History Main / FakeAlibi

* ''Literature/TheValleyOfFear'': No accusation made against the scourers will stand, since they simply have more of their members swear the accused were with them all night.
* Creator/LarryNiven's short story "The Alibi Machine" notes this as an effect of widespread {{teleportation}} technology (though the fact that the police are aware of the problem limits its effectiveness).
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's Literature/BlackWidowers story "Early Sunday Morning" has the killer create an alibi using a ClockDiscrepancy created when one character didn't promptly adjust a clock to Daylight Saving Time.
* ''Literature/TheMysteriousMrQuin'': In "The Sign in the Sky," a murderer is well known for his insistence on winding all the clocks in his mansion himself. On the day he kills his wife, he secretly sets them back an extra ten minutes so that all of the official reports will state he was out of the house when she died. A SpannerInTheWorks arises in the form of a housemaid who happened to catch a glimpse of smoke (the titular sign) from a passing train; when the heroes notice the discrepancy between the train schedule and the supposed timeline of the murder, the killer is caught.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

* One episode of ''Manga/CaseClosed'' had an alleged killer with an ''airtight alibi'': he had taken a photo of himself in front of a New Years celebration, right at midnight, clock highly visible in the photo, right at the time of the murder, and the camera wasn't tampered with in any way. Thanks to minute ([[JustForPun heh]]) details in the photo, it's eventually proven the photo was taken at midnight of ''last year'', and he'd been planning this to be his alibi for the murder all this time.

--> '''Cartman:''' Okay. Last night, all four of us were at the bowling alley until about 7:30, at which time we noticed Ally Sheedy, the Goth chick from ''Film/TheBreakfastClub'', was bowling in the lane next to us, and we asked her for her autograph, but she didn't have a pen, so we followed her out to her car, but on the way we were accosted by five Scientologists who wanted to give us all personality tests, which were administered at the Scientology Center in Denver until 10:45, at which time we accidentally boarded the wrong bus home and ended up in Rancho de Burritos Rojos, south of Castle Rock, and finally got a ride home with a man who was missing his left index finger, named Gary Bushwell, arriving home at 11:46.

* In "[[Recap/MonkS5E16MrMonkGoesToTheHospital Mr. Monk Goes to the Hospital]]", Monk zeroes in on a doctor who had a strong motive for killing the victim, but a security guard says the doctor never left the room he checked himself into, and his heart monitor seems to back the claim up. [[spoiler:This is because the doctor slipped into the connected room of another patient[[note]]The rooms used to be fully connected, but were divided up years back by a thin fake wall[[/note]] and attached the heart monitor to him while the patient was sedated, then committed the murder.]]

* ''Series/{{Castle}}:''

* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'': Done several times.

* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'': Done several times, usually by the main culprit.

* In ''Franchise/AceAttorney'':

--> '''Cartman:''' Okay. Last night, all four of us were at the bowling alley until about 7:30, at which time we noticed Ally Sheedy, the Goth chick from ''Film/TheBreakfastClub, was bowling in the lane next to us, and we asked her for her autograph, but she didn't have a pen, so we followed her out to her car, but on the way we were accosted by five Scientologists who wanted to give us all personality tests, which were administered at the Scientology Center in Denver until 10:45, at which time we accidentally boarded the wrong bus home and ended up in Rancho de Burritos Rojos, south of Castle Rock, and finally got a ride home with a man who was missing his left index finger, named Gary Bushwell, arriving home at 11:46.

# The crime did not require the culprit to be on the scene when it occured, although at first this fact isn't known.

Due to the potential for controversy, Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease. While there have been cases where a suspect's alibi was definitely proven false, there have also been cases where the authorities believed a suspect's alibi but the public didn't or vice versa.

* In the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' manga's Turnabout Gallows case, the entire crux of the case revolves around the fact that everyone but the defendant has a completely impenetrable rock solid alibi: At the exact time of the victim's instantaneous death, everyone who could have possibly committed the murder besides the defendant was right there in front of Phoenix. This seemingly cast iron fact is about to get Phoenix's client a guilty verdict. That's when Phoenix quite literally turns the entire case upside down to work out and prove how the real killer managed to cause the victim's death without actually being anywhere near him.

* ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile'' has a variant: a person has an airtight alibi until he is shot in the leg. After having been left alone, he is examined by a doctor who says that after having been shot he would have been incapable of walking. Next morning, his wife is found murdered. Turns out he wasn't shot in the leg when the witnesses thought -- he and the shooter had [[StagedShooting put on an act to make it look like he was shot at that point]], then he murdered his wife, returned to where he had previously been, and shot himself in the leg.
* ''Literature/EvilUnderTheSun'': Two people in the boat see a body on a hidden beach. One of these people goes over to the body and says the body is dead, while the other goes for the authorities. Turns out the body was quite alive, and goes away just for the person who stayed with the body to do the actual murder.

* Lampshaded in ''The Singing Bell'' by Creator/IsaacAsimov. Inspector Davenport complains that had Peyton had some alibi, he could have cracked it as a fake. However, while a document or witness can be caught on inconsistencies, Peyton instead has a very well established habit of spending a month every year without being seen by a single person, and that is effectively unassailable.

** In [[Recap/CastleS1E1FlowersForYourGrave "Flowers for Your Grave"]], Harrison Tisdale is a suspect in a string of three murders, but claims he was out of country on all three dates, and has a stamped passport to prove it. However, Detective Beckett finds it suspicious that Tisdale is able to provide this alibi so quickly, without consulting his calendar or even asking for the dates. She and Castle dig deeper and figure out how he faked it: Harrison has a second passport under a false identity. So he left the country with his real passport just to establish his alibi, then used his false passport to return incognito and commit the murders.

* ''Series/ShamelessUS'': After the police discover [[spoiler:Eddie's]] body, Frank is the prime suspect. His initial plan is to get his sons to claim he took them on a camping trip around the time [[spoiler:Eddie]] died. He then tries to goes to Terry, who suggests Frank say he was at a gun show at the time. He even gets Frank a gun he allegedly bought at the gun show and a phony witness to claim he saw Frank there.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': [[spoiler:Celestia Ludenberg]] manages to set up one of these in the third case by using [[spoiler:Hifumi Yamada]] as an accomplice, and thus is able to claim innocence due to various factors, such as [[spoiler:being with Aoi both when Hifumi supposedly "died" in the nurse's office and when Hifumi disappeared.]]
* ''VisualNovel/TheMurderOfSonicTheHedgehog'': After Sonic is the victim in the murder mystery game, Tails, Amy, and Barry investigate, checking each passenger of their alibis. Espio's alibi being that he was reading in the library and didn't notice anything, which felt flimsy but validated proving to have memorize the book he was reading. It turns out to be a lie with Espio being the killer who was able to memorize the book he read through speedreading due to being a ninja, giving him time to take Sonic by surprise.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': [[spoiler:Celeste]] manages to set up one of these in the third case by using [[spoiler:Hifumi]] as an accomplice. Thus, she is able to claim that she is not the culprit due to various factors, such as [[spoiler:being with Aoi both when Hifumi supposedly "died" in the nurse's office and when Hifumi disappeared.]]

# Then there's the possibility that the witnesses are simply not as reliable as originally believed, and are lying about the alibi.

[[folder:Films -- Live Action]]

* ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile'' has a variant: a person has an airtight alibi until he is shot in the leg. After having been left alone, he is examined by a doctor who says that after having been shot he would have been incapable of walking. Next morning, his wife is found murdered. Turns out he wasn't shot in the leg when the witnesses thought - he and the shooter had [[StagedShooting put on an act to make it look like he was shot at that point]], then he murdered his wife, returned to where he had previously been, and shot himself in the leg.

* ''Series/ShamelessUS'': After the police discover [[spoiler: Eddie's]] body, Frank is the prime suspect. His initial plan is to get his sons to claim he took them on a camping trip around the time [[spoiler: Eddie]] died. He then tries to goes to Terry, who suggests Frank say he was at a gun show at the time. He even gets Frank a gun he allegedly bought at the gun show and a phony witness to claim he saw Frank there.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': [[spoiler:Celeste]] manages to set up one of these in the third case by using [[spoiler:Hifumi]] as an accomplice. Thus, she is able to claim that she is not the culprit due to various factors, such as [[spoiler: being with Aoi both when Hifumi supposedly "died" in the nurse's office and when Hifumi disappeared.]]

* ''Literature/EvilUnderTheSun'' - two people in the boat see a body on a hidden beach. One of these people goes over to the body and says the body is dead, while the other goes for the authorities. Turns out the body was quite alive, and goes away just for the person who stayed with the body to do the actual murder.

*** Episode four has the culprit use a recording of a gunshot to throw of the time.