moran into shooting him. The police (who were alerted by Holmes) burst into the titular house where the Colonel was hiding and arrest him after he reveals himself.

* In ''Arrow's Fall'', the third of Creator/MercedesLackey's original Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar trilogy, Herald Talia and Herald-Princess Elspeth catch a traitorous nobleman this way.
** Note that a telepathic probe of Talia would have ordinarily been enough to at least detain someone for questioning under the Truth Spell (the only thing that anyone lied about during the staged confrontation was Talia's relative health), but seizing a high ranking and [[EvilChancellor almost completely trusted royal advisor]] without solid evidence is a delicate matter.
* Literature/NeroWolfe does this more often than he doesn't.

* [[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] bluffs ''himself'' into this position by attacking Will Graham in a very self-incriminating way — little did Lecter know Graham had no real evidence on him, and knew he was the Chesapeake Ripper only because his own Lecter-level intuitive imagination led him to the conclusion. %%um, which book is this in?

* Creator/AgathaChristie does this in several works:
** In ''Literature/TheMurderAtTheVicarage'', Literature/MissMarple suggests a trap to make the killer believe someone overheard a telephone conversation.
** Conway Jefferson in ''The Body in the Library'' and Madame Renaud in ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks'' make it known that they are changing their wills the following day, [[spoiler:to [[TheBait induce the killer to attempt an assassination]] during the night, when the police will be waiting for them]].
** Characters in ''Literature/TheMovingFinger'' and ''Literature/AMurderIsAnnounced'' pretend that they saw the murder committed and know the identity of the murderer. In each case, once again, this induces the murderer to attempt another murder, and be caught.
** ''Literature/CardsOnTheTable'' has Literature/HerculePoirot hire an actor to play the part of a window cleaner who claims to have witnessed the murder through the window. He didn't really, of course, but Poirot reconstructed how it occurred from his imagination.
** In ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile'', Poirot causes one of the killers to break down and confess by springing the truth on them.
** In ''Literature/TheABCMurders'', the killer confesses after Poirot mentions he left a fingerprint on his scapegoat's typewriter. Discussing the case later with Hastings, Poirot admits that there was no fingerprint: "I put that in to please you, ''mon ami.''"
** In ''Literature/TowardsZero'', AmateurSleuth Angus [=MacWhirter=] claimed to have seen the killer swim across the creek and climb a rope into the victim's room at the time of the murder. He actually saw no such thing, but he stumbled across the murderer's jacket, found the wet rope in the house attic, connected the dots, and provided his (unproven) deduction as eyewitness account, forcing the killer to confess.
* PlayedForLaughs in a very short story by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Campanile Achille Campanile]]: a detective facing a line of suspects says in a deliberately casual way "Say, mister murderer...", then arrests the person who answered "Yes?"
* In ''[[Literature/DetectiveJoeSandilands Ragtime In Simla]]'', Detective Sandilands brings in someone from the villain's past, whom they believed to be dead, to burst into a seance dressed as an accusing ghost.
* ''Literature/{{TACK}}'': An occasional solution to the group's cases. Most notably used when Abby tricks one of her classmates into revealing that they wrote the poison pen letters to their teacher.

* ''Literature/HanSoloAtStarsEnd'' has Han using this tactic. While ferrying a group of people to find the top-secret prison called Star's End, Han discovers the leader of the mission dead and the data pad containing the prison's secret location destroyed. After he locks up the others while he tries to sort things out he discovers that the dead leader had scratched the location into the table he was found dead on. Han then tells everyone to calculate a hyperspace jump to the correct star system but he deliberately gives everyone the wrong planet. He then outs the killer as the one who corrected his calculations by using the right planet.
* Samuel Cogley of ''Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse The Case of the Colonist's Corpse'' solved the murder with this method. The victim was the head of a Federation colony who was well known for preferring to write his reports in long-hand and then dictate or scan them into a computer instead of using the computer first. The Klingon accused of his murder seemed to have a perfect motive when they found a report accusing the Klingons of spying and of surreptitiously replacing their colonists to look better then they were. Cogley used the scanned report to bluff the murderer into thinking the victim's widow was the main suspect and dropped some very heavy hints about where the handwritten first draft was that had been scanned in the first place. He then arranged it so that the killer was caught on video breaking into the victim's house, finding the report and then destroying it with a hand phaser. The killer was then transported into the courtroom with a full squad holding phasers on him, the video of him destorying the evidence, and Cogley holding the original report which he then read aloud the real motive for the crime.

