History Main / NeverFoundTheBody

* ''Film/BatmanBegins'':
** At the end, [[Characters/BatmanRasAlGhul Ra's-Al Ghul]] is apparently killed when the train car he is in derails and crashes. He has so far not returned, but the fact that we never see his body ([[ImmortalLifeIsCheap along with some of his defining characteristics from the comics]]) has fueled much fan speculation. The novelization of the film says, however, that his body was never found.
** In the third film, Characters/{{Ba|tmanBane}}ne's {{mooks}} capture Commissioner Gordon. Bane is furious that they brought him to his secret location. Gordon manages to fall into water and is washed away into a sewer pipe. The mook claims that NoOneCouldSurviveThat, but Bane demands to see the body before he'll believe it. When the mook tries to complain, Bane puts a radio-beacon on him and [[YouHaveFailedMe shoots him]], letting the mook fall into the water (with the hope that wherever the mook ultimately washes out of the sewers, they can pick up Gordon's trail from there with the radio).

** There was some speculation as to the fate of the first Lockon Stratos in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'', but WordofGod put a stop to all of that.

** {{Defied}} in [[Recap/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaEpisode11TheOnlyThingIHaveLeftToGuideMe "The Only Thing I Have Left to Guide Me"]] with regards to Sayaka. Kyoko makes sure to take her body out of the witch's barrier and place it in a hotel for it to be found by a {{muggle|s}}.

* ''Film/{{Abominable}}:'' [[spoiler:CJ's body disappears soon after the main monster apparently kills her with a FinishingStomp, although it's likely that the monsters merely spirited it away to hide the evidence or for food.]]

** ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'': Averted Trope. Agent Coulson ''appears'' to die, but the scene cuts away before we find out whether he was really OnlyMostlyDead and taken to a hospital room. [[Characters/ShieldDirectors Nick Fury]] plays the death for all it's worth in getting the bickering heroes to put aside their differences, but is explicitly shown to be a ConsummateLiar about other things (including lying about the ComicBook/CaptainAmerica trading cards being taken from Coulson's body, rather than his locker!). Furthermore, the actor who plays Coulson has said he was assured by Creator/JossWhedon that the character survives. As of ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD,'' he's alive and kicking, and knowledge of this is restricted to 'level seven' clearance.

* In''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'', the ''Harder To Kill' Edge gives you a 50% chance of miraculous survival after being 'killed'.

* In ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'', WordOfGod made it the official rule. Death off-screen, not found the body? So don't believe what other characters say, they will come back. This is possibly subverted with Matoro, though his body was turned into energy on-screen. [[spoiler:This includes [[BigBad Makuta Teridax]] whose death is left ever so slightly ambiguous with Tahu hoping that he is indeed dead for good this time]].

** ZigZagged at the ending of "bROKEN" and the following stories. Riff and Zoë are inside a mecha that burns up and explodes, but Torg assures Gwynn that they must be alive because there were no bodies found and because he knows Riff had installed an emergency escape device that could teleport the pilots to a random dimension. But we subsequently see that the way the events were shown unfolding was not the real truth but false memories of Torg's born from his denial that it looked as though Riff and Zoë really had died. ''And'' we're shown that Riff and Zoë indeed ended up in a random dimension, but it looks as though they die on arrival. And then... well, there are just a ''lot'' of layers to this StoryArc.

*** The ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "MadLove" (which was based on an earlier DCAU comic story) had Joker plummeting into a smokestack. Later, Characters/{{Harley Quinn|TheCharacter}} is in her cell at Arkham, and she sees a rose from Joker next to her bed. Discussed by Batman when he tells Harley that, even if she succeeded in killing him, the Joker wouldn't believe it, because any proof of it would seem faked. [[BatmanGambit He does this specifically to trick Harley into telling the Joker to come over, and the Joker would stop Harley, during which argument Batman would escape.]]

* The finale of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' is surprisingly silent on this subject. While the [[FinishingMove Wuxi Finger Hold]] is never expressly claimed to be fatal, the reactions of Po and Tai Lung (and Shifu's expression when he threatens to use it) all suggest it is at least likely to batter someone to a pulp, if not unsurvivable -- and the [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything suspiciously-shaped cloud]] after Po uses it would suggest there isn't anything left. Whether to avoid the typical DisneyVillainDeath, as a SequelHook, or because the snow leopard is just too badass to kill off, however, his death -- if such it was -- [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome happens off-screen]]... so it all becomes moot, due to this trope. And since Po's excited words to Shifu are "I defeated Tai Lung!" not "I killed him," then. It's finally revealed what happened to Tai Lung in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda3''. It turns out the express purpose of the Wuxi Finger Hold is to banish those on whom it's used to the [[SpiritWorld spirit realm]] (where [[BigBad Kai]] comes from). A FreezeFrameBonus shot reveals that Tai Lung was one of the masters in the spirit realm whom Kai captured and drained of their chi. Whether this counts as "dead" is debatable since Po was still able to return to the real world after having used the Wuxi Finger Hold on himself.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Rango'', Bean tells Rango that while her father is deceased, and she keeps ashes into a jar, they never found his body. At least he didn't fall drunk down a mine shaft, according to Mr. Merrimack.

*** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 title ''VideoGame/MobileSuitGundam00GundamMeister'' showed the body. Though whether that can be considered canon is debatable.

** ''ComicBook/StarfiresRevenge'': When the titular villainess gets thrown into a moat from a great height, Characters/{{Supergirl|TheCharacter}} and the police believe Starfire has fallen to her death, even though their body is not found. Unsurprisingly, Starfire would reappear two issues later.
** ''ComicBook/BrainiacsBlitz'': After watching ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} writhing on her Kryptonite trap, Brainiac averts his eyes to turn his force-field into a beam which blasts into atoms Supergirl's prison. He assumes Supergirl has also been annihilated, but by looking away he missed her slipping out of her cage.

* ''ComicBook/{{Gunhawks}}'': Reno Jones drops into a ravine in ''ComicBook/BlazeOfGlory'', only to get dragged out of by ComicBook/RedWolf.

* Creator commentary in the trade-paperbacks for ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'' discussed [[DeathIsCheap the problems associated with killing a character]]. The writers knew that any reader would ''automatically'' view any character death as suspect, so they decided to deliberately avert this trope by showing ComicBook/BoosterGold's corpse. They initially scripted the panel as his body falling to the ground in several pieces, [[{{Narm}} but they thought this came off as hilarious instead of dramatic]], so they instead had his desiccated skeleton fall to the ground instead. It turns out he ''still'' was not dead, [[FakingTheDead he just wanted to trick the villain]].

* In the final issue of ''ComicBook/{{Azrael}}'', [[Characters/{{Azrael}} Jean-Paul Valley]]'s body was already falling apart when he donned the Azrael armor one last time, being shot twice with armor-piercing bullets as he tackled his attacker off a balcony. The attacker survived, but Azrael's costume was the only thing left of Jean-Paul. Batman had a vision of Jean-Paul ascending to heaven, but he admitted to Alfred that he was already suffering from sleep deprivation and could have easily just hallucinated it. It wasn't until ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'' that it was confirmed Jean-Paul had died.
* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': According to commentary on ''ComicBook/TheLongHalloween'', this is how most readers seemed to zero in on the killer. As it turns out, a cut scene showed the discovery of a body that was played as being Alberto's. It was not, of course.
* PlayedForLaughs in an issue of '' ComicBook/CaptainAmerica''.

* Happens with regularity in ''ComicBook/{{Diabolik}}'' whenever the titular VillainProtagonist wants to [[FakingTheDead fake his death]]. Problem is, you can't be sure he's dead even when you ''do'' have a body: Diabolik has occasionally left behind someone else's body in such a situation it would be mistaken for his, in one occasion fooling even ''DNA tests'' (he had swapped the sample that was to be tested), and not even seeing him being shot ''and'' checking the body is a guarantee of him dying (when that happened the guy who checked the body was an accomplice).
* Discussed in ''ComicBook/ExMachina'', a series about Mitchell Hundred, a retired superhero turned Mayor of New York. Ivan, his old "mentor", is constantly on the lookout for Jack Pherson, the closest thing to a true supervillain they ever faced, even though Pherson was last seen in an exploding building. While Ivan would be GenreSavvy in a straightforward superhero comic, in this one he just gets written off. His arguments ring even more hollow when it turns out they found ''several pieces'' of Pherson, just not his head.
* In ''ComicBook/TheEyeOfMongombo'', Jumballah, the WitchDoctor who [[ForcedTransformation turned adventurer Cliff Carlson into]] [[QuackingUp a duck]], falls down an elevator shaft in the first chapter. No one knows if he really is dead or not.

* Implied with steampunk cyborg Nazi Kroenen's backstory comic in the ''Film/{{Hellboy|2004}}'' movie art book: "In 1956, an unmarked grave was found in Romania. Dental records identified the remains: Karl Ruprecht Kroenen. Many, however, do not believe he is dead...Chief among them: Kroenen himself!" Considering that he had already removed his own lips, ''genitalia'', ''eyelids'' and replaced his bones with steel and his blood with sand or maybe cocaine by then, teeth don't seem like that big a deal, really.
* [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] is well known for his frequent use of this trope. One can probably find a handful of other comics and Batman-related media that will have the Joker falling to his "death" at the end (or something similar), only for him to show up sometime later without any explanation. One need only to go back to his comic debut, '''''Batman''''' ''numero uno''. Intended as a one-shot character, he was apparently killed, but at an editor's behest Bob Kane scribbled up a final panel that left a back door open in case they wanted to bring back this clownish fellow...Lampshaded by Characters/{{Batman|TheCharacter}} at the end of ''ComicBook/ADeathInTheFamily'', where the Joker is in a helicopter that crashes into the sea. Batman shouts at Superman: "Find the body!", but he already knows that it won't be found because the matters between him and the Joker always end up unresolved.
* ''ComicBook/TheFlash'': In one issue, the villainous Kadabra is caught in an explosion. A cop says, "There's no body. The blast must have incinerated the corpse. Guess that's the last we've seen of him." The Flash looks at him like he's an idiot and responds "you're new to this supervillain thing, aren't you?"

* ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'': In ''ComicBook/BornAgain'', [[Characters/MarvelComicsTheKingpin The Kingpin]] realized immediately that Characters/{{Daredevil|MattMurdock}} was still alive when he learned that the car he was locked in and thrown into the river didn't contain his body. Sure, he might have drowned trying to reach the surface and sunk into the mud but...

* Averted toward the end of the run of ''ComicBook/{{Manhunter}}'', where that incarnation of Manhunter defeats an alien cyborg, watches him burst, burn, and fall from a great height. Then climbs down to confirm the kill, and FINDS him, dead.
* ''ComicBook/TheMazeAgency Annual'': Invoked pretty much word for word when Dr. Rune falls off a building roof into the river in the first issue.
* After ComicBook/ThePunisher is thought to have died after the destruction of Mutant Liberation Front's headquarters, the US army hire Federal Marshals to find him, since his body was never found. They contact [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Spider-Man]] and Characters/{{Daredevil|MattMurdock}}, his most frequent team-ups, and even though they both know he's a [[BadassNormal human with no special powers]], they won't rule out his survival.
* In ''ComicBook/TheRedStar'', Maya tries to argue for her husband's survival on this basis.

* Just before ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' got cancelled, Old Lace's body suddenly (and conveniently) disappeared. She later turned up alive in ''ComicBook/AvengersAcademy'', albeit stuck in another dimension; supposedly, the explanation was that Nico Minoru sent her there sometime in all the chaos that surrounded her death.

* Subverted in the ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' arc ''ComicBook/TheJudasContract''. After Terra was revealed as TheMole, she fought the Titans and eventually used her earth-manipulating powers to destroy the underground lair they were in. As they start to dig through the rubble, Beast Boy says that she could've used her powers to escape...and then he finds her body a couple of panels later.
* In ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'': In "The Cigars of the Pharaoh", the unidentified drug cartel boss falls off a cliff near the end, but his body is not found. It is revealed in the follow-up, ''The Blue Lotus'', that this is none other than Roberto Rastapopoulos, who was reported missing in a newspaper article in ''Pharaoh''.
* Subverted in ''ComicBook/TomStrong''; during a confrontation with his old archnemesis, Tom learns that one of his old enemies appeared to have pulled this trope in their previous confrontation at the Niagara Falls actually broke her neck and drowned that time.
* ComicBook/UltimateMarvel

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': Alkyone went into the megalodon protected sea off a cliff on Themyscira and was presumed dead. A few issues later a megalodon that had been cut open from the inside washed up on Themyscira's shore, informing the reader that the villain was making a comeback.
* Lampshaded, then subverted, in ''ComicBook/YoungJustice''. After being caught in a massive explosion, teenage supervillain-in-training Harm's body can't be found. After being told nobody could survive that explosion, Robin responds, "guys like that have nine lives." Turns out Harm did escape, only to be shot and killed by his father, who'd spent the last two issues trying to stop him. He does come back as a ghost later, though.

** Freeza mentions having shot down a pod carrying his brother Tarble while trying to hit Santa's sleigh as a child, specifying that they never found the body. Team Four Star has gone back and forth on whether he's still alive.

