History Main / EveryoneIsASuspect

* The murder mystery of ''Film/GosfordPark'' centers on an AssholeVictim who everyone has motive to kill. The cops focus on the elite upstairs, but half the staff have reason to kill him, too.

* Canadian weapons engineer Gerald Bull, who at that time was working on the "Project Babylon" supergun for Iraq, was assassinated outside his flat in Belgium in early 1990. However, it is unlikely that it will ever conclusively be known who ordered his murder - his work over the years had made him a likely target for Israel, Iran, the CIA, MI6, Syria, and Chile.

* The protagonists of ''Literature/{{Pale}}'' are asked by their town's insular magical community of Others to look into the murder of the Carmine Beast. Since outsiders can't enter the town undetected, they know that at least one of the local Others must be responsible.

* ''Fanfic/TheBoltChronicles'': “The Murder Mystery” is a classic whodunit story. Here, The Director has been murdered — and given how strongly disliked he was, all the characters except Penny have a motive to kill him.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' - "Everyone looks guilty to me, it's a job requirement."

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'': By the time of his death in the [[ThrownOutTheAirlock Movie Night Massacre]], several character were shown to have ''every'' reason to kill Jonas Venture Sr and the means to do so. While initially it seemed that SPHINX was behind it, later it was confirmed that they were [[FrameUp framed]] and the identity of the real culprit became a RiddleForTheAges.

* In the novel ''Never Trust a Dead Man'' by Vivian Vande Velde, Farold - [[WhodunnitToMe the murder victim]] - is terribly depressed to realize just how many of the people he knew have plausible reasons for wanting him dead.

* Fanfic/TheBoltChronicles: “The Murder Mystery” is a classic whodunit story. Here, The Director has been murdered — and given how strongly disliked he was, all the characters except Penny have a motive to kill him.

* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion'', we find out everyone is trapped in [[spoiler: a witch barrier]]. Homure directly realizes anyone could be the one causing it. She ends up suspecting Bebe, since Homura never saw her before. [[spoiler: It was ''[[TomatoInTheMirror Homura herself]]'']].

-->-- '''D.A. Ellis Loew''', regarding the murder of "crusading reporter" (read: scandal monger) Sid Hugens in ''L.A. Confidential''.

* In the ''Literature/{{Under Suspicion|Series}} novels, a central part of the premise - of both the books and the in-universe reality TV show - is that the featured [[RevisitingTheColdCase cold cases]] have several plausible suspects; generally-speaking, the majority of the main cast (with the exception of the production crew) are all "under suspicion" for a crime, with all of them potentially having motive, means and opportunity. The suspects agree to take part in ''Under Suspicion'' and be interviewed for a chance to ClearMyName and tell ''their'' side of things; even if they are guilty or at least have something else to hide, they're still compelled take part because they know it'll make them look ''more'' suspicious if they don't. Specific examples include ''Literature/IveGotYouUnderMySkin'' (the victim was murdered in her own home, where in addition to being under the same roof as several suspects because her daughter's friends slept over, she'd managed to [[WhoMurderedTheAsshole personally wrong all of them in some way]]) and ''Literature/TheCinderellaMurder'' (the victim wasn't a bad person this time, but there are still lots of people close to her who may have had motive to kill her and all of them would've known where she was headed that night).

* The murder of Ken [=McElroy=], a local farmer in the town of Skidmore, Missouri, remains unsolved largely for this reason. He was killed when he was out on bail for shooting a local store clerk... but as it turned out, he had been committing a litany of crimes of varying degrees of severity over the course of the past few decades (being accused of rape, arson, theft, killing local pets and livestock, and a dozen other things besides), but had managed to wriggle out of consequences every time due to a mixture of threatening witnesses and a highly competent lawyer. He was killed while leaving behind a large gathering of people who had come together after he bragged about his plans to finish the job on that clerk. [[ConspicuouslyPublicAssassination There were over forty witnesses]], all of whom had cause to fear him, many of whom had been personally wronged by him, and a good number of whom were armed. On top of all that, barring his wife, who never saw the shooter, none of the people there were willing to come forward and testify who took the shot.

* The murder of Ken [=McElroy=], a local farmer in the town of Skidmore, Missouri, remains unsolved largely for this reason. He was killed when he was out on bail for shooting a local store clerk... but as it turned out, he had been committing a litany of crimes of varying degrees of pettiness (being accused of rape, arson, theft, killing local pets and livestock, and a dozen other things besides), but had managed to wriggle out of consequences every time due to a mixture of threatening witnesses and a highly competent lawyer. He was killed while leaving behind a large gathering of people who had come together after he bragged about his plans to finish the job on that clerk. [[ConspicuouslyPublicAssassination There were over forty witnesses]], all of whom had cause to fear him, many of whom had been personally wronged by him, and a good number of whom were armed. On top of all that, barring his wife, who never saw the shooter, none of the people there were willing to come forward and testify who took the shot.

** ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' leans towards this in the question arcs as well, as the narrator gets more and more ProperlyParanoid about what the hell is going on. [[spoiler:HatePlague is a wonderful thing.]]
* ''Manga/CaseClosed'' has a few of these. Sometimes there is only one real suspect, who the audience knows is guilty because there is no one else (and Conan figures it out pretty quick too), [[ReverseWhodunnit and the question is how they did it]]. Then there are some episodes where you have a few suspects. Then some episodes that really define this trope.
* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion'', we find out everyone is trapped in [[spoiler: a witch barrier]]. Homure directly realizes anyone could be the one causing it. She ends up suspecting Bebe, since Homura never saw her before. [[spoiler: It was ''[[TomatoInTheMirror Homura herself]]'']].

* In ''Film/AShotInTheDark'', Clouseau has assembled all the people in the mansion, and tells his tale in preparation for having the killer confess by trying to escape the room. When the lights go off, they ALL try to escape. Every single one of them was responsible for one of the murders in the movie (or [[OffstageVillainy prior to it]]), except for one who was a blackmailer. [[spoiler: And the killer who was repeatedly trying to murder Clouseau seemingly to get him off their trail...was actually his own boss, and they were ''actually'' trying to kill him just because they couldn't stand him and nothing to do with his investigations, except that they were so bumbling and inept that they drove his boss insane.]]
* ''Film/InTheCut'': Practically everyone who comes into contact with Frannie is a possible suspect. Frannie herself could be a suspect, since the murder victim’s severed limb was found in her garden.
* Basically the premise of ''Film/ByWhoseHand'' (1932), which opens with a man on a train being stabbed by an unseen figure and then rolls back four hours to show several different passengers all with different potential motives.
* The movie ''Film/{{Clue}}'' had all the protagonists as {{Blackmail}} victims of the actual victim. [[HeKnowsTooMuch Murder ensues]] ...
* ''Film/CrookedHouse'': Everyone is Aristide Leonides' household had a reason for wanting him dead: his second wife, his sister-in-law, his sons, his daughters-in-law, his grandchildren, the tutor, the nanny... And the method used--MedicationTampering--was one that any of them could have employed.
* In ''Film/TheCrimeDoctorsStrangestCase'', everyone in Walter Burns' household has a motive for his murder: some more obscure than others.
* In ''Film/MurderMystery'', Nick and Audrey quickly determine motives for all of the other guests on the yacht. [[spoiler:Five of the eight were involved to one degree or another.]]
* ''Film/KnivesOut'': Benoit Blanc's efforts to solve Harlan Thrombey's murder are complicated by the fact that basically everyone in Thrombey's BigScrewedUpFamily had motive to kill the man; Thrombey had been clearing house prior to his death by cutting all his family off in an effort make them shape up, leaving a lot of them screwed over and nursing a grudge against the patriarch. So the question becomes not which of Thrombey's family had motive to kill him, but which of them was the quickest to actually get around to it. [[spoiler:That would be Ransom.]]

* Any of the men on the pilgrimage could have murdered the children in ''Literature/MistressOfTheArtOfDeath''.

** We can't forget ''Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd''. Readers of today can't imagine what a shock it was in 1926 to have the culprit of a detective novel turn out to be [[spoiler:[[UnreliableNarrator the first-person narrator]]]]. The killer [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this trope in the end by admitting even they were confused by how much everyone else looked like they might have done it, and why their relatively straighforward crime was befuddled by contradictory evidence that seemed to show it could ''not'' have happened the way it really did- it turned out most of the suspects were lying or planting fake clues to hide their own secrets and crimes, which made them more suspicious.
** Surprisingly -- and yet totally believably -- subverted in ''Literature/PerilAtEndHouse''. The detective compiles a seemingly complete list of suspects, and yet in the end it turns out that neither the main culprit (despite being there and well-known by everybody for all the time) nor one of the minor ones are on it.

** And who can forget the similar premise of ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone'', in which [[TenLittleMurderVictims ten people]] are invited to an island because they've all committed murder in such a way that they could not be blamed for it -- deliberate neglect, emotional abuse driving a victim to suicide, sentencing an innocent man to death, etc. -- and then killing them all off in the manner of the nursery rhyme?
* In the novel ''Never Trust a Dead Man'' by Vivian Vande Velde, Farold - [[WhodunnitToMe the murder victim]] - is terribly depressed to realize just how many of the people he knew have plausible reasons for wanting him dead.
* In one of Creator/GKChesterton's mysteries, various people try to consult the blackmailer during the day and come back claiming that he refused to stop fishing. In actuality, he had been murdered. Each one is cleared when it is revealed that they too had been his victims and so had been afraid that they would be accused.

* In Boris Akunin's ''Seagull'', not only Everyone Is a Suspect, but there's also an alternate ending for each suspect to be the culprit. [[spoiler:Including the detective himself.]]
* In ''[[Literature/TheFatherLukeWolfeTrilogy Father, Forgive Them]]'', numerous people were in the room when Dr. Curtland died, and admit to how much they would have liked to kill him, and that they had a means of doing so at the time. Predictably, [[spoiler:the real murderer is none of them]].