* In ‘’Literature/KingCity’’ Sgt. Wade confronts his suspects in the murder of a pregnant housekeeper, and evokes a lot of incriminating accusations and comments by holding up a night gown he found in her storage locker and falsely claims that he’s done lab tests and like Monica Lewinsky she saved it to preserve semen samples of her lover. No tests had actually been done and that was just guesswork. Interestingly, this is probably true but Wade has simply been unable to conduct tests due to not having access to the crime lab (as the result of sabotage from the vindictive police chief).
* ''Literature/ErrorOfJudgment'': After Dr. Stiehl's testimony about his removal of healthy organs, Dr. Prince tries to argue that it isn't conclusive proof, before they threaten to call another doctor from the hospital who resigned in protest over the lenient treatment he got. Defeated, Prince backs down, only for it to be revealed that they hadn't been able to find the contact information for that doctor, and aren't even sure if he's still alive.

* In ''Series/FullHouse'', Jesse's cousin from Greece came to visit. He was a model citizen in front of Jesse, but he was a deviant, from trying to seduce Jesse's girlfriend, to rigging a charity drive that would actually fund his trip to Disney Land, among other things. Becky, Jesse's girlfriend, ends up trying this to get Jesse to believe his cousin is a dirtbag. It fails, but it's the thought that counts.
* The "White Bird" episode of ''Series/KnightRider'' has the hero confront the villain with vague threats. If the villain would just sit tight, keep his cool and not panic, he would have gotten away; however, he panics and phones his henchman, setting his own downfall into motion.
** Probably more episodes of ''Series/KnightRider'' than just this have employed the trope.

* Employed numerous times in ''{{Series/CSI}}''. In one example, the investigators determine that the victim's company-issued travel bag is missing and was probably taken by the murderer, but are unable to obtain a search warrant... so they obtain an identical bag from the company, hide a tape recorder in it, and bring it into their suspect's interview. The suspect immediately gives himself away by protesting that they must have searched his car without a warrant.
* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** Although not quite a murderer, the [[spoiler:telepath gets the location of a DamselInDistress from someone by making it float to the top of his mind: "It is vitally important that you don't think about anything else [...] or where [The victim] is now"]].
** Happens again later when the heroes are busting one of their own out of prison. They bluff their way in to talk to the guards and casually talk about cells and security codes. They then knock the guards out while their resident telepath plugs in the code to open the cell, saying "He thought of the number as soon as you mentioned it".