* Cooler in ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' is [[GenreSavvy savvy enough to never believe an enemy is dead unless he sees a body]] to the point where he refuses to pay his underlings unless they find Goku's corpse as proof and later even states that his brother Frieza did a better job at killing him than them if Goku wasn't found, bear in mind Frieza not only failed to kill Goku but nailed himself with his own attack instead.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/AccidentalDetectives'': Delilah Abercrombie, the titular character in ''The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek'' robbed a bank, but vanished in a flood while fleeing, with an article of clothing turning up in the aftermath, but no sign of Delilah herself ever showing up, adding to the legend that she haunts the area. the final chapters confirm her survival.
* ''Literature/AngelsOfMusic'': Several of the Angels' cases, in accordance with tradition, end with the villain's body not being found. Specifically, Falke at the end of "Les Vampires de Paris", making it possible to reappear as one of the vengeful villains in "Deluge"; and the denouement of "Deluge" features the Phantom and his nemesis plunging to an ambiguous watery doom.
* In ''Literature/AnOutcastInAnotherWorld'', in preparation for the invasion by the Infected, Elder Cesario leaves the Village to request aid from Reviton City. Only his horse returns, riderless and carrying a bloodied note of Cesario describing how he's succumbing to his wounds and has failed in his mission.
* In ''Literature/{{Armor}}'', Felix almost certainly died somewhere out in orbit. His people keep searching for him anyway and imply they'll do so indefinitely because he was not explicitly seen to die.
* In Creator/RobinMcKinley's ''Literature/BeautyARetellingOfBeautyAndTheBeast'', Robbie Tucker, the fiancé of Beauty's eldest sister Grace and the captain of one of their merchant father's ships, is lost at sea and presumed dead in the storm that destroys the ships and costs the family their fortune. He remains Grace's [[TheLostLenore Lost Lenore]] throughout the next several years. Near the climax of the book, Beauty goes home to visit her family because, through the magic of the Beast's castle, she learns that Robbie is still alive and looking for Grace; she wants Grace to know so she doesn't accept a proposal from another man.
* In Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's ''Literature/BookOfTheDead'' Diogenes is pushed off of a volcano. There is much speculation since there seem to be several cases of this trope in each book of the ''Literature/AgentPendergast'' series. Even when there is a body, as with Margo Green in the same book.
* Eva, mother of Marco and host to Visser One in the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' books. Repeatedly.
* [[{{Determinator}} Hajime]], the main character of ''Literature/ArifuretaFromCommonplaceToWorldsStrongest'', fell off a bridge which was already deeper in the [[DungeonCrawling Great Orcus Labyrinth]] than anyone had ever gone, down several ''more'' levels into the most terrifying dungeon in the world. Since he was basically the ButtMonkey of the entire Hero Party up to that point, the general reaction was "[[NoOneCouldSurviveThat We won't be seeing him again.]] No great loss." Well, [[HesBack about that...]]
* ''Literature/TheBuilders'': Barley, whose death was very hazy; either he was crushed beneath rubble or incinerated by howitzer shells. The narration even implies that he might have lived and disappeared after the carnage ensued.
* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': The driving plot of book #6 (''The Cat Who Played Post Office'') involves Qwill trying to figure out what happened to Daisy Mull, who disappeared five years earlier, after he gets confirmation that one of the supposed messages she sent indicating she was leaving was a forgery. She was killed by Birch Tree and her body was hidden by a mine collapse.
* Creator/AgathaChristie used this several times, usually involving a supposed drowning in which the body was swept out to sea.
** ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone'': The 'RedHerring' death involves a putative drowning which turns out to have been real.
** Several examples from the Literature/MissMarple short story collection, ''Literature/TheThirteenProblems'':
*** In "The Companion", a woman who seems like an obvious suspect for an earlier suspicious drowning leaves a suicide note before presumably drowning herself; her body is not found. In fact, she had been using a fake identity when she killed the previous victim and stole ''her'' identity; the faked suicide allowed her to return to her own identity.
*** "The Bloodstained Pavement" has an interesting variation. Person A was supposedly swept out to sea; the body washed up in a very battered condition sometime later. In fact, she had been murdered some time earlier up the coast, and an accomplice had taken her place to confuse the time of death and provide the killer with an alibi.
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfChaos'', the Greek gods assume Trismegistus is dead, merely because he was shot with several arrows by Phoebe, no less and fell into the Abyss. Indeed, ap Cymru justifies talking with him on the grounds it's not disobedience, as he was never forbidden to talk to him.
* In Jeramey Kraatz's ''Literature/TheCloakSociety'', though Cloak knew the victims of the Umbra Gun were transported to the Gloom, everyone else assumed they were dead. Including the victims, who [[MistakenForAfterlife guessed it was a horrible afterlife]].
* ''Literature/{{Deryni}}'': When the mountain trail washes out in ''The Quest for Saint Camber'', Kelson and Dhugal are seen to go over the falls with the others, but their bodies are not found. This fact is part of what sends Morgan and Duncan to go to the site of the accident and join the search.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Referenced in ''Literature/MenAtArms''. Because no one ever found Big Fido's body, legends that he's leading a wolf pack somewhere in the Ramtops live on. (In fact, Gaspode did find the body and did see the body get taken away by a vagrant who sold it for the pelt. But none of the other dogs saw the body, so they chose to not believe Gaspode's version of the story.) May also be a reference to the ''Literature/WatershipDown'' example below.
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Used as a SurvivalMantra by Murphy in "Aftermath" and ''Literature/GhostStory'' regarding Harry. It is painful to read. However, she is right...
* ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' expresses it as elegantly as anyone's ever gonna: "We Bene Gesserit have a saying. Do not count a human dead until you see the body; and even then, you can make a mistake."
** Of course in the world of Dune, a dead person has a chance of coming back as GeneticMemory "possessing" one of his or her descendants as Baron Harkonnen does to Alia in ''Literature/ChildrenOfDune''.
** An alternative pathway back involves the use of Gholas. These start out as reanimated dead flesh, not zombies but healthy human specimens, though later versions are more frequently grown from cell samples. Very helpful when you cannot find the body, or when the body might be headed into situations where it might not be recoverable.
** Paul Atreides invokes this trope twice, once by flying into a sandstorm strong enough to scour flesh from bone, and once by walking into the desert with the stated intent of allowing the sandworms to eat him he came back disguised as a preacher railing against his own out-of-control Imperial Cult. And his son Leto does something similar after an assassination attempt.
* In Creator/AletheaKontis' ''Literature/{{Enchanted}}'', Sunday discovers in the end that Jack Jr.'s body was not found; Rumbold only found something owned by him in a wolf's stomach. And sure enough, he turns up at the end of the second book.
* ''Literature/TheEmpiriumTrilogy'': In ''Furborn'', Harkan volunteers to make a last stand against the Empire's soldiers- a suicidal move- as a means of distraction. As Eliana rides away, she hears Harkan cry out, but doesn't look back to see if he was shot. Both she and Remy believe him to be dead. Towards the beginning of ''Kingsbane'', Harkan turns up at the Astavari castle where Eliana is staying. He's battered and dirty, but very much alive.
* In the ''Literature/ErebusSequence'', the body of the Majordomo isn't found where it should be, which naturally presages a return in the next book. At the end of ''that'' book, it's reported that Dino, the main protagonist died, but again, we don't see a corpse, so we can't be sure.
* Creator/JackMcDevitt's ''Literature/EternityRoad'' initially looks like it's heading for an EverybodyLives ending, so this trope is used after the first [[MoodWhiplash sudden death during a lighthearted section]]. The second such death...not so much.
* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d and {{subverted|Trope}} in ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms: The Lady Penitent Trilogy''. The battle between Vhaeraun and Eilistraee in the first book was witnessed by neither the reader nor the viewpoint characters. In the second book, one of the characters cites the fact that no one saw it to argue that Vhaeraun is still alive. By that point, however, the reader has been shown [[DroppedABridgeOnHim his mangled corpse]] floating in the Astral Plane.
* Creator/AlanGarner's novel ''Literature/{{Boneland}}'' deals with what happened to the protagonists of the much earlier books ''Literature/TheWeirdstoneOfBrisingamen'' and ''Literature/TheMoonOfGomrath'' after the end of the latter novel. The central character here is Colin, grown to adulthood and dealing with psychological problems brought about by his real -- or imagined -- childhood experiences. His sister Susan is thought of as dead, having ridden a horse to the lake of Redesmere which figured in the earlier books. The horse is found safe and well on an island in the lake. The inquest presumed she had drowned in the lake. But no body was found. At the end of the previous book, ''The Moon of Gomrath'', Redesmere is the enchanted home of The Lady of the Lake, Angharad Goldenhand, who schooled Susan in witch-magic. She restrained Susan from riding into the Otherworld with the Sisters of the Moon, telling her "your time is not yet. But soon..." This strong hint of what ''really'' happened to Susan recurs throughout ''Boneland''.
* ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle'': The evil sorcerer Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] disappears into thin air after falling to his death; William suspects he's dead for good though because the last of the magic around the North Tower (which said sorcerer had placed there) disappeared at the same time.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
** Subverted with Sirius Black in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'', whose body was never found, leading many fans to believe he was still alive. Turns out he really was dead. Specifically, Sirius' body was never found because his body was ''physically transferred to the afterlife'', which is not a survivable or reversible event even ''if'' the spell he was hit by seconds earlier was non-lethal.
** A similar thing happens later with Mad-Eye Moody in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows''. Special attention is given to the fact that his body is never found, and Ron even suggests he might really be alive. [[FinallyFoundTheBody Then they find his eye...]]
** Played straight with Voldemort -- it's implied that his body sorta disintegrated by the rebounded Curse and was never actually found. Not that it would have mattered...
** All they ever found of poor Peter Pettigrew was a finger. Of course he cut it off himself so they would assume that was all that was ''left'' of his body. Given that the people who were really killed back then left considerably more of their bodies, one could have seen this as a reason to doubt Pettigrew really died. In fact, there's at least one Harry Potter fanfic where Sirius Black had a trial and this fact had been brought to the Wizengamot's attention.
* Invoked by the central character in ''Literature/TheHighestTreason'' by Creator/RandallGarrett; facing death or capture, he arranges his death so that no body will be found, deliberately to promote a belief that he somehow got away and one day he'll be back.
* In ''Literature/HopeLeslie'', this happens to Sir Philip, which the Puritans attribute to Satan taking the body of his servant back.
* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'':
** ''Literature/TheBalladOfSongbirdsAndSnakes'' reveals that District 12's first victor, Lucy Gray Baird, vanished without a trace shortly after her Games, with no body ever found. It is implied that she was declared LegallyDead as Katniss says that, of the two District 12 tributes who won the Games before herself and Peeta, only Haymitch is still alive at the start of the original trilogy. Significantly, Lucy Gray's name is derived from a ballad about a girl who was also lost without a trace and may or may not have survived.
** In ''Literature/{{Mockingjay}}'' Katniss and her squad are thought to have been killed in the battle to take the Capitol. When the Capitol airs the security footage from their apparent deaths, they only show their faces, as their bodies had not been found. They're still alive, obviously.
* ''Literature/InTheMidstOfWinter'':
** Enrique, Lucía's brother, is detained after the MilitaryCoup in Chile and is never seen again. Later on, after Lucía goes off to exile, Lena Maraz is given instructions to retrieve a sealed coffin with her son's remains and orders not to open it. Of course, she does; she realizes the body they gave her is not Enrique's. Nevertheless, [[BuryingASubstitute she has him buried in the family crypt]].
** [[spoiler: Richard and Lucía make a plan to [[DisposingOfABody dispose of the body]] by tossing the Lexus off a cliff with Kathryn's corpse in the trunk. But when Lucía brings up how to make sure her body does not surface, she realizes that [[DidntThinkThisThrough if they go through with their plan, Kathryn's loved ones will suffer like her own mother did]] when her brother was "disappeared". They change their plan so that Kathryn can be found during spring.]]
* ''Franchise/JurassicPark:'' It is strongly implied at the end of the first book, through meaningful looks, and head shaking when he's asked about, that Ian Malcolm is dead, but no one ever actually ''says'' that he's dead, and he's back for [[Literature/TheLostWorld1995 the second book]].
* In Barbara Kingsolver's ''Literature/TheLacuna'', the main character, Harrison Shepherd, is driven out of the US by the [[RedScare House of Un-American Activities Committee]] blacklisting him. He flees to Mexico, and shortly after is reported as committing suicide by drowning. In reality, he faked his death via a secret underwater passage and went on to start a new life.
%%* ''Literature/TheLastDragonChronicles'': In ''The Fire Eternal'' teenaged!Lucy refuses to believe David is dead because of this. She's right, [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence sort of]].
* ''Literature/TheLegendOfSleepyHollow'': Ichabod Crane, of course. All that was left was his hat and a shattered jack-o-lantern. And they never found the head of the Headless Horseman.
* Looking even further back in time, around AD 200 Achilles Tatius wrote a novel entitled ''Literature/LeucippeAndClitophone'' where the titular character Leucippe apparently is KilledOffForReal not once but twice. She is captured by desperados (and given up as HumanSacrifice) and after her miraculous return is later captured by pirates and beheaded. In the first case, her body is carried away and in the second this trope is slightly subverted when they find the body...of the other women that got beheaded. This makes this trope OlderThanFeudalism.
* In ''Literature/LesMiserables'', the recaptured Jean Valjean risks his life to rescue a man who fell from a ship's rigging; in the process, he himself "accidentally" falls into the water, from which his body is never recovered. Guess who turns up a month later in Montfermeil?
* In ''Literature/TheLittlePrince'', the Prince allows the Snake to bite him so he can return home to his asteroid, insisting that he won't really die; his body might just not be able to come with him. The Aviator, seeing the Prince fall to the ground after being bitten, takes all night to collect himself before he can bring himself to go and collect the body so he can bury him. When he goes, though, he can't find the body or any sign of the Prince. He hopes this is a sign he really did manage to go home after all, but he and the reader never know for sure what happened.
* At the climax of ''Literature/LonelyWerewolfGirl'' BigBad Sarapen is killed on page DeaderThanDead with a magic knife and yet despite this, his body proves to be unrecoverable and goes missing. Uh-huh, wonder who will be back for the sequel then?
* ''Literature/TheLunarChronicles'': In the first book, ''Literature/TheLunarChronicles'', it is mentioned that they never found the body of Princess Selene of Luna, who had apparently died in a fire when she was a toddler, but they did find pieces of her burnt flesh. At the climax of the book, cyborg protagonist Cinder is told that ''she'' is Princess Selene.
* ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments'': Valentine in ''Literature/CityOfAshes'', after his ship is destroyed -- which naturally means that he's still up and kicking. That is, until he gets stabbed by the angel Raziel in ''City of Glass'', is cremated and has a funeral. He is dead for good. Unlike his other son.
* ''Literature/MyBabysitterIsAVampire'': In the climax of book 6, the vampire trying to kill Meg falls off a cliff with her. While Meg is rescued by Vincent, they look over the edge of the cliff and don't see the attacking vampire's body; Meg hopefully suggests a wave washed it away, while Vincent suspects she turned into a bat at the last minute and escaped.
* ''Literature/NemesisSaga'': In the finale of ''Project Nemesis'', BigBad General Gordon falls off a building and lands on a car. When Hudson reaches the ground, Gordon is nowhere to be found. The epilogue reveals what happened to him.
* Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/NightWatchSeries'': Subverted in ''The Last Watch'', where Anton believes [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Kostya]] is still alive because his body was never recovered, however, it's revealed that the body ''was'' found, only Geser decided not to show Anton the incinerated body of his best friend. In ''Sixth Watch'', though, Kostya returns, courtesy of the Twilight, and becomes one of the most powerful vampires.
* A key problem the prosecution has in ''Literature/TheOtherSideOfMidnight'' with their case against Noelle Page and Larry Douglas for the murder of Catherine, the latter's wife, is that her body was never found. That's because she fled the hotel before they could kill her and her rowboat capsized. But in truth, she was rescued by people employed by Constantin, whom Noelle is mistress to. Catherine, now an amnesiac, lives with an order of nuns; Constantin hides this so the lovers will pay for cuckolding him.
* Creator/RickRiordan's ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'':
** Subverted and played straight in ''The Titan's Curse'' when Bianca di Angelo is inside a faulty automaton when it collapses into pieces and parts. Percy, Zoe Nightshade, Grover, and Thalia search for hours through the wreckage without finding "anything". They half-heartedly volunteer this as proof that she's still alive somehow, but they all really know she is dead, and her ghost is in the underworld.
** Subverted in ''The Last Olympian'': Percy and Beckendorf are both flung off a ship into a water that is not SoftWater. While Percy survives the fall, being a son of Poseidon, Beckendorf's body isn't found at all, not even by Poseidon's forces. However, Beckendorf is not a son of Poseidon, so Percy is fully convinced he's dead. Nico, Bianca's brother and a son of Hades, later confirms that Beckendorf ''is'' dead, having spoken to his ghost.
* Alistair Drummond in the second book of ''Literature/TheRampartWorlds'' trilogy by Creator/JulianMay. The protagonist, Asahel Frost, worries occasionally about whether he's actually dead. And then the guy turns out to be alive enough to steal Asa's identity while working with villainous aliens. When he's eventually killed off, the body is immediately in evidence, although mauled by a wolverine.
%%* Eric Sanderson in ''Literature/TheRawSharkTexts''.
* Another counterexample occurs in Kim Stanley Robinson's Literature/RedMarsTrilogy: A major character goes missing and never reappears during a raid in the second book. The other characters speculate that she was captured, interrogated, and killed, but just to complicate matters, this character vanished and reappeared during the first book, so it's totally in character for her to just go away.
* In ''Literature/TheRedVixenAdventures'' after 6-year-old Alinadar's family is murdered by pirates and she's taken by them to become a {{child soldier|s}}, her brother Lu (who wasn't on their family's ship at the time) invokes this trope and keep searching twenty years for her.
* ''{{Literature/Redwall}}'': Nothing but a few feathers is found of Bluddbeak, an old, blind, rheumy red kite from ''Triss''. Considering he went up against a trio of adders, [[CurbStompBattle his demise is in no doubt]].
* {{Invoked|Trope}} in ''Literature/ReignOfTheSevenSpellblades''. [[spoiler:Oliver Horn]] assassinates [[spoiler:Darius Grenville]] in the abandoned workshop of a deceased student deep in the labyrinth under Kimberly Magic Academy, and he and his coconspirators dispose of the body. As a result, at the start of the next book, he's only listed as missing even though six months have gone by, and that's far from unheard-of for both students and faculty at Kimberly.
* Happens with two villains in ''Literature/{{Renegades}}'':
** At the start of the first book, Adrian doubts that the supervillain Nightmare is actually dead, as only the mask was recovered from the scene of the explosion. The reader already knows he's right to be dubious.
** Ace Anarchy's corpse was lost in the chaos following the Battle of Gatlon. Predictably, he turns out to be alive.
* The faux-death of ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' at the falls left open the means for Doyle to return to the series after the public hue and cry against the seeming end of it all was so loud that nothing else he wrote had a chance of getting published. Also happens to the villain of ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles'', who is lost in a bog. Unlike Holmes, he never makes a comeback.
* ''Literature/{{Siren}}'': The siren Charlotte Bleu disappeared after her bookstore burned down in 1993. It was assumed that her body was destroyed by flames. In fact, she faked her death, and is now [[spoiler:living in South Boston as her "sister" Willa.]]
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' has several of these, some more debated than others and one that's heavily implied regarding an EnsembleDarkHorse.
** The Stark children's uncle, Benjen, disappears early on in the series, when he leads a ranging beyond the Wall sometime after his nephew Jon Snow joins the Night's Watch. Jon is really itching to do a ranging because he hopes to find his uncle himself, although he never does. A theory that he is the true identity of Coldhands, the mysterious figure guiding Bran Stark and his company during their journey beyond the Wall, has been {{Jossed}} by Creator/GeorgeRRMartin himself.
** Forty six years before Benjen Stark disappeared, the infamous Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers, a bastard son of Aegon IV who served four different Targaryen kings, went missing in a similar ranging beyond the Wall, and is presumed dead due to how long it has been since he was last seen. [[spoiler:''Unlike'' Benjen, though, we finally learn about Bloodraven's fate; it turns out that he has joined the Children of the Forest and become the Three-Eyed Crow.]]
** Tyrek Lannister, a young cousin of Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion, goes missing during the riots at King's Landing and is presumed dead. Jaime suspects that he might have been abducted and/or killed by Varys, who did not come to the docks to bid off Myrcella Baratheon when she was sent to Dorne.
** Rhaegar, Symond, and Jared Frey disappear en route from White Harbor to Barrowtown while serving as the Freys' envoys to Lord Wyman Manderly. It is popularly believed that Wyman has the three Freys killed and baked into three "pork" pies he serves during Ramsay Bolton's wedding to Jeyne Poole in Winterfell later on. This is revenge for the Freys severely violating sacred hospitality by massacring the Northern army during the Red Wedding; by contrast, Lord Manderly gave the Freys gifts when they left, a traditional formality but also signaling the formal end of guest right protection.
** Virtually everyone who dared to go to the ruins of Valyria never returned to tell their tale. King Tommen II Lannister attempted to plunder the riches of the ruined empire, only to end up going missing alongside the ancestral Valyrian sword of the Lannisters, Brightroar. Seven years before the series begins, Tywin Lannister's younger brother Gerion launched an expedition to reclaim Brightroar. He was last seen in Volantis replacing half of his crew when [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere they deserted him upon learning that he intended to go to Valyria]], and his current whereabouts are unknown.
** Queen Rhaenys Targaryen, one of Aegon the Conqueror's wives, went down alongside her dragon, Meraxes, during an attempt to conquer Dorne. The Dornish eventually returned Meraxes' skull to Aegon as a peace offering, but they stayed mum about what really happened to Rhaenys, whose death could only be inferred since the Targaryens never recovered her remains. It is implied that the letter Nymor Martell sent to Aegon, which caused him to abruptly halt the conquest of Dorne, held secrets to her ultimate fate.
** Prince Daemon Targaryen died by jumping off his dragon, Caraxes, and ramming a sword through his nephew Aemond's eye, causing his dragon, Vhagar, to crash into a lake at some speed. Years later, the bodies of Aemond and Vhagar were recovered, but there was no sign of Daemon's. The romantically inclined Westerosi believe Daemon survived, swam to shore, and may have then quietly lived out his life in obscurity.
** Alyn "Oakenfist" Velaryon, the presumed bastard son of Laenor Velaryon legitimized during the Dance of the Dragons, disappeared at sea during the reign of Aegon IV.
* In ''Literature/TheSorcerersDaughter'', the infant heiress to the throne disappears without a trace, and then the ZeroPercentApprovalRating inquisitor vanishes as well, leading savvy courtiers to suspect the latter has killed the princess and escaped. It is revealed that the princess is alive, while the inquisitor has been turned into a bat by the titular sorcerer and killed by an owl two nights later.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'':
** ''[[Literature/StarWarsAhsoka Ahsoka]]'': {{Invoked|Trope}} by Ahsoka while FakingTheDead. She and Rex created a fake grave for him, which they could do because he's a clone trooper; they simply buried an already dead clone in his place. Since they wouldn't be able to do the same for her, they put up a headstone claiming that they [[MutualKill killed each other]], and Ahsoka left her lightsabers atop the grave to sell the deception, because no one would buy that a Jedi would voluntarily leave behind her iconic weapons.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': ''Literature/XWingSeries'':
** Used extensively in the ones written by Creator/MichaelStackpole. Counting off, we see...Corran, Mirax, Tycho, Bror Jace, ''Jan Dodonna'', Ysanne Isard, and ''all of Rogue Squadron'' (in fairness, that last featured a couple getting KilledOffForReal, but not the main ones). Several characters note that they just won't stay dead; one even theorized that they were actually [[CloningGambit getting cloned]], after the incident where they were all supposed to have died. Fittingly, he gets shot by one of them as they execute their [[GambitRoulette incredibly over-complicated plan]].
--->'''Mirax:''' I could help myself get over this, I think, if I could just finally accept the fact that Corran's dead. Listening to the comlink call when he went in, that was pretty nasty, but we never found a body. I know it's stupid to make anything of that, what with the building coming down on him and all, but my father always said that if you don't see a body, don't count on someone being dead. He did once--\\
'''Wedge:''' And it cost him his eye. [[NoodleIncident I remember the story]].
** {{Discussed|Trope}} in another instance in the series. Wedge comments that sometimes he half-expects lost squadmates to walk into his office one day. (Usually in these cases there's no body because they were incinerated when their X-Wings were blown up.)
%%* Played completely straight in Literature/StateOfFear.
* ''Literature/TheSyrenaLegacy'': In the 1940s, the Triton prince Grom was betrothed to the Poseidon princess Nalia. They were deeply in love, until they accidentally set off a mine left by humans. In the aftermath of the explosion, Grom couldn't sense Nalia anymore. When her body was never recovered, everyone assumed she'd been blown to bits. Grom spent the next seventy years grieving. [[spoiler:It turns out his senses were discombobulated by the explosion. Nalia survived and, thinking Grom was dead, went on land to live as the human Natalie before either she or Grom could recover enough to sense each other. She enters a MarriageOfConvenience with a human man and has Emma, who grows up thinking she is fully human until her Syrena abilities start to awaken when she's eighteen. Nalia and Grom are finally reunited in ''Of Triton''.]]
* Lampshaded at times in Creator/AndrewVachss' Burke books with TheDreaded ShroudedInMyth Wesley, who supposedly blew himself up live on television. While Burke, as the closest thing to a friend the man had, is sure he is dead, the rest of the underworld is not because there was not enough left to tell.
* ''Literature/TheVazulaChronicles'': The mer couple Elric and Merminia were "[[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident killed by stingrays]]" while traveling outside the [[UnderwaterCity triple kingdoms]] with their infant daughter Merleisha. Their bodies were recovered, but Merleisha's never was. The merman sent to kill the three of them took pity on the infant and took her to the charity home in Tilssted instead, where she was raised as the orphan Merletta.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'':
** In Creator/DanAbnett's ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''The Armour of Contempt'', Gaunt is shown [=MkVenner=]'s grave and later told they had erected it as a propaganda tool after his team had been wiped out without their recovering the body. We never see him again. However, the Ghosts' next best scout realizes there is someone nearby that he can't see, which only one person could have done, and Resistance fighters in the hands of the Inquisition nearby mysteriously vanish.
** Also in ''The Guns of Tanith'', a shuttle blows up, but someone onboard namely Mkoll appears later.
** {{Defied|Trope}} in the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' novel ''Literature/GreyKnights'': The Inquisition sends the Grey Knight expedition down to Khorion IX instead of simply [[EarthShatteringKaboom calling Exterminatus on it]] because they need eyes on the ground to see Ghargatuloth's defeat.
** Literature/CiaphasCain ('''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM''') has had this happen so many times over the years that the Munitorum has finally decided to treat him as always alive (in spite of his funeral with full honors). Of course, some take the view that his burial itself was faked, so he could more efficiently serve the Inquisition.
* ''Literature/WarriorCats'':
** Hollyleaf's "death": no one bothered to try digging up her body after the tunnels collapsed, and it turns out that she actually [[NotQuiteDead survived]].
** In ''Crookedstar's Promise'', a minor character -- [=RiverClan=] elder Duskwater -- got swept away in a flood and they never found her body.
** In ''Tallstar's Revenge'', Sandgorse's body is lost in the collapsing, flooded tunnels.
** In ''Shattered Sky'', this happens for various reasons to quite a few cats who got killed off, including Dawnpelt, Needletail, Onestar, and [[BigBad Darktail]].
* In ''Literature/WatershipDown'', [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast General Woundwort]] is last seen furiously attacking a vicious dog which has driven off most of his military. One of his followers later says that since they never found his body, it meant he wasn't dead, just gone to find a more worthy warren. Eventually, he becomes a legendary figure in rabbit culture.
-->And yet there endured the legend that somewhere out over the down there lived a great and solitary rabbit, a giant who drove the elil like mice and sometimes went to silflay in the sky. If ever great danger arose, he would come back to fight for those who honored his name. And mother rabbits would tell their kittens that if they did not do as they were told, the General would get them -- the General who was first cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument: and perhaps it would not have displeased him.
* ''Literature/WetDesertTrackingDownATerroristOnTheColoradoRiver'': The body of the bomber is never found, leading to speculation that he survived his suicide.
* Simultaneously played straight and {{inverted|Trope}} in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''. At the end of the fifth book, Moiraine tackles Lanfear into the twisted doorframe, which is destroyed immediately after. Every character [[GenreBlindness assumes them dead]], particularly because Moiraine's bond with Lan seems to have been broken. Every fan assumes this to be an obvious case of NoOneCouldSurviveThat, which just causes confusion when Cyndane appears in the eighth book, obviously an altered and/or reborn Lanfear. But in the thirteenth book, we find out that Moiraine is, of course, still alive, but that Lanfear actually was killed shortly after entering the doorway!
** Done unintentionally and subverted in case of Sammael, who got killed when Rand looked away. Jordan had to go against his "read and find out" rule and confirm that he is, indeed, dead.
** Despite the fact that an entire palace with hundreds of occupants was literally erased from reality (and time, by several hours), many fans refused to believe that Graendal was dead. They were right.
* ''Literature/WhereTheSidewalkEnds'': In "The Crocodile's Toothache" a DepravedDentist receives his JustDesserts from his crocodile patient. Afterwards, the narrator ponders over the dentists abrupt disappearance.
--> Oops, that's the wrong one, I confess,\\
But what's one crocodile's tooth, more or less?\\
Then suddenly, the jaws went SNAP,\\
And the dentist was gone, right off the map,\\
And where he went one could only guess...\\
To North or East South or West...\\
He left no forwarding address.\\
[[IronicEcho But what's one dentist, more or less?]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
!!!'''In General:'''
* All {{Soap Opera}}s are prime offenders, in order to allow for their equally copious BackFromTheDead moments. Many also subvert this, with a mangled body having been found and assumed to be that of the character in question. A few egregious examples:
** ''Series/AllMyChildren''. Characters go over waterfalls, drive off cliffs, or are lost in wreckage. Rarely is an established long-term character killed off without leaving such an opportunity to return.
** ''Series/AsTheWorldTurns'' has Colonel Mayer, who jumped into the ocean to avoid being captured by the police. He is presumed dead by the entire cast, but the viewers just KNOW he'll turn up again the second something is needed to drive (another) wedge between Luke and Noah.
** Colonel Mayer does return, but he gets sent back to prison.
** James Stenback has done this numerous times, having been a villain on the show for [[LongRunners decades]]. He is eventually {{killed off for real}}, and everyone is shocked [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing (and overjoyed)]] that they have actually seen the body this time.
** ''Series/DaysOfOurLives'', with the original "death" of Roman Brady.
!!!'''By Series:'''