* In ''Literature/{{Barrayar}}'', Simon Illyan has a short list and a long list of suspects in an attempted assassination of Aral Vorkosigan, and "Everyone's on my long list."
* Parodied in "Literature/TheMacbethMurderMystery" by Creator/JamesThurber. Having identified the ''true'' murderer of King Duncan, the protagonist announces that he's going to tackle ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' next. "But who do you suspect?" "Everybody."
* ''Literature/{{Fatherland}}'': When a prominent German politician is murdered in his home, the lead detective immediately raises the question of who might have a motive. Unfortunately for him, this is an AlternateHistory and said politician was a veteran SS officer who served in Nazi-occupied Poland, so the list of people with either a political or personal grudge against him is rather long. [[spoiler: Ironically, he turns out to have been murdered by his own government because [[HeKnowsTooMuch he knew too much]] about the Holocaust.]]

* A recent episode of ''Series/TheGlades'' had a murder victim who was a divorce attorney. The main character said it best: Half the state of Florida were suspects.
* In episodes of ''Series/MurderSheWrote'', you can usually guess who will be the first character to die: he or she will be the one systematically making every other cast member want him dead.
* In every episode of the ''[[TabletopGame/{{Clue}} Clue]]'' TV series, it was explicitly set up so every character would have a reason to want the victim of the week dead.
* ''{{Series/Dallas}}'': One of the reasons "Who shot J.R.?" spawned fanon on a scale never seen before or since was that literally ''every'' named character in the series had compelling reasons to want him dead.
* ''Series/GetSmart'' has an awesome recurring character who is a detective so thorough he considered '''himself''' a suspect until he finds evidence clearing his name.

* In the Fight Club episode of ''Series/VampireProsecutor'', everyone in the club is suspected of killing the victim as they had battled him one after another, piling on the life-threatening injuries.
* ''Literature/LessonsForAPerfectDetectiveStory'':
** This is the theme of episode four (and is parodied) as nobody in the house had a proper alibi and everybody reveals they had a perfect motive for killing him at rapid speed. Naturally the one person who didn't want him dead was mentally unwell so easily could have as well. Fujii points out that perhaps EverybodyDidIt but Tenkaichi dismisses it because it's boring. In the end, [[spoiler:nobody did it. He killed himself]].
* This was par for the course in ''Series/ElleryQueen''. Just about everyone who knew the victim would have a reason for wanting them dead.
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': not only is everyone a suspect due to everyone in Midsomer being [[AssholeVictim a petty, vicious little scumbag]] with about three skeletons per closet, by the end of the episode [[NeverOneMurder half of them will be dead]] (not always for reasons pertaining to the original murder).
* The basis of soaps "Whodunit?" murder mysteries, as the victim is usually an AssholeVictim who has managed to piss off literally everyone in the cast before being killed.

* ''Series/{{Borgia}}'': At least half the cast has reason to want [[spoiler:Juan]] dead.
* The episode "Not Guilty" of ''Series/GilligansIsland'' centers around the possibility that one of the castaways might be a murderer. The murder victim stole the Professor's work, embezzled the Howells, cheated on Ginger while she was engaged to him, bankrupted Mary Ann's father, and all five confronted him the night he was killed. [[spoiler:Turns out his death was actually an accident and they're all innocent.]]
* ''Series/MillionYenWomen'': The premise of the series is that some unknown person sent invitations to five women to come live in the home of Shin, a struggling writer. The sender's identity is one of the mysteries of the story. Eventually, [[spoiler:one of the women comes to the conclusion that the person who sent the invitations is someone Shin knows]]. After that, the five women and all other people who were shown to be part of Shin's life for the first half of the series comes accross as potentially being the invitation sender.
* In every episode of ''Series/WhodunnitUK'', every character in the episode apart from the VictimOfTheWeek and (sometimes) the investigators is a viable suspect.
* In the third season of Series/ThirteenReasonsWhy, the main plot revolves around the murder of [[spoiler: Bryce Walker. Since he had pretty much hurt everyone at some point while he was alive, literally every other main character is a suspect.]]

* Played for laughs (naturally) in ''Series/ATouchOfCloth'', particularly with murder victim Aiden Hawkchurch, whose ShrineToSelf wall of magazine covers feature publications like "Enemymaker" and headlines like "Someone Kill Him Already!". Asked for a list of people who ''didn't'' hate him, his wife names famously cheery RealLife Radio DJ Henry Kelly, ''and that's it.'' And, of course, as soon as Cloth and Oldman turn on the radio in their car, they hear Henry Kelly crowing delightedly about Hawkchurch being murdered.

* ''Film/KnivesOut'': Benoit Blanc's efforts to solve Harlan Thrombey's murder are complicated by the fact that basically everyone in Thrombey's BigScrewedUpFamily had motive to kill the man; Thrombey had been clearing house prior to his death by cutting all his family off in an effort make them shape up, leaving a lot of them screwed over and nursing a grudge against the patriarch. So the question becomes not which of Thrombey's family had motive to kill him, but which of them had the will to kill him over how he slighted them. [[spoiler:That would be Ransom.]]