* ''Series/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.
* In ''Series/{{MASH}}'', 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 blue. When one of the people tried to hide his hands, Hawkeye knew he was the thief.
** [[spoiler:But they let him get away with it since he was a poor Korean kid who said they "were all so rich".]]
* ''Series/TheCloser'' 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.
** In another episode, they tell the victim's family (which they already know includes the killer) that they have a witness who saw the gun they believe to be the murder weapon being thrown from a car somewhere along the freeway, but that he wasn't sure exactly where since he wasn't local. They also tell them that they'll have patrol officers find the gun, but that it will take about two weeks since it's a pretty long stretch of road to search. In reality, they've already found the murder weapon, and thus just have to stake out the place along the freeway where it was found and wait for the killer to show up and try to remove it before the police can find it.
** In yet another episode, a dead body is found in a cooler that's been sealed with duct tape. By the end of the episode, they have four suspects but no way to prove who is the actual killer. To find out, they get four coolers, put a GPS tracker and a camera inside each of them and seal them up with duct tape, making sure that they look exactly like the one the body was found in. Then they mail one to each of the suspects. The idea is that the three suspects who are innocent will have no idea why someone has sent them a strange box, and will open it to find out what's inside. The fourth suspect, who is guilty, will think that he already knows what's inside and will try to get rid of it without opening it. It works.
* ''Series/TheMentalist'' features this a few times.
** Sometimes rather cruelly such as [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt pretending]] to dozens of people that they have been infected with a deadly biological weapon (which killed the victim of the episode) and that the laboratory will be bombed by the air force to prevent it spreading. The killer was known to have recently taken the drug which would protect them from infection and is the only one who tries to escape.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}'', they suspect that a guy helped his friend with the murder [[spoiler: and also tried to kill his friend, who was currently in a coma]], but don't have enough proof. Instead, Bones bluffs that his friend ratted out on him and when he demands for her to [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay say something his friend would say]], she calmly tells 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 in ''Series/ColdCase''. The team has a witness to a crime scene where his mother was killed. They call in a woman whom the witness recognized. As soon as they mention there's a witness saying she helped with the murder, she quickly denies it, claiming it was impossible for anyone to see that night.
* Not surprisingly, done several times in ''Series/{{Castle}}''. Some notable instances:
** Beckett/Castle and Esposito/Ryan are investigating different murders, which they determine are related in a [[StrangersOnATrainPlotMurder Strangers on a Train]] 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).
** Castle gets his own in a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: a stuck-up rich kid has killed his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, framed his friends for the murder, and is convinced that Beckett has no proof (he's almost correct — it's slim). Castle launches into an extended, sinister-sounding "he had it coming" routine on behalf of the killer, who responds with "Exactly."
** In another case, the victim's husband mistakenly thought the victim, a model, was cheating on him with a photographer, when actually the photographer was [[SexualExtortion trying to extort sex from her]] and she was trying to record and expose him. Beckett plays the recording of the proposition and the part right after that where the husband confronted her, then pauses the file, hoping he'll confess rather than hear himself murdering his wife. With some prompting from Castle, it all comes pouring out. We then learn Beckett didn't actually have a recording of the murder: the battery died on the victim's smartphone beforehand.
* ''Series/MissionImpossible'': The IMF use this technique frequently, particularly in [[TheSyndicate Syndicate]]-related episodes of the later seasons. Sometimes the target is led to believe there is incriminating evidence, such as a recording or film, which he obtains (aided by the team of course) and, upon realizing that it's patently inaccurate, actually [[EngineeredPublicConfession incriminates himself]] by pointing out the inaccuracies that only the perpetrator would know about.
* The "place all the suspects together near the murderer's hidden time bomb, forcing the murderer (as the only one who knows about the bomb) to reveal himself in order to save his own life" variant was used twice on the 1954 Series/SherlockHolmes TV series -- once with actual explosives and once with arsenic candles.
* ''Series/NashBridges'' has done this a few times, usually pretending that a now deceased suspect is still alive.
-->'''Accomplice:''' Does he have a lawyer?
-->'''Joe:''' [[FalseReassurance He hasn't asked for one.]]
* Series/{{NCIS}} uses this quite frequently. Team Gibbs probably bluffs more suspects than they legitimately manage to nail. They usually lie about forensics that aren't in yet or aren't conclusive.
* Several episodes of ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'' have Mark Sloan expose the killer in this fashion. To cite a few examples:
** A bombmaker is tricked into thinking that her own car is rigged with a bomb, causing her to panic and talk Mark through the procedure for disarming the device.
** When a stage magician drowns while performing a Houdini-style escapology routine, Mark announces his plan to re-create the trick, with the exact same props and a female suspect standing in for the victim. It appears he's decided she's the killer and wants to give her ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine by putting her into the same situation as the victim... but the real killer is in love with the woman, and exposes himself when he panics and tries to halt the trick early.
** The victim is killed because the killer tampers with his medication, and the killer learns that Mark is looking for a discarded pill at the scene of the crime as evidence. She's caught red-handed at the crime scene, trying to find and dispose of the pill.
* Spoofed in a sketch of ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'', which begins with the detective finishing up what's implied to be a string of deductions incriminating one woman ("... and the two shades of lipstick were identical!"). Once the accused breaks out in "the Evil Voice," he admits that he hoped she do "the Evil Voice" as he didn't actually have any evidence, whereupon she promptly tries to take it back. The situation ultimately culminates in the murderer ending up [[SelfDisposingVillain shooting herself]], whereupon the detective remarks, "It is better this way. Some courts, they do not accept the Evil Voice as evidence."