* The sixth season of ''Series/TwentyFour'' ends with two baddies -- Grechenko and Philip Bauer -- supposedly dead. Philip may well have the indestructible Bauer gene and his body is never found but he doesn't return. It is explicitly stated that Grechenko's body is found by CTU.
* With the amount this occurs in ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', one would think people would be slower to assume a person's dead. Sara Lance, Malcolm Merlyn, Slade Wilson, and Isabel Rochev have all been "killed" at some point or another. This trope may even apply to Oliver himself. Oliver's final death as the Spectre leaves no body behind, which is lampshaded. But, he's truly gone this time.
* ''Series/AshesToAshes2008''
** It's said that the protagonist of ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'', Sam Tyler, died in a car accident after spending seven years in 1973 onward. One year later, when Ashes begins, his body has yet to be found.
** In the opening episode of Series 3 Alex rediscovers Sam's file and keeps it for later reading, and a new DCI alludes to Gene Hunt's secret, heavily implying that it may have to do with Sam's apparent death. It later transpires that this death was indeed faked, however he had 'died' in that world, just in a different way.
* In ''Series/TheAvengers1960s'', Mrs. Peel's husband Peter is discovered to be alive in the Amazon after a plane crash years ago, signaling her character's exit from the series.
* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** John Sheridan, on a hostile planet, dropped a [[NukeEm nuclear bomb]] on his own location. While jumping into a {{bottomless pit|s}}. The rest of the station command staff couldn't even make sense of the reports about what happened, let alone find the body. Some of them refused to believe that he was dead. He was. He got better.
** An established part of Minbari legend states that Valen, their warrior-prophet from 1,000 years previous, disappeared in this fashion, somewhere out in space. Some of them apparently [[KingInTheMountain believe he'll eventually return]]...and they're right, in an odd sense.
** The same thing happens to John Sheridan in the DistantFinale. Because his ship was found with sealed airlocks and no trace of him on board, many believe [[KingInTheMountain he'll eventually return too]]. And because both characters make up part of the trio known as The One, many fans take it to mean the same thing also eventually happens to the third member, Delenn.
** Delenn vocally invokes this trope when Lennier goes missing in hyperspace and all the evidence says he can't have survived this long. (In this case, the audience already knows he's still alive, and how, but Delenn doesn't have this information.)
* A grisly subversion in ''Series/BadGirls'' -- Prisoner Yevone Atkins. Apart from Jim Fenner (her prison officer killer), everyone else thinks she has escaped, which was her plan. The problem: the building plan she and her escape partner had used didn't feature a wall which turned a corridor into a cell because the door to the corridor only opened from the outside. Fenner shut the door behind her and left her there. Her escape partner after spending weeks in solitary confinement (for a different matter) saw the escape route as still being viable as it wasn't discovered by the prison officers. She goes to make her escape only to find the wall blocking her path and Yevone's rotting corpse.
* Invoked in ''Series/BandOfBrothers'' when Easy Company is pulling out of a Dutch town swarming with Germans. Denver "Bull" Randleson was separated from the main force and forced to hide until he can escape. Meanwhile, his friends are trying to organize a rescue, and when told he was probably dead "Wild Bill" Guarnere responded, "If there ain't no body then there ain't nobody dead."
* ''Series/Batman1966''
** "Better Luck Next Time". Characters/{{Catwoman|SelinaKyle}} falls into what Batman says is a bottomless pit, and he says that she probably went straight to the bottom. She re-appears again in the second season episode "Hot Off the Griddle".
** "Scat! Darn Catwoman". At the end of the episode, Catwoman falls off a building into a river. Her body is never recovered and Batman says he "doesn't think she'll be bothering us anymore", so he considers her to be dead. However, she appears again in the episode "Catwoman Goes to College".
* In the Season 1 finale (which also ended the series) of ''Series/{{Blade|TheSeries}}'', Krista throws Chase down the stairwell (a pretty big drop). A few minutes later, she looks down and doesn't see either Chase's body or ash. Van Sciver tells her that even if either of those things were found, he'd still look over his shoulder for the rest of his immortal life.
* ''Series/BreakingBad'': In-universe for Emilio Koyama, Krazy-8, Victor, Drew Sharp, and Mike Ehrmantraut. All were dissolved in acid with no one outside the clean-up knowing their fate.
** In a Behind The Scenes video, Hector's actor jokes that, even though he was inches away from a large explosion, this trope applies because the dead body wasn't shown onscreen.
* ''Series/BetterCallSaul'': In-universe for Howard Hamlin and Lalo Salamanca:
** Mike tells Gus that until Howard's body washes up from the supposed cocaine-induced accidental drowning (which it never will as it is a cover-up to his murder by Lalo), the police investigation of his disappearance can't be closed.
** Except for Jimmy and Kim, Lalo is believed to have been killed at his estate with only Gus and his men knowing the truth to his death and burial (Lalo survived the attack and used a burnt body double with identical dental records, only to be shot by Gus and buried with Howard in the foundation of an underground drug factory).
** Lalo's actual death for Jimmy. When the ordeal is over the next morning, he is simply told by Mike that Lalo is dead for good. Because of how traumatizing the whole incident was for him, he is still skeptical of Lalo's death years later during ''[[Recap/BreakingBadS2E8BetterCallSaul Breaking Bad]]'' that he assumed his captors were sent by Lalo to finish him off. Even more time later while [[Recap/BetterCallSaulS6E12Waterworks hiding]] as Gene Takavic that he mentions his skepticism of Lalo during an argument with Kim.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** What with the deaths and returns of The Master, Angel, Spike, and Drusilla, the Franchise/{{Buffyverse}} variant seems to be "never count a vampire dead unless their bodies turn to dust". And even then, there are ways around it (case in point: Darla, who for the record has died ''four times'').
** Invoked improperly after the Spike/Drusilla fight in "What's My Line, Part Two", which takes place in a burning church. Later, in "Surprise", the Scoobies suspect Dru may have survived, with Buffy saying, "We never found a body." Oddly, no one points out that vampires don't ''leave'' bodies, and checking for vampire dust in a ''burned-down church'' is nigh-impossible. Still, points for being GenreSavvy, though.
* At the end of the ''Series/BurnNotice'' episode "Dead to Rights", a building explodes, killing recurring villain Larry and two RedShirt security guards. However, the next day's newspaper headline simply said that two people were killed in the blast, indicating that Larry (who makes a habit of this) is still NotQuiteDead.
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':
** In one episode a murder makes no sense...until near the end, Castle realizes this about an important participant in an event that took place 20 years earlier:
---> '''Ryan''': Susan Mailer, alive?\\
'''Castle''': Her body was never found.\\
'''Beckett''': Yeah, because she was vaporized in the explosion.\\
'''Castle''': Well, maybe she was thrown clear.
** In a much later episode, Castle shoots a serial killer several times, knocking him off a bridge. They never find the body -- in fact, Beckett goes so far as to state, direct quote, "they never found the body". Castle postulates that the killer had planned the whole thing in an [[FakingTheDead attempt to disappear]].
* Beautifully {{lampshade|Hanging}}d on ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' in regards to Daniel Shaw.
-->'''Morgan''': You checked for a pulse right?\\
'''Chuck''': ...Well he fell into a river.\\
'''Morgan''': He fell into a river? Of course Shaw's alive. Haven't you ever seen a John Carpenter movie?
* The ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode "Blood Relations" features a killer more inspired by slasher movies than their typical fare, so it's no surprise that his body isn't found in the end, though most of the team is confident that he is in fact dead. TheStinger confirms that he managed to survive.
* In the ''Series/ColdCase'' episode "Fireflies", the victim is a young girl who disappeared and whose body was never found. It turns out her killer drove her to a different state to kill her so that no one would know who she was... except that unbeknownst to him, the girl actually survived, but had severe amnesia and didn't remember who she was. The Cold Case detectives track her down and break the news to her.
* In the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode "The List", the cops did find a torched car filled with the victim's blood and believed that proved she was dead. She wasn't, and the steps she takes to fake her death, including ''murdering her own sister'', are so awful that they make her lover/partner-in-crime realize she can't be trusted.
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': Det. Taylor's wife died on 9/11 and not a speck of her DNA has ever been found. Interestingly, a flashback shows that she escaped the first tower's collapse...Considering that, you know, 9/11 actually happened and thousands of real people died and haven't been found, she's probably not going to show up with amnesia in the season finale. Fanfic writers, on the other hand...
** She did actually tell Mac during their phone call that she wanted to go back and help other people. Mac told her to stay out where it was safe, and then the call was cut off. So, it's possible she died going back to help others.
** Her death does seem more confirmed as of the Season 8 finale since Mac saw her during his NearDeathExperience and she gave him an ItIsNotYourTime.
* ''Series/{{Dallas}}'': This was done with family patriarch Jock Ewing after his actor [[Creator/JimDavisActor Jim Davis]] died unexpectedly. Jock was said to have disappeared on a trip to Venezuela; a search by his sons eventually found the site where his helicopter had crashed after a mid-air collision with a small plane, but his body was never actually found.
* Lydecker in the early second season of ''Series/DarkAngel''. It's revealed in [[ConclusionInAnotherMedium the last book]] that he was alive after all.
* ''Series/{{Destinos}}'': Rosario, Fernando Castillo's first wife, was apparently killed by a bomb during the Spanish Civil War, but it was never confirmed. Fleeing to Mexico, Fernando [[UnPerson hid all evidence]] of his first marriage from his family, until a letter from Sevilla turned up indicating that she may have survived.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** The Time Lords. ''All of them.'' Allegedly, all of them were erased from existence except for the Doctor. And the Master. The Daleks were supposedly also wiped out as well, but that's been proved wrong many times now.
** ...And Romana, meanwhile, had gone to E-Space some time before then, and it's never been stated[[note]]In the TV series, anyway; the novels and ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audios made her President of Gallifrey[[/note]] if she came back for the [[GreatOffscreenWar Great Offscreen Time War]] or not. She's potentially still out there.
** The Master has JokerImmunity, and (s)he will usually get disintegrated at the end of each story, to the point where writers don't even bother explaining how (s)he survived after a while. The one time a body is actually found, at the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords "Last of the Time Lords"]], the Master has to be straight-up resurrected.
* The TV miniseries of ''Series/{{Dune}}'':
** Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, upon receiving news that Paul and Jessica Atreides were dead after flying into a sandstorm, asks explicitly, "You've…seen the bodies?" He was right to doubt. In the novel, it is more explicit, but his entire plan is based upon the fact that this means of executing Paul and Jessica would not ''leave'' bodies. Once his underlings are gone he himself states that they are undoubtedly dead, that [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat nothing could possibly survive a sandstorm]], and he was stressing the need to find the bodies as an educational experience to never take anything for granted, not because he actually feels this situation requires a body to be definite.
** They do, at least, recover the body of Duncan Idaho, even though we're not told or shown it (there probably wasn't much left after he received a missile to the face). It was a few years, but the Tleilaxu manage to regrow the remains into a ghola.
* The first death of Dennis "Dirty Den" Watts in ''Series/EastEnders'' was perhaps the longest gap between killed and brought back, 14 years passed.
* Irene Adler in ''Series/{{Elementary}}''. All that was found was a pool of her blood, more than a person could survive losing. Sure enough, she turns up alive in the penultimate episode of the first season. Furthermore, Sherlock eventually discovers that the man who supposedly killed her was actually set up by the mysterious Moriarty...which turns out to be Irene's true identity. She has been playing him all along, even managing to put on a very convincing American accent for the role of Irene.
* Scorpius was shot and ''buried'' on-screen in an episode of ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' but that didn't stop him from coming back anyway. Likely due to [[JokerImmunity his huge popularity with fans]]. The fact that he came back only two episodes later makes it pretty clear that this wasn't as much of a {{Retcon}} as one would think.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** Benjen Stark's horse returned riderless and two of his comrades' corpses are found -- reanimated by White Walkers. While he is officially only missing in action, his comrades-in-arms are not optimistic and he is 'presumed dead'. He returns in Season 6, alive and kicking, so to speak.
** Syrio Forel. We don't see him losing the fight, and there's no mention of his head being with the others on the spears. In "The First of His Name", The Hound inadvertently throws gas on this particular fire by pointing out how crappy a fighter Meryn Trant, the man who supposedly killed Syrio off-screen, really is. If Syrio was able to beat five Lannister soldiers with a wooden sword, he should have been able to beat Trant without breaking a sweat. In the books, one of the more common fan theories is that Syrio was actually Jaqen H'ghar in disguise. The second season might actually support this: in his last scene, Jaqen bids farewell to Arya by calling her "Arya Stark", a name that Arya never told him.
* In ''Series/{{Haven}}'', when [[SerialKiller The Bolt Gun Killer]] tries to escape the heroes in a motorboat, they shoot the engine and it explodes. Since they don't find any remains, they assume the Killer survived and is still at large. They are correct.
* Discussed in ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'', involving two men put on trial for murdering one of their business partners, with the fact that the body was never found raising questions about whether a murder was even committed. In his closing argument, the defence attorney dramatically declares that the 'victim' is in fact about to walk right through the courtroom doors, prompting everyone to turn in astonishment... but when he doesn't show, the attorney confidently declares that, since everyone was nevertheless convinced he would, the only possible option is to acquit his clients since no one can be certain that he is dead. When, against all probability, the jury convicts, the astonished attorneys corner one of the jurors, who reveals that while everyone was looking at the doors, she was looking at the defendants, who were the only people in the courtroom not to turn around.
-->'''Juror:''' They knew he wasn't going to be walking through those doors.
* In Episode 12 of ''Series/KamenRiderBuild'', despite being shot and falling from the bridge, there is a distinct lack of Utsumi when Sento looks over the edge for him, and no one says anything about there being a body afterwards. Sure enough, Utsumi shows up several episodes later and explains that he was saved from the river by Blood Stalk.
* Simon Kingdom in ''Series/Kingdom2007'' is presumed dead after leaving his belongings on the beach and walking into the sea. He comes back in the first season finale, and at the end of the second season he disappears in a flood.
* This happens to Nicole Wallace in the ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' episode "Great Barrier". She gets better.
** Nicole again and is Goren's reaction on when Nicole Wallace's heart is found, but a lab tech confirms it is, indeed, a DNA match. (Of course, if anyone could spoof that...)
*** It is later confirmed that Goren's teacher admitted he did in fact kill her.
*** This confirmation is sketchy, since that entire conversation, as well as previous ones, make it clear that the guy is absolutely out of his mind. He may have only thought he killed Nicole, and Nicole is certainly capable of using that to her advantage. Since the series has now ended, we will probably never truly know whether Nicole really is dead or not.
** One of the suspects in "Revolution", Axel Caspers, had previously been implicated in a firebombing which is presumed to have killed a banker, his wife, and their toddler daughter, but Nichols learns that only the adults were positively identified; no remains were found that could be confirmed as belonging to the child. And it just so happens that Caspers has a daughter exactly the same age as the banker's child, despite the fact that he was serving a prison sentence during the window of time where a child that age would have to have been conceived...
* One of the earliest mysteries on ''Series/{{Lost}}'' involved Jack seeing hallucinations of his dead father on the island. When Jack finally found his father's coffin, the body was not inside. Over the course of the series, Jack's father started appearing more and more often, and to other character to whom he may or may not have any connection, and even began interacting with them, casting obvious doubt on whether or not "hallucination" is really a good term to use.
