History Main / SerialKillingsSpecificTarget

-->'''HerculePoirot''', ''TheABCMurders'' by AgathaChristie

* ''TheABCMurders'' by AgathaChristie. The killer sets up an alphabetical motif: someone whose name begins with A is killed in a city that begins with A, and so forth. The "C" murder is the significant one; the victim is a wealthy man, killed by his brother in order to inherit his vast estate.

[[AC: Anime and Manga]]
* CaseClosed: A serial arsonist turns out to be doing this, inspired directly by TheABCMurders.
* Subverted in TheKindaichiCaseFiles: supposedly a serial killer has gotten loose and is killing everyone trapped in the ClosedCircle, but Kindaichi figures out that they're all connected. While the murderer ''is'' looking for one specific person, he doesn't care that he's killing innocents in the process.

* CaseClosed: A serial arsonist turns out to be doing this, inspired directly byTheABCMurders.

* In the Sleeping Car Murders a woman is strangled in her sleep before the train reaches Paris. However [[spoiler: the woman was chosen at random to hide the later murder of another passenger. One of the murderers is a police detective and knows that the police will concentrate on those with a motive to kill the first victim and consider the other murders of all the people in that compartment as getting rid of witnesses.]]

* In The List of Adrian Messenger a killer destroys a train and a plane just to get one person in each as part of a long range plan.

* ''{{Monk}}'': A doctor kills his date, but realizes that the cake in her stomach has gold leaf, which would show up in an autopsy and lead police to the one restaurant that does this and he'd get caught. So he kills one street performer in a ritualistic manner similar to a serial killer and [[CriminalMindGames sent messages to the police]] proclaiming himself as one to distract detectives until the stomach content decomposes.
** ''{{Monk}}'' also did it in another episode where a guy tried to get away with poisoning a chocolate bar that his wife liked by poisoning many other bars of the same brand and leaving them in amongst non-poisoned ones in a shop.
*** And inverted in yet ''another'' one; a paramedic leaves Voodoo Dolls in delivery packages at the homes of dead or dying patients she shows up to save, giving the impression the dolls were already there when the person died and that it is either the work of a very crafty serial killer, or even that some kind of magic was involved. She finally sends one to her still living and stinking rich uncle, who she then murders for the inheritance, but he is the only one she actually killed as the others died natural deaths.

* This is revealed to be the case in ''Satan Claus''. Sharon discovered her boyfriend was cheating on her with the police captain's wife, so she killed her, then used voodoo to take control of the captain and make him kill her boyfriend. The [[BadSanta Santa motif]] and the rest of the murders were just done to throw the authorities off, making them think there was just some psycho going on a random killing spree.

* Ronald Clark O'Bryan (nicknamed The Candyman) (October 19, 1944 – March 31, 1984) was a murderer from Deer Park, Texas (near Houston), who was convicted of killing his eight-year-old son Timothy on Halloween, 1974 with [[RazorApples cyanide-laced Giant Pixy Stix candy]] in order to claim life insurance money. It's alleged he tried to cover his tracks by giving poisoned candy to other children in an attempt to cover up his crime. However, Elizabeth, his daughter, and none of the other children ate any of the poisoned candy.

* It has been theorized that John Muhammad, the DC Beltway Sniper who randomly shot and killed 11 people and wounded six more, was eventually going to kill his ex-wife, knowing that the police would not automatically look at an ex-husband as a suspect if they thought she was just a random victim.

A killer has a particular target in mind. However, if that victim just turned up dead then the killer would be an obvious suspect. So the killer decides to kill a bunch of other people who share characteristics with the intended target to make the murders look like the work of a serial killer.

'''SPOILERS''' abound

* Seems to be the case ''The Nail Gun Massacre''. The rapist construction workers that are the actual targets are being killed along with tons of other completely random people.

*** And inverted in yet ''another'' one; a paramedic leaves Voodoo Dolls in delivery packages at the homes of dead or dying patients she shows up to save, giving the impression the dolls were already there when the person died and that it is either the work of a very crafty serial killer, or even that some kind of magic was involved. She finally sends one to her still living and stinking rich uncle, who she then murders for the inheritance.

* The David Eddings novel ''Regina's Song'' has the killer butchering about two dozen sexual predators in the Seattle area. Although in this case the reason for killing so many of them wasn't to cover up the specific target, it was because Renata didn't know where to find the specific sexual predator who raped and murdered her twin sister, and so just went trolling for rapists until she found the one she was looking for. It is implied that she would have stopped killing after that point even if she hadn't been caught afterwords.

* ''{{In the Red}}'' features a serial killer targeting bank managers who turns out to be this trope.

--> '''Castle''': "At one death you look for motive, at two you look for connection...at three you look for someone like Kyle [the above mentioned obsessive fan]; at three you don't need motive because mentally unstable serial killers don't usually have one.

* ''In the Red'' features a serial killer targeting bank managers who turns out to be this trope.

-> '''Alexis''': How do you get away with one murder by commiting two more?
-> '''Castle''': "At one death you look for motive, at two you look for connection...at three you look for someone like Kyle [the above mentioned obsessive fan]; at three you don't need motive because mentally unstable serial killers don't usually have one.

* In the pilot of ''{{Castle}}'', the killer murders his sister for her money, then stages the murder to look like something out of one of Castle's books and commits two similar murders so it'll look like one of her clients -- who's obsessed with the books -- did it.

* The serial killer in the "Blades" story arc from ''{{Batman}}: Legends of the Dark Knight #32-34''.
* In ''TheMazeAgency'' story "The Return of Jack the Ripper?", an unrelated attack on one member of the Ripperologists gives a mmember the inspiration to kill their intended victim then try to kill the other members of the club to make it look like a an organised series of attacks (including the first, unrelated attack).

* Done accidentally in an episode of TheSeventies TV series ''ElleryQueen''. [[WhoWouldWantToWatchUs A movie is being filmed based on Ellery]] and the man playing Ellery is killed by [[NotSoFakePropWeapon a gun that was supposed to be filled with blanks]]. Then a little while later - after recasting Ellery - the stunt double is killed in a stunt gone wrong. Is the production cursed? Is someone out to shut it down? It turns out that the stuntman was the target in the first place; he was originally supposed to do the getting shot stunt