* In ''Series/TheDefenders2010'', while pursuing a wrongful death lawsuit against a construction company, Nick gets a developer to fess up to bribing city safety inspectors by painting a group of audience members (actually stage magicians they consulted for Pete's Case of the Week) as members of the inspection department.
* ''{{Series/Probe}}'':
** [[Recap/ProbeBlackCatsDontWalkUnderLaddersDoThey "Black Cats Don't Walk Under Ladders (Do They?)"]]: During TheSummation, Austin uses the killer's own knowledge against them, causing them to believe that they've been affected by the same [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink poisoned tea]] that was used to kill Marty Corrigan. He has to do it because until the killer confessed, he wasn't sure which of the suspects had done it.
** [[Recap/ProbeNowYouSeeIt "Now You See It...."]]: At the climax of the episode, Austin James has recreated the murder method that was used to kill the previous two businessmen. He confronts his prime suspect with the situation (which includes an [[ElevatorFailure empty elevator shaft]] covered by a {{Hologram}}) and tricks him into confessing. The murderer does, but then tosses Austin down the empty shaft. Serendip's CEO and several police come out from around corners to arrest him. (Austin is fine, having [[InsufferableGenius anticipated this]], lying safely on a crash cushion.)
** [[Recap/ProbePlan10FromOuterSpace "Plan 10 from Outer Space"]]: Because he didn't have any evidence to determine if Trish or Helga committed the murder, Austin has to trick the murderer into confessing, by using the victim's sunglasses, which he says created a photonegative when the victim was electrified. When the murderer sees herself on the wall, she immediately starts trying to defend herself.
* In an episode of ''Series/TheRifleman'', a photographer is on trial for murdering a man. The photographer has good reason to want the man dead (he was a prisoner of war and the dead man was the cruel camp commandant), but swears he is innocent and only fired in self-defense. Lucas comes back into court with a photo plate, saying he developed the picture the photographer took just before the shooting and it shows the ''real'' murderer. Before he can say anything else, the dead man's business partner jumps up and blasts the plate out of Lucas's hand. After he confesses, Lucas admits he didn't have the proof because he doesn't know a thing about developing pictures.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Gunsmoke}}'', a woman is raped, beaten, and left for dead. She tells Matt enough information to track down the suspects but not enough for a positive identification. Matt finds and arrests the three men suspected of the crime and brings them back to Dodge City making a notable stop at Boot Hill. Matt then describes in detail how he will show the men to the victim and the man she identifies will be buried here in shame along with the rest of the worst dregs of the West. One of the men panics and goes for his gun but Matt easily wounds him. Matt then reveals that the victim died of her injuries before he even left town and that the rapist (now murderer) has just outed himself.
* ''Series/BreakingBad'': Jesse, Hank, and Gomez set up this gambit in "To'hajiilee" in order to incriminate Walter, tricking Walt into thinking Jesse discovered his hidden money barrels in the desert so that Walt will rush to stop him from burning them. As Walt franticly pleads with Jesse over the phone not to burn the money, he brings up his involvement to several serious crimes (blowing up Gus, intentionally poisoning Brock, killing Emilio and Crazy-8, running over those two drug dealers), and ends up [[TrickAndFollowPloy leading the three of them to the location]] of the drug money, giving Hank and Gomez all the evidence they need to arrest Walt and put him away. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, the Aryans Walt had tried to call off came to his "[[UnwantedRescue rescue]]" anyway...]]
* In ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'', Director Shcherbina asks plant manages Bryukhanov and Fomin "why did I see graphite on the roof?" even though he didn't actually see it for himself, Legasov did. Rather than answer, however, Bryukhanov immediately passes the buck to Fomin, who says unconvincingly that it's burnt concrete. This convinces Shcherbina that the two of them are lying to cover their asses and that the accident is much less minor than they've claimed.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'': This is a game mechanic, in the form of 'lie bullets'. They function just like normal 'truth bullets' (pieces of evidence), except they mean the ''opposite'' of whatever the original truth bullet did and can be used to bait the killer into making a mistake or undermine their current argument.