** Later, Eko discovers his dead brother's corpse in the drug smuggling plane. But when he returns sometime later, the body has vanished. Suddenly, his brother starts walking around and interacting with Eko. Eko finally has a conversation with the "hallucination" of his brother and addresses him as such. The person then replies "you speak to me as if I were your brother" and walks off, leaving Eko rather confused. When Eko pursues the individual, the smoke monster appears and kills him. This scene cemented in many fans' minds the theory that the smoke monster can impersonate others if it has a body to steal.
*** Confirmed in Season 5, when Alex is quite clearly the Smoke Monster judging Ben.
** This theory ends up being thrown for a loop in Season 5. Locke's body is brought back to the island, and keeping with this theory, most fans assumed he'd come back to life. Sure enough, he did. Except then he began acting strange, turning into a {{Jerkass}}, and annoying Ben and Richard among others. In the season finale, a group of survivors from the new plane crash bring with them a container... and inside is Locke's body. As it would turn out, the mysterious nemesis of Jacob (who had never been introduced before that episode) was impersonating Locke in order to use Ben to kill Jacob. And Season 6 confirmed he was the Smoke Monster and had him confessing to Jack that he impersonated Christian.
** In an instance not involving the smoke monster, [[UnfazedEveryman Frank Lapidus]] is hit by a steel door pushed in by the water rushing into Widmore's sub after it blows up. We see Sayid get blown up by the bomb and bodies of Sun and Jin after they drown, but we don't see Lapidus' body and we were lead to believe this was the last we would see of him but he reappears, floating on a piece of flotsam a few episodes later in the series finale.
** From that same scene, subverted with Sayid. The audience knows he's dead, but Hurley says something to the effect of "We gotta save Sayid too!" and Jack screams that there's no Sayid left to save.
* Every time Murdoc "dies" in ''Series/MacGyver1985''. You'd think Mac would learn to stop knocking him off cliffs.
* ''Series/TheMandalorian'': invoked -- Moff Gideon, an ex-Imperial officer who is seemingly being set up as a founder of [[Film/TheForceAwakens the]] [[Film/TheLastJedi First]] [[Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker Order]], crashes his [=TIE=] fighter in the Season 1 finale and is assumed dead by the protagonists, but we the audience see that he survived and the second season makes no secret of this when we're shown a live transmission from him to another ex-Imperial officer. The fourth episode of Season 2, "The Siege", has the protagonists find a hologram record that was sent to Gideon and they assume it's long outdated before learning that it's only three days old, revealing to them that Gideon is still alive.
* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
** In the ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' episode [[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS2E3MakingFriendsAndInfluencingPeople "Making Friends and Influencing People"]], [[AnIcePerson Donnie Gill]] is shot by Skye and falls into the sea. It's stated later that his body was never found, raising the possibility that he survived.
** ''Series/TheDefenders2017'': [[Series/Daredevil2015 Matt Murdock]] is seemingly killed in the destruction of Midland Circle while fighting his revived and crazy ex-girlfriend Elektra. In the church, Karen explicitly mentions that Matt's body hasn't been found, though Foggy reminds her that at this point, it has been days since the collapse of Midland Circle. Sure enough, Matt is discovered to be alive and well in the care of some nuns, in a moment that foreshadows what may be to come in ''Daredevil'' Season 3. Similarly, while Madame Gao's and Elektra's bodies are not seen, it is strongly implied that they may still be alive as well.
* In ''Series/{{Moonlight}}'', Mick stabbed his wife Coraline and left her trapped in a burning building. Taking a NoOneCouldSurviveThat attitude, he never actually saw her ashes. Turns out she's NotQuiteDead. He should have thought something was strange, when she was able to get up after being stabbed in the chest with a stake, an act that normally paralyses vampires.
* ''Series/MotherlandFortSalem'':
** Scylla goes missing after the attack on the Bellweather estate. Everyone else assumes that she died, but Raelle refuses to believe it because Scylla's body never turned up. Naturally, Raelle turns out to be right.
** Raelle's mother. She's alive and she's high up in the Spree.
* Recurs in ''Series/MurdochMysteries'':
** In the Season 3 finale, after a chase and explosion, the accomplice's body is found, but not that of Sally Pendrick. As of yet this has had no effect on the story, as Season 4 returned to the self-contained episode format.
** In "Murdoch in Toyland", after managing to [[FakingTheDead escape his own hanging]], attempting a psychologically disturbing plan of revenge and getting caught by Murdoch again, the police wagon carrying James Gillies back to prison plunges over a bridge into a river. While the bodies of the driver and the guard are found, Gillies' is not.
** The same character dives into another river at the end of "Midnight Train to Kingston". Murdoch is particularly (and understandably) anxious about the lack of a corpse. They find the body seven episodes later.
* Zig-zagged in ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' with Ziva; they found ''a'' body which they ''did'' identify as her, but several of the cast (including Tony, who found out that Ziva gave birth to their daughter before her "death") express some serious doubts that she was killed. When he leaves the team to [[WalkingTheEarth walk the Earth]] and take care of his daughter, he somewhat implies another reason for his departure is to investigate Ziva's murder himself. It turns out she wasn't killed.
* ''Series/{{Neighbours}}'' seems to have a fetish for this trope, especially where the Bishop family is concerned.
** When Harold Bishop was swept off a rock by a wave, all that was found was his glasses. He turned up alive but amnesiac five years later.
** Liljana and Serena Bishop went down in a plane crash in the Bass Strait, but their bodies were never found, though other victims were.
** Dee Bliss was presumed dead after Toadie accidentally drove their car into the sea on their wedding day. Nearly fourteen years later, an IdenticalStranger by the name of Andrea showed up claiming to be Dee. Her story was that she had escaped the car but had been separated from Toadie and was missed by the search party. She washed up on a beach with a head injury and was mistaken for an abuse victim by the woman who found her and chose to hide her while she recovered. As of 2019, the real Dee has returned, and her own story was far less credible than what Andrea made up -- in short, she was hiding from an organised crime family who had put a hit on her over a case of mistaken identity set off by Andrea in the first place.
** When Connor O'Neill left in 2006, he was last seen being threatened by Paul Robinson's murderous son Robert. After Robert's arrest, Connor was presumed dead and Robert never suggested otherwise. But Connor was later confirmed alive when his wallet was reported found in China and when he sent his friends souvenirs, also from China. He would later return in the flesh for a guest stint in 2012.
* ''Series/NipTuck'': Kimber Henry jumps off Mike Hamoui's yacht in Season 6. But it's never confirmed if she died or not because the Coast Guard gave up searching for her after a few days.
* In ''Series/OnceUponATime'', the only thing found of Kathryn is the heart. In ''The Stable Boy'', it's clear that the DNA results on the heart were tampered with when Kathryn is found alive.
* At the beginning of ''Series/PowerRangersZEO'', the rangers find out Rito and Goldar had been caught in the explosion that destroyed the Command Center. No sign of their bodies had been found but Adam Park was sure [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat there was no way they could have survived the explosion]]. Unlike the rangers, the viewers soon learned Adam was wrong.
* The Season 1 finale of ''Series/Preacher2016'' concludes with a methane gas explosion that is stated to have wiped out the whole town and everyone in it, including by implication the four main characters who hadn't left by that point -- Emily, Donnie, Sheriff Root, and Odin Quincannon. The totally destructive nature of the incident means that no bodies are recovered. However, WordofGod states that they've all been KilledOffForReal -- while ironically, a fifth lead ([=DeBlanc=]) who was killed off in the penultimate episode and whose body ''was'' seen on screen and by at least two other characters, is still hinted to be making some form of a return in Season 2.
* This is the original fate of Kevin Bruckner in the ''Series/QuantumLeap'' episode "[[Recap/QuantumLeapS2E13AnotherMother Another Mother]]." Al notes that the authorities only found Kevin's bloody clothes in an abandoned van, the case was never closed, and Kevin's mother spent years searching for answers. The goal of Sam's leap is to prevent Kevin from meeting this fate.
* Victor Comstock is struck and killed by a falling bomb during a broadcast from London at the end of Season 1 of ''Series/RememberWENN''. He shows up alive at the end of Season 2.
* In ''Series/{{Rentaghost}}'', the recently deceased Fred Mumford brings this up when explaining how he will be able to ask for financial assistance from his parents. As his body was never recovered, no one knows he has died. Mumford keeps up the pretence that he is still alive to his unsuspecting parents for the duration of their time on the show.
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Riverdale}}''. At the start of the pilot, it's shown that the Blossom twins went to a lake but something occurred that caused Jason to go overboard. His body is unable to be found at the time. The end of the pilot shows that a few days later his body washed up on the shore, with a bullet in his head showing that his death wasn't accidental.
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}''. Helen spends the entirety of "Eulogy" trying to prove that Ashley is alive...only to find out that, nope, she's history. Confirmed by WordofGod that Ashley won't be back.
* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'':
** First, Irene fakes her death. Sherlock views the body himself and confirms that it is hers, but she's still alive. They reconcile, and later she fakes her death again. Mycroft is positive that she is, in fact, dead this time, he says, "It would take Sherlock himself to fool me." Well, Sherlock himself was there, and helped her. Finally, in the season finale, Sherlock jumps off of a building. John even takes his pulse and confirms his death. Somehow, he survived.
** Also invoked by many fans of Moriarty, who shot himself in the head in the finale. However, a tie-in news report posted online doesn't mention a body being discovered, so many people think he'll return.
** Creator/StevenMoffat also lampshaded it in an interview, stating that no body always means that they've survived.
** Played with in "The Abominable Bride". The Bride's body is in the morgue, but she still manages to murder her husband with plenty of witnesses. Later, she also appears to murder several more people. It turns out to be a big conspiracy. The Bride didn't actually kill herself in public, faking her death and putting a look-alike in the morgue. After killing her abusive husband, she allowed a co-conspirator to shoot her to put a proper body in the morgue (she had TB anyway). All the other killings were committed by members of the conspiracy dressed up as the Bride, frequently by the men's wives themselves. It's heavily implied they deserved it. This also serves to convince Sherlock that Moriarty is indeed dead, and that someone else uses his name to commit crimes.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', the group slides into a world where America has an aristocracy, and Rembrandt's double is a nobleman (for reference, Rembrandt is black). The press mentions that their Rembrandt was last seen dragged away by a river never to be seen again. After their Rembrandt is assumed to be him and impregnated (ItMakesSenseInContext), the sliders start looking into the clues. They fairly quickly find out that this world's Rembrandt faked his death in order to escape all the media attention and enjoy a peaceful life. However, after finding out that his baby is in another man's body (once again, watch the episode for context), he returns to the world.
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'':
** Clark has a routine of [[XRayVision x-raying]] the graves of anyone who's supposed to be dead, like Emily Dinsmoore or Chloe, determining whether or not there's a body. Emily's body is used for Lex's cloning experiments and Chloe is shoved into an underground tunnel before her house blows up, although Lex lies to him and said there isn't a body to bury because she was blown into millions of pieces.
** When Lex was stranded on a deserted island his father buried a coffin for him thinking that he must be dead.
* Inverted with ''Series/StargateSG1'' baddies where finding the body is a prerequisite for the sarcophagus and [[BackFromTheDead resurrection]]. Apophis didn't die until he was left for dead on a Replicator-infested ship about to crash into a planet. Because of the number of times he actually survived things like this, the scene was complete with Replicators crawling across his [[DeflectorShields Personal Shield]], an inarticulate scream of rage, and the viewers actually getting to see the ship crash.
** It still didn't stop them from making a LampshadeHanging in the very next episode, when Jack O'Neill, after claiming that there a 100 percent chance of Apophis [[DeaderThanDead being gone for good]]. He finds himself looking at the unconvinced faces of those around him and changes it to a 99 percent certainty.
** Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis both frequently use this trope, with many of the {{Big Bad}}s simply "dying" by ship explosion or freezing. See Anubis, a few dozen times, as well as most other system lords at least once, and Michael in Atlantis.
*** Given the fact that Anubis ''has'' no body, this trope is conspicuously accurate.
** The cast of Atlantis doesn't believe that Weir is actually dead until told so by her replicator-clone when they finally pack up her quarters after she's taken out. A copy of Weir is shown to be alive as intro to a plotline that isn't followed up on for a while after the replicator planet is destroyed. She eventually comes back, in a different body and ultimately dies via HeroicSacrifice.
** A few of Daniel Jackson's [[TheyKilledKennyAgain many deaths]] qualify.
*** Back in the first season an episode started with the rest of the team coming back through the gate saying that he had been incinerated by a gas vent, but shortly after his funeral it turned out that they had actually been abducted and everyone but Daniel had been given false memories and allowed to escape.
*** Much later he actually did die (and partially ascend) but the others had no idea of his fate and Jack vehemently refused to declare him dead, having noticed his tendency to turn up alive every other time.
* ''Series/StrangerThings'':
** In Season 1, Dr. Brenner is last seen getting attacked by the Demogorgon, but his death is never explicitly confirmed. His appearances in the subsequent seasons consist entirely of hallucinations and flashbacks, until [[spoiler:he appears live and in the flesh in Season 4 to help Eleven regain her powers]]. [[spoiler:He's eventually KilledOffForReal after being gunned down by sniper fire.]]
** At the end of Season 3, Hopper is presumed dead following the explosion that shuts down the dimensional portal in the Russian base, yet no one is able to find his body. The following season reveals he's alive and forced to do manual labor in a Russian gulag.
** In the Season 4 finale, despite having his underlings slain and losing power and subsequently taking multiple molotov cocktails and shotgun blasts before falling out of an attic, [[spoiler:Vecna manages to muster the strength to run off and hide]]. [[spoiler:Will outright confirms that he's still alive at the end of the episode.]]
* When the Roadhouse burns down in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. Ellen Harvelle's body is not found. She reappears in the next episode [[Recap/SupernaturalS02E22AllHellBreaksLoosePartTwo "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Two" (S02, Ep22)]].
* ''Series/{{Titus}}'': "Your father said you fell into a bonfire, and were swept into the sea, and then your body was eaten by rats." "Well, yeah, but I didn't die."
* The original Stig on ''Series/TopGear'', who drove off an aircraft carrier, leaving only a black glove behind. WordofGod states, however, that he was KilledOffForReal.
%%* Lynn Echolls in ''Series/VeronicaMars''. Her abandoned car is found by a bridge and her body was never found.
* Cigarette Smoking Man on ''Series/TheXFiles'' was shot by a sniper because of his increasing closeness to Mulder and distance from the rest of The Syndicate, early in Season 5. His body was never found, but there was supposedly too much blood for him to have survived the shooting. He wasn't mentioned again until February Sweeps, when he was revealed to be alive and well and living somewhere in Canada. This was perhaps a bit different from the usual way this trope is played out since it was pretty clear that the writers intended the death to be temporary from the start and the fans knew it.

[[folder:Music]]
* The pilot in Music/KimWilde's song "Cambodia" goes missing in action just when his wife is expecting him to return home.
* The song ''Music/ToKeepMyLoveAlive'', there's Sir Alfred, who's sent on a hunting trip. As the song goes, "They're hunting for him still".
* In the song "Hazard" by Richard Marx, a young woman goes missing and the narrator is blamed for the disappearance, but they never find the body. Averted in the [[MusicVideoOvershadowing accompanying video]] however, which adds a lot of backstory, several additional suspects not mentioned in the song, and importantly a corpse.
* In the song "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia", by Creator/VickiLawrence, the female narrator of the song admits she was the actual killer of her brother's friend Andy (whom the brother has been wrongly executed for murdering). She murdered Andy and the brother's cheating wife (Who'd also slept with "That Amos boy, Seth") and confesses that the the wife "never left town" as most people thought but rather was killed by her but "That's one body that'll never be found".

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
* Practically a staple of Cherokee folklore. Ulagu, Spearfinger, and other monsters are given uncertain demises that suggest they may just be biding their time.
* Also a staple of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. There's Elijah, Enoch, Moses, Mary mother of Jesus, and UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} himself. The first two are explicitly confirmed not to have died, the latter died and were buried, but God never disclosed where Moses' body went, Mary's tomb was later found to be empty (and many believe she was bodily assumed into Heaven), and Jesus came BackFromTheDead, bodily [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascending to Heaven]] in full view of his original band of Disciples later on. (What he did with his body after that is not known, though Christians, not sharing the Gnostics' presumption that flesh and blood are evil, presume he's still using it). The ultimate form is the ''Rapturos'' ("Catching Away") a.k.a. the Rapture, which will involve the resurrection of the dead, and every living member of the Faithful ascending into Heaven, presumably leaving many ''more'' empty graves and tombs.

[[folder:Pinball]]
* In ''Pinball/WhoDunnit1995'', the brakes on Tex's car are sabotaged by Butler after he overhears Tex threatening Victoria. Tex drives off a cliff and the car explodes, but the body was never found. He gets plastic surgery, renames himself "Bruno", and plots revenge on Victoria.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* In ''Podcast/InStrangeWoods'', unlike Jacob, Howl's body was never found, leading some characters to speculate that he survived and went elsewhere.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/AyakashiRomanceReborn'''s Keijiro, who was declared dead by the [[AsianFoxSpirit Kitsune]] village he betrayed...but his family suspects he might not be. It's implied he is, in fact, alive, and visited the protagonist in the guise of his nephew, Toichiro.
* ''Franchise/BatmanArkhamSeries'':
** In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'': Ra's and Talia al Ghul are ''both'' killed onscreen, but both of their bodies vanish shortly after. Given that the League of Assassins is in the area, resurrection seems possible.
** In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' DLC "The Season of Infamy", we see the conclusion of this in the "Shadow War" episode. Ra's has been resurrected by the League, and Batman even mentions that his body wasn't recovered from Arkham City. Talia meanwhile has a morgue drawer with her name on it, but the door is open and there's no body inside...
* The justification for the Moredhel invasion of the Kingdom in ''VideoGame/BetrayalAtKrondor'' is that their leader Delekhan claimed that their previous leader Murmandamus was captured and being held prisoner after their defeat in the last war, something he is able to convince people of because nobody on their side of the battlefield saw Murmandamus' death. At the end of the game, the heroes arrange for the Magician Pug to conjure up a highly convincing illusion so that the Moredhel can see both Delekhan and Murmandamus "die" in battle so that nobody can use that excuse to unite the Moredhel clans again.
* In ''VideoGame/BillyHatcherAndTheGiantEgg'', when you defeat a boss they [[EverythingFades fade away]]. Dark Corvo however, does not. He instead falls into a pool of darkness that materializes underneath him, without fading away, leading fans to wonder whether he's actually dead or not.
* In ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'', during the mission "Vorkuta", Reznov and Mason orchestrate a prison break from the titular gulag that ends with them being the only two prisoners that successfully escape. Once outside the prison, Reznov distracts their pursuers by drawing them away from their escape train believing that freedom could only be achieved for Mason. He reappears later on in the campaign and becomes Mason's ally throughout subsequent missions, but later it is revealed that, officially speaking, he died after being recaptured by Vorkuta's guards and that the Reznov we saw afterwards is a hallucination in Mason's mind. Though it is revealed that the body was never found and a man heavily implied to be Reznov gives a CIA contact an e-mail telling him he is willing to help Mason out and provide freedom for both of them this time, his survival has never been confirmed by any subsequent games in the series.
** The mission "Executive Order" ends with Mason and his team hunting down and seemingly killing [[BigBad General Dragovich]] by blowing up his limo. Mason demands that they recover his body to confirm the kill, but Woods assures him that he's definitely dead. Surely enough, he appears later on alive and well.
** In the mission "Payback", Woods and Kravchenko appear to both get killed by the latter detonating his belt of grenades, though the explosion occurs offscreen so it's never confirmed in the moment. ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsII'' reveals that they both survived this altercation.
* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''. Crono is outright obliterated when he confronts Lavos, with the immensely powerful monster completely disintegrating his body. His body ''visibly'' disintegrates in the beam. However, this is a TimeTravel story, and using the titular Chrono Trigger, a life-sized doll of Crono, and a bit of time travel, the party manages to go back in time, freeze time, and swap out Crono for the doll, allowing him to survive. Interestingly, this is the first time in the entire plot that the party actually manages to meaningfully change history -- [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong but it won't be the last.]]
* Kane in the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' series. The first time he was at ground zero of an ion cannon blast, which shouldn't ''leave'' a body. The second, he was run through and left in an exploding temple. The third, all of Eastern Europe exploded. The man has serious PlotArmor.
** In an alternate ending to the first game, he's specified as "missing, and presumed dead" after the player has witnessed him getting a surprised glance up at the rubble from his base coming down.
* This trope is also discussed in ''VideoGame/Condemned2Bloodshot'' when a note found on the corpse of the mayor indicates that Serial Killer X, the BigBad of the [[VideoGame/CondemnedCriminalOrigins first game]], is still alive. Ethan notes that the last time he saw SKX, "[[BoomHeadshot half of his face lined the inside of a trunk]]", to which Rosa responds that there was always the chance he was still alive since no body was ever recovered.
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor''. Aya is a major character in the backstory, who disappeared without a trace into the demon world before the game starts. Even when you go there at the game's end, you never find her.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''
** In the ''Return to Ostagar'' DLC, Duncan's body is noticeably missing. You can find his weapons still imbedded in the Ogre but not Duncan himself. WordofGod says he's dead -- and since he hasn't made a reappearance up to the end of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', fourteen years after he started getting the nightmares leading up to his Calling, it looks likely he's not around anymore, making this trope averted in the usual spirit.
** A Dalish Elf Warden can play this card throughout their origin whenever they're discouraged from looking for Tamlen on grounds that he's probably already dead. Well, it turns out he may or may not be, it just depends on what you consider "[[TragicMonster alive]]".
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** This happened to the ''entire'' [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Dwemer]] race in the {{backstory}}. Sometime around the Battle of Red Mountain in the First Era, the Dwemer, every last one, vanished off the face of Nirn in an instant.[[note]]the only known remaining Dwemer wasn't on Nirn at the time, being off exploring outer realms. Otherwise it covered ''everyone'' -- including a breakaway faction of Dwemer that had settled on the other side of the continent centuries earlier and so far as can be told had nothing to do with whatever the Morrowind Dwemer were up to.[[/note]] Their disappearance remains a RiddleForTheAges both in-universe and out amongst the fandom, though the most commonly accepted theory is that they tried to use the [[CosmicKeystone Heart of Lorkhan]], the still-beating heart of the [[GodIsDead "dead" creator god]] of Mundus, the mortal plane, to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence, and it either [[GoneHorriblyWrong failed spectacularly]] or it ''[[GoneHorriblyRight succeeded]]''. This also may not technically be an example, as they ''did'' leave behind remains in a few cases -- in one Dwemer ruin, you find piles of ash on beds, at workstations, in the halls surrounded by guard uniforms, etc. as if they disintegrated where they stood. But that doesn't make them necessarily ''dead''...
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', BigBad PhysicalGod Dagoth Ur disappears after [[PlayerCharacter the Nerevarine]] unbinds the Heart of Lorkhan, the source of his (and the Tribunal's) divine power. The chamber he was in also collapses into the lava below, further complicating matters. However, his last words would seem to indicate that he did indeed die.
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', this happens to [[BigBad Alduin]] after [[PlayerCharacter the Dragonborn]] defeats him in Sovngarde. However, in this case, it's not so much that his body isn't found, but that his [[YourSoulIsMine soul isn't absorbed]]. All dragons can be resurrected unless their soul is absorbed by another dragon or dragonborn, meaning that Alduin will likely return to fulfill his role as the BeastOfTheApocalypse when it is time. It's just that now he will perform his duties on the schedule Akatosh intends rather than pursuing his own agenda.
* This happens with Joseph's body at the end of ''VideoGame/TheEvilWithin'', which gave rise to the belief, or rather to a glimmer of hope, that he is alive and there might be a sequel on the way.
* In the backstory of ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'' Sunny pulls this with the destruction of the Sword and Solaris. Justified, as if she had been killed in the explosion there wouldn't have been anything left to find.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':
** In ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', you can discover the logs of a search party that went to look for a child named Cheryl, who they never found, and you only find one of the party members' corpses. Similarly, of the Brandice family that lived in Grayditch, you can only find the father's body.
** In ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', one would suspect nuclear destruction of the world and the passage of 200 years would be enough to kill an insignificant character like the Vault Tech representative from the opening scene, but he turns up later alive and well as a ghoul.
%%* Occurs in ''VideoGame/FarCry2'' with The Jackal.
* Jankowski in ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon FEAR]]'' vanishes early on in the game. Although he continues to appear as a ghostly figure from time to time, his eventual fate is left unknown.
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'', Kain is apparently killed in an earthquake caused by a summoned Titan, but his body is never found and he turns up alive later in the game.
** Turned [[ExaggeratedTrope Up to Eleven]] in ''Final Fantasy Legend 3'' when Dion reveals he has a bomb built into his body as a last resort -- which he then uses, blowing himself to kingdom come to eliminate an enemy forcefield. With just a couple tissue samples, the local super-scientist is able to fully reconstitute both Dion and the hero's years-dead father in a matter of moments -- all memories intact.
** This seems to happen constantly in the ''Stormblood'' expansion of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''. Gotsetsu and Yotsuyu, Nidhogg, and more...and then at the end of the 'Dawn of a New Sun' quest, ''Zenos Yae Galvus.'' The only person who hasn't come back, it seems, is [[ButtMonkey Grynewaht]].
* ''Franchise/FireEmblem'':
** The Black Knight from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance''. Ike beats the tar out of him late in the game, but no one can find his corpse because the fortress crashes down after the final duel. He then comes back in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' to aid Micaiah and the Dawn Brigade. In the original Japanese version, he explains that some malfunctioning warp powder sent a shade of himself to fight Ike; in the international version, he states that ILetYouWin and most likely escaped afterwards using some warp powder.
** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates: Conquest'', Takumi jumps off of a rampart after you beat him in Chapter 23 and is presumably killed in the fall...but Corrin and the Nohrians are unable to recover a corpse. Sure enough, he's NotQuiteDead and comes back in the endgame for one last piece of you.
** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', this trope gets used a few times:
*** Four years before the game's start, the king of Faerghus, his queen consort, and several knights are ambushed and murdered in an incident that comes to be known as The Tragedy of Duscur. However, late into the Azure Moon route, Dimitri learns (from an UnreliableExpositor, admittedly) that the queen consort, his stepmother, was in on the plot as a way to get back to the Adrestian Empire and see her daughter (Edelgard) again. It turns out that, while they recovered the king's body, hers was nowhere to be found. The route then leaves the truth of her involvement ambiguous.
*** Happens with Dimitri during the TimeSkip on all routes except Crimson Flower. Faerghus's regent, Dimitri's uncle, is assassinated, and the court mage, Cornelia, blames Dimitri for the crime. He is arrested and slated to be executed, but the execution is done privately and no body is ever shown. It turns out Dimitri escaped with the help of his vassal, Dedue.
*** In fact, it's how the TimeSkip plays out. During the Battle of Garreg Mach, [[PlayerCharacter Byleth]] is knocked into a chasm by either Rhea (in Crimson Flower) or in Thales (in any other route). Their body is never recovered, leading some to believe they perished in the battle (although others search high and low for them). However, the battle instead left them in a coma, from which they awaken five years later.
* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys1'':
** The animatronics kill night guards by forcefully stuffing them inside sharp and dangerous animatronic suits, essentially shredding their body (besides the eyeballs and teeth), allowing [[CorruptCorporateExecutive the management]] to simply sweep any blood and guts under the carpet and file a missing person report afterwards (as per stated company policy) to cover their rears from legal repercussions. Phone Guy is even implied to have met his end this way.
** Through hidden posters that randomly show up, you learn that five children disappeared at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza one day and no bodies, alive or dead, were found. However, no one ever seems to have checked inside the suits, as some time afterwards the animatronics began to smell bad, leak blood and mucus, and get compared to rotting carcasses.
* Played straight in ''VideoGame/{{Freddy Pharkas|FrontierPharmacist}}'' by Creator/{{Sierra}}, where at the end of the game it is revealed that Penelope Primm's body was never found within the ashes of the exploded schoolhouse, posing the potential for a sequel that ultimately never occurred.
* Kratos from ''VideoGame/GodOfWarIII''. It took until ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'' to confirm his survival.
* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', Wallace Breen is last seen at the center of an exploding teleporter. Just before, he discusses a "host body" in another universe with his Combine overlords. As this is [[VaporWare the Half-Life series]] we're talking about, we may never know what became of him...
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** For troop morale, "Spartans never die!", they only get listed as Missing in Action. Given the missions they are sent on, there are rarely any bodies to cover up (indeed, standard practice is for surviving teammates to detonate the miniature nuclear reactors fueling their fallen comrades PoweredArmor, to prevent the armor falling into enemy hands). Interestingly, Dr. Catherine Halsey, the creator of the Spartans-[=IIs=], makes it a point of keeping track of which ones are really dead. This allows her in ''Literature/HaloGhostsOfOnyx'' to identify Kurt (his EVA suit had malfunctioned before he was thrown into deep space, but he was actually secretly snatched by ONI) when they reunite. Kurt himself goes on to update his status as MIA before performing a HeroicSacrifice by nuking a Covenant army at point-blank range.
** At the end of ''VideoGame/Halo4'', the Ur-Didact falls into a slipspace portal. ''ComicBook/HaloEscalation'' reveals that he survived, but does it to him ''again'' when he's seemingly killed by the Composers; yeah, he was disintegrated, but the Composers store and preserve the "essences" of those they "compose", and can convert them into mechanical constructs...
* ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'': If the protagonist doesn't convince Dys to stop setting up the bomb near the colony walls, they worry with their friends about Dys's fate. He mysteriously disappears during the explosion, and it's unknown if he died in it or survived.
* Despite the backstory not being revealed until, well, the final act, the main villain of ''VideoGame/{{Killswitch}}'' had this happen. When confronted by the protagonist in the backstory, he's told that he's dead, but counters with the question of whether or not they found a body (which they didn't). At the end of the game, after viciously killing the villain, the protagonist's VoiceWithAnInternetConnection asks if the BigBad is dead, to which to protagonist replies, "I see a body. Mission complete."
* In ''VideoGame/LostHorizon'', when Kim is apparently killed in an avalanche, Fenton is unable to go check the truck's wreckage due to some Nazis on the surviving truck arriving to shoot at him. Sure enough, it turns out that Kim survived (albeit still in Nazi custody).
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''. At the [[DownerBeginning very beginning]], Harbinger springs a surprise attack on Shepard's ship, the ''Normandy'', in order to kill Shepard, given what s/he did to Sovereign at the end of the previous game. The ''Normandy'' is utterly destroyed, and Shepard ''does'' die, but Harbinger specifically sends out patrols to find the body just to be sure. As it turns out, this is justified; human-survivalist group [[NGOSuperpower Cerberus]] gets Shepard's body to resurrect him/her. A tie-in comic reveals that Harbinger actually got Shepard's body first, but Liara recaptured it for Cerberus.
* In ''VideoGame/TheMatrixOnline'', Neo's body was never found...leading to several EpilepticTrees and UrbanLegends about his current status. (Alive? Dead? Reincarnated? Assimilated by the Machines? The world may never know.)
* Zero in ''VideoGame/MegaManZero4'', after destroying a ColonyDrop ''from the inside''. All that remained is his broken helmet.
* Somewhat subverted in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', where the game's intro has Solid Snake infiltrate a tanker carrying a new Metal Gear, and then watch as a group of Russian terrorists take over. He goes into the hold where the Metal Gear is kept, and then witnesses Ocelot claiming RAY as his own, and then Snake's clone/brother Liquid takes control of Ocelot using the arm that was transplanted onto him after Liquid's apparent death from FOXDIE. Shortly afterwards, the tanker explodes, and Snake is presumed dead. From then on, you play as Raiden, and soon enough you encounter and team up with the oddly-familiar Pliskin, who makes repeated attempts to assure you that Snake is dead. It's mentioned that they '''did''' find the body. Although it was missing an arm for some reason. Minor detail, really. It was actually Liquid's body, and the missing arm is the one now attached to replace Ocelot's own after he lost it to the Cyborg Ninja early in the first ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid''.
* In ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'', the assassin known only as "the Deleter" shoots one of the Federation troops in the back and tosses his corpse into a pool of lava. The victim's identity is not shown in the cutscene, but [[spoiler:Keiji Misawa]] is the only member of the squad left unaccounted for by the end of the game. His corpse is never recovered for obvious reasons, and in the epilogue he is listed as "missing in action".
* We are told in ''VideoGame/{{Moonmist}}'' that Deirdre Hallam apparently died when she allegedly jumped or fell into a deep well at the basement of Tresyllian Castle, and her body was never found, although it is later revealed in the red variation that she was actually FakingTheDead.
* In ''VideoGame/Mother3'', Flint obsessively looks for his son Claus (who went on a search for his mother's killer and never came back) due to not finding a corpse in the area. [[DramaticIrony Unfortunately, he was looking in the wrong places, leaving Claus a target for the Pigmasks]].
* If you revive Ammon Jerro in ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2: Mask of the Betrayer'', he's able to tell you what became of all of your teammates in the original campaign after you defeated the LoadBearingBoss in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, except for the githzerai cleric Zhjaeve. He didn't see her get out, but he never saw her die either, and has no idea what happened. Lore-minded players have noted that high-level githzerai can plane-shift once per day, so it's possible that, task completed, Zhjaeve got out that way and went home to Limbo.
* In ''[[VideoGame/NinjaGaiden Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom]]'', Irene Lew is proclaimed dead after she falls from a cliff and into the sea while being chased by Ryu's evil Doppelganger. It turns out [[HesJustHiding she was just hiding]]. Also, Ken Hayabusa in the first NES game.
* In ''VideoGame/NoOneLivesForever'', during the first briefing, Cate talks about how Volkov got shot in the face, threw himself off a cliff into an icy river. "It was presumed he survived, as no body was ever recovered.
* Inverted in a particularly bizarre way in ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment.'' Your character is an amnesiac, regenerating immortal. At one point, you find ''your own corpse'', and can wield your own desiccated, mummified arm as a club.
* ''VideoGame/PeretEmHeruForThePrisoners'': If Ayuto is unable to save [[spoiler:Nei Ichikawa]] from being [[AllCrimesAreEqual judged]], Professor Tsuchida invokes this -- they never actually ''confirmed'' whether the victim was [[spoiler:trapped in any of the coffins]], making it entirely possible that they're still alive and can potentially be found deeper within the ruins. This is purely a MotivationalLie, and Ayuto recognizes it as such... but still tries to hold out hope that it's true. [[spoiler:During the escape sequence, Nei ''does'' reappear, but only to crush those hopes by attacking Ayuto as a reanimated corpse.]]
* In ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheMiracleMask'', it's stated that eighteen years previously, Randall Ascot -- the Professor's childhood friend and the one responsible for sparking his interest in archaeology -- fell to his death while he and Layton were trying to find the Mask of Chaos, the titular MacGuffin being worn by the main villain. In the flashback depicting this, Randall is seen falling but not landing. It's later revealed that not only did Randall survive, he found the Mask of Chaos and ''[[BigBad is the one wearing it]]''.
* In ''VideoGame/PsychoKiller'', after the titular killer dies by drowning, the game says they never found his body.
* [[BigBad Ad]] [[EvilSorcerer Avis]] in the second ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory''. Though for his inevitable surprise return some two full games later, he was DemotedToDragon because VampireBitesSuck.
* ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' does this frequently; the most recent example though has Jill Valentine push Wesker out a window and they proceeded to fall off a cliff. Their bodies were never found and they're presumed dead. Turns out she was brainwashed and dressed like a Venetian plague doctor. Of course, considering [[OurZombiesAreDifferent the series]], sometimes the person ''is'' dead, but you don't find the body because it got up and walked away anyway. (Plus, Wesker's defeat is framed in such a way that an official dead body is never seen.)
* ''VideoGame/ReturnOfTheObraDinn'': During chapters IV, VII and IX, several crew members end up vanishing without leaving behind a corpse, so a special "disappearances" page is added to the end of those chapters. The fates of these people are deduced by finding the memory in which they were last seen alive, and determining what was about to happen to them. While the vast majority turn out to have simply drowned, a few actually managed to escape the ship and are still alive at the time of the investigation.
* ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheThirdPower'': For the first phase of the final battle, Rowan and Sparrow seemingly die in a MutualKill. However, neither of their bodies are found when the party returns to the site of their battle. All that's left is Rowan's sword and Sparrow's cloak, along with a trail of blood leading down the mountain. It's unclear if one or both of them survived.
* In ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'' this occurs when Johnny Gat is presumed dead, implied to have been shot by Phillipe Loren at the beginning of the game. However, in ''Videogame/SaintsRowIV'' we learn that he was really abducted by Zinyak at that moment and Phillipe just took credit for the "kill" (while likely having no idea what really happened) to demoralize the Saints. Though this does [[PlotHole leave the question]]: where did Zombie Johnny Gat come from, exactly?
* An interesting variation occurs with ''VideoGame/{{Smite}}'''s lore. A number of gods are seemingly killed off, and the deaths themselves avert this, as bodies are confirmed. The trope comes into play during the Odyssey: Underworld event where the gods of death confirm that the slain gods never arrived at their respective lands of death, leading into the reveal that they were [[OnlyMostlyDead held captive in a near death state by Persephone]].
* ''Creator/{{SNK}}'' pulled this with Geese Howard and Rugal Bernstein. Geese's version was more complex: he plummets off of the top floor of his tower in the first game, [[NotQuiteDead but manages to survive by the skin of his teeth.]] Then his next plot involves him achieving {{Immortality}} by [[ImmortalityInducer using the Jin scrolls]]. It's implied that when he is KilledOffForReal (by getting a second boot off the tower from Terry) that when he falls to his apparent death, the body is not found. Rugal's was more subtle. He self-destructs his own aircraft carrier and is presumed dead because there were no remains after the crash. This has caused speculation that the Rugal in '95 is an experimental clone used to monitor the {{Orochi}} power. It's also implied that he's working with NESTS somehow, as seen in 2002. Also, he doesn't flicker away like all the other [[PlotlineDeath "dead"]] strikers like Goenitz.
* Played with in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' where Guile believes that his friend and mentor Charlie Nash is still alive specifically because, well, they [[InvokedTrope never found the body.]] ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV'' makes this worse by showing that he ''is'' alive, but despite seemingly dying at the end of its story mode, his status is listed as "Unknown".
* The ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' series does this a lot. In ''Tekken 3'', Ogre killed a bunch of people and absorbed some of their moves. However, it turns out that his only victim is the first King, since we have his successor (the second King) taking his place afterwards and his story explicitly said he wanted revenge for the first King. Wang, Bruce, Lee, Anna, and Baek were revealed to be OK (Baek did encounter him, but he didn't die). Kunimitsu simply retires from fighting and thieving, but her health is worsening, necessitating the replacement by her daughter (but bottom line, Ogre didn't kill her). The most important one is Jun: For the longest time, we think of her being killed because Jin said so and he's the 'witness' of her battle against Ogre and her 'death'. Turns out, the trope rears its head again: Jin only thinks of her dead because he can't find her corpse anywhere. Jun instead goes into hiding for reasons, and she officially makes her return in ''VideoGame/Tekken8''.
** There are also several characters that, if not immortal beings, have identical successors (King and Armor King, Roger, Kuma, Law, possibly Yoshimitsu) or cyborg reincarnates (Alyssa, Brian), or are robots (All the various Jacks).
** By the way, that is before counting the Mishimas, who frequently get shot, laser blasted, burnt, blown up, trapped underneath a haunted temple for 50 years with the supreme evil being, flung off cliffs, thrown out of helicopters, and in one notorious case ''dropped into a volcano'', with no ill effects.
* ''Franchise/TombRaider'':
** Amanda in ''VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend''. She apparently drowned during the flashback sequence, but when Lara returns to the cavern in the present day, there are no remains except an untied shoe. Later revealed to be NotQuiteDead.
** At the end of ''[[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheLastRevelation The Last Revelation]]'', the temple of Seth collapses, and there seems to be [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat no way Lara could survive it]]. As shown at the end of ''[[VideoGame/TombRaiderChronicles Chronicles]]'', the recovery team found her backpack, but not the body. She was NotQuiteDead yet. Although she suffered a FateWorseThanDeath gameplay-wise in ''[[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness The Angel of Darkness]]''. Heck, this whole story arc was retconned out when Crystal Dynamics took over the series.
** Kurtis at the end of ''The Angel of Darkness''. WordofGod confirmed that he survived and was meant to return in the scrapped sequel.
* ''VideoGame/TrailsOfColdSteel:'' At the end of the first game, Chancellor Osborne is assassinated, starting a civil war. During the second game, we find out that his body has disappeared, so it isn't much of a surprise when he turns up alive and well at the end. He is vague about how he survived: "Maybe I had a body double. Maybe you need to check your eyesight."
* Some mooks discuss this in ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd''. After Nate ends up in a shipwreck, some guards wonder if he's dead. Another notes that in [[UnluckilyLucky his case, unless there's a body, he definitely is not dead.]]
* In ''VideoGame/VirtuaCop 2'', the plot states that when Joe Fang's helicopter got shot down, his body was never found, then he returns once again as the final boss in the final stage, except he now flies using a jetpack instead but still uses missiles as his primary attack as well as a sword.
* In the last episode of Season 1 of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'', Kenny throws himself into a horde of zombies to help Lee find his way to Clementine and is last seen fighting them off by himself. In the summary at the end, he's stated to have been "lost to the horde". Naturally, he shows up in Season 2, where he [[HandWave simply states that he got really lucky]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Wick}}'' tells the story of the Weaver family whose house burned down. Their five children's bodies were never found.
* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' averts, inverts and subverts this trope repeatedly. In the game world, losers' bodies are [[RetGone erased]]. Averted because everyone participating in the Reapers' Game is already dead and they're competing to be returned to life rather than trying not to die, with [=NPC=] dialog and a memorial for two other characters indicating that three of Neku's companions left physical bodies behind when they died (in the game proper, at most an item of importance to an NPC will found post-erasure). Inverted because the body of Sho Minamimoto is found intact instead of having been erased, with some fans speculating from this that he's still alive. Subverted in a previous battle between Joshua and Sho Minamimoto, where the latter deploys a 'nuke' that is presumed to erase them both, although they both turn up alive again. Joshua is the [[PhysicalGod Composer]] and using his god powers [[DimensionalTraveler jumps into another universe]] to avoid it, while Minamimoto [[ThanatosGambit planned for his own death]] and used a [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Taboo Noise refinery sigil]] to set up his own revival in a stronger form.
* Turalyon and Alleria in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''.
** Bolvar Fordragon and Dranosh Saurfang, whose shield and armor respectively were all that could be found of them after their would-be deaths at the Wrathgate. To the surprise of the other characters, [[IKnewIt but not the playerbase]], both of them showed up again in Icecrown Citadel.
** Many characters in the old world, after a [[BigBad big dragon]] [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt re-emerges with a vengeance]] in the Cataclysm expansion.
** In the Red Ridge Mountains, Bravo Company takes on the black dragon Darkblaze and die in a HeroicSacrifice; while the rest of the team dies during the fight, their leader, John J. Keeshan leaps on the dragon and kills it mid-flight. His body does show up, alive and well, continuing the fight after [[TookALevelInBadass taking another 30 levels of Badass]].
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3FutureRedeemed'': Discussed; Matthew has been searching for his sister Na'el ever since the destruction of the City. He bitterly notes that since City people [[DisappearsIntoLight Disappear Into Light]] when they die, there's no way to be sure she's dead. He could keep searching forever and never find any hint one way or another. Of course, at this point, the audience is already well aware she's still alive.
[[/folder]]

* In Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's ''Book of the Dead'' Diogenes is pushed off of a volcano. There is much speculation since there seem to be several cases of this trope in each book of the ''Literature/AgentPendergast'' series. Even when there is a body, as with Margo Green in the same book.

* A key problem the prosecution has in ''The Other Side of Midnight'' with their case against Noelle Page and Larry Douglas for the murder of Catherine, the latter's wife, is that her body was never found. That's because she fled the hotel before they could kill her and her rowboat capsized. But in truth, she was rescued by people employed by Constantin, whom Noelle is mistress to. Catherine, now an amnesiac, lives with an order of nuns; Constantin hides this so the lovers will pay for cuckolding him.

* Alistair Drummond in the second book of ''The Rampart Worlds'' trilogy by Creator/JulianMay. The protagonist, Asahel Frost, worries occasionally about whether he's actually dead. And then the guy turns out to be alive enough to steal Asa's identity while working with villainous aliens. When he's eventually killed off, the body is immediately in evidence, although mauled by a wolverine.

* ''Film/MyFavoriteWife'' (1940) and its remake, ''Move Over, Darling'' (1963): Ellen Arden was last seen falling into the ocean while trying to board a lifeboat to escape from a sinking ship. Her husband has her declared LegallyDead after seven years and remarries -- only for Ellen to return just as he is leaving on his honeymoon.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe2'', ''[[TestosteronePoisoning ludicrously]]'' macho supervillain El Macho is said to have died in the most macho way possible, by riding a shark into the mouth of an active volcano, with 250 pounds of dynamite strapped to his chest. All that was left of him is a single strand of chest hair. Sure enough, he's still alive.

* ''Hilariously'' {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe2'', when Gru spots what he believes to be El Macho, a ''[[TestosteronePoisoning ludicrously]]'' macho supervillain who died in the most macho way possible, by riding a shark into the mouth of an active volcano, with 250 pounds of dynamite strapped to his chest.
-->'''Lucy:''' He sounds pretty dead.\\
'''Gru:''' They never found the body! Only a pile of burnt chest hair!
** Near the climax of the movie, this example is played completely straight.

** Averted in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed Gundam SEED]]'' when the cracked helmet of Mwu La Flaga is seen floating in space after taking an anti-battleship cannon head-on. Then played straight in the compilation special as the helmet is edited out to set up his return in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]''.

* In ''WebOriginal/TheCrawlspace'', [[spoiler:Stephanie, Alisha and Lindsay]] went missing soon after the narrator fled back to America, and no trace of them was ever found, though the narrator is convinced they are dead.

When those left behind proceed to put the disappeared person's house in order, that's declaring the person LegallyDead. If the mortal remains are eventually found, it's FinallyFoundTheBody. If someone wants to hold a MeaningfulFuneral despite the lack of a body, it may involve BuryingASubstitute. Compare ChekhovMIA and FakingTheDead. Contrast MistakenDeathConfirmation, where the body is present and checked for lack of life signs.

* [[Characters/MarvelComicsTheKingpin The Kingpin]] realized immediately that Characters/{{Daredevil|MattMurdock}} was still alive when he learned that [[ComicBook/DaredevilBornAgain the car he was locked in]] and thrown into the river didn't contain his body. Sure, he might have drowned trying to reach the surface and sunk into the mud but...

** ''[[Literature/StarWarsAhsoka Ahsoka]]'': {{Invoked|Trope}} by Ahsoka while FakingTheDead. She and Rex created a fake grave for him, which they could do because he's a [[CloningBlues clone trooper]]; they simply buried an already dead clone in his place. Since they wouldn't be able to do the same for her, they put up a headstone claiming that they [[MutualKill killed each other]], and Ahsoka left her lightsabers atop the grave to sell the deception, because no one would buy that a Jedi would voluntarily leave behind her iconic weapons.

* In ''Fanfic/TheInstituteSaga'', [[Characters/XMenTheOriginalTeam Angel]] has his wings snapped by [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Gala]][[EvilTwin tea]] and is thrown into the ocean to drown. A memorial service is held for him and The Falcon takes up his mantle, but no one knows that Apocalypse rescued him and turned him into Archangel.

* This happens with Joseph's body at the end of ''VideoGame/TheEvilWithin'', which gave rise to the belief, or rather to a glimmer of hope, that he is alive and there might be a sequel on the way. Though this does [[PlotHole leave the question]]: where did Zombie Johnny Gat come from, exactly?

* In ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'' this occurs when Johnny Gat is presumed dead, implied to have been shot by Phillipe Loren at the beginning of the game. However, in ''Videogame/SaintsRowIV'' we learn that he was really abducted by Zinyak at that moment and Phillipe just took credit for the "kill" (while likely having no idea what really happened) to demoralize the Saints.