-->'''Chief''': You get more mileage out of a blank piece of paper than anyone I know.

** In case 3-3 of ''Trials and Tribulations'', [[spoiler:Furio Tigre]] is about to walk off the witness stand when Phoenix pulls this on them. [[spoiler:Phoenix presents a completely useless green plastic bottle with Tigre's fingerprints on it, claiming it contains the poison used to kill the victim. Tigre calls him an idiot, saying he should already know that the poison was in the brown glass bottle, not that one. Yes, Phoenix should, and does, know that. But Tigre shouldn't, unless he was the one who used it]].

* In ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'', this is the entire point of ''The Murder of Gonzago'' (the play within the play).

* Not a murderer, per se, but in the Creator/IsaacAsimov short story "Galley Slave", Dr. Calvin bluffs a strongly anti-robot professor, who had ordered a type-editing robot to make horrendous errors. She badgers and rattles the professor, damaging their defense, but at the climax, the robot stands up and the professor screams "Damn you, you were instructed to keep your mouth shut about—" Dr. Calvin points out, later, that the professor had only to keep quiet since the robot was about to defend the professor, in accordance with the First Law.

* This is how Elijah Baley solves the case of roboticide in Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/TheRobotsOfDawn'', getting [[spoiler:Amadiro to blurt out that he had had contact with the robot]]. He does the same in a more cruel way in ''Literature/TheNakedSun''.

* Parodied in ''Manga/Yuria100Shiki''. A boy who's recently watched a show called ''[[{{Expy}} Bolumco]]'' discovers a close-up photo of a vagina on his father's hard drive. He has no idea what it's a photo of, so he shows it to his friends, and his female friend (who thinks it looks vaguely familiar, like she's seen it from a different angle) shows it to her foster father. He immediately denies all knowledge of what it is, so the boys bluff him and pretend they've figured out its location — and of course, he immediately looks in the direction of the girl's crotch.

* In ‘’Literature/KingCity’’ Sgt. wade confronts his suspects in the murder of a pregnant housekeeper, and evokes a lot of incriminating accusations and comments by holding up a night gown he found in her storage locker and falsely claims that he’s done lab tests and like Monica Lewinsky she saved it to preserve semen samples of her lover. No tests had actually been done and that was just guesswork. Interestingly, this is probably true but Wade has simply been unable to conduct tests due to not having access to the crime lab (as the result of sabotage from the vindictive police chief).

** On an early episode of Law & Order, ADA Ben Stone gets a man to confess to his crimes by giving him immunity in "New York County". He repeats that several times because he knows the man does not understand that "New York County" is just the island of Manhattan. After he confesses he is arrested for crimes committed in the other four boroughs.

** Another variant came when they realized that their initial suspect was being framed by her husband. Since both were lawyers, they couldn't inform the ADA without both the wife and the culprit finding out. This results in the detectives lying to the wife, the real suspect, ''and'' the Assistant District Attorney in charge of the case in order to obtain a confession. They've done that last bit twice, and on at least one occasion he wasn't too happy about it, as indicated by his "oh. I ''see''" and calm GlassesPull.
*** In fact, the second time he said that if they did it to him again, he would make sure they didn't have a badge by the end of the day. Goren and Eames were actually quite surprised.

* ''Manga/CaseClosed'' sees plenty use of this trope. A particularly good example is from the first Case Closed movie, in which Conan tells the suspect that he found the disguise he used while conducting his bombings. (He actually made it himself out of stuff he found in the room.) The bluff succeeds and the suspect says "But I left those in the study." Oops.

* ''Film/AShotInTheDark''. Clouseau has no idea who the killer is, so gathers all the suspects for a SummationGathering and arranges for his partner to turn out the lights, hoping the guilty party will panic and flee. Clouseau drags things out for so long the murderer confesses [[EveryoneDidIt as does everyone else]] and the meeting instead dissolves into an enraged argument between all the suspects, with [[AsideGlance Clouseau staring helplessly into the camera]] before the lights go out.

** In case 3-3 of ''Trials and Tribulations'', [[spoiler:Furio Tigre]] is about to walk off the witness stand when Phoenix pulls this on them. [[spoiler:Phoenix presents irrelevant evidence containing Tigre's fingerprints, claiming that it is the poison that took the victim's life. Tigre laughs it off, mentioning that it was the ''brown'' bottle; realizing too late that it would be [[INeverSaidItWasPoison something only the killer would say]]]].
** Something like this happens in the first case of ''Apollo Justice'', where [[spoiler: Phoenix gets to the real killer, Kristoph Gavin, by showing him a piece of doctored evidence. Kristoph accidentally implicates himself by shouting out that it's a fake... which means he ''knows'' where the real evidence is, because he took it.]]

** In ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'', [[spoiler: Junpei learns that Guy X's killer has prosopagnosia, and needs to prove that Ace has prosopagnosia. So, he calls them all up to the hospital area where he claims to be Santa dressed in Junpei's clothing. Ace ends up confused, and falls for it. Furthermore, Junpei correctly deduces that Ace stole the Ninth Man's bracelet and used it to kill Guy X, so he tricks Ace into believing ''he'' has the bracelet, causing Ace to slip up once more.]]

*** Tenmyouji also bluffs [[spoiler:Dio, claiming the bomb detonator he's holding is a fake, causing ''just'' enough hesitation for Tenmyouji to get close and knock the detonator away. [[CallBack This is basically]] the same trick that Junpei pulled on Ace in the first game ([[PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo right down to the guy pulling it]]). However, this turns out to be a bad idea because the detonator is set to automatically activate if it gets more than a meter away from Dio]].

** In ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', Sigma uses this technique against [[spoiler: Dio, by pretending to be someone sent by "Brother", the leader of the Myrmidons, the terrorist group he suspects Dio is a member of. While trying to deny it, Dio says that he doesn't know some "old fuck" called Brother. Sigma then points out that he never mentioned Brother's age. Dio also slipped up by instantly denying that he knows ''who'' the Myrmidons are, even though Sigma hadn't mentioned that the name refers to a group of people.]]
*** Tenmyouji also bluffs [[spoiler: Dio, claiming the bomb detonator he's holding is a fake, causing ''just'' enough hesitation for Tenmyouji to get close and knock the detonator away. [[CallBack This is basically]] the same trick that Junpei pulled on Ace in the first game, which makes sense, because [[PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo Tenmyouji]] ''[[PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo is]]'' [[PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo Junpei]]]].

*** Tenmyouji also bluffs [[spoiler: Dio, claiming the bomb detonator he's holding is a fake, causing ''just'' enough hesitation for Tenmyouji to get close and knock the detonator away. [[CallBack This is basically]] the same trick that Junpei pulled on Ace in the first game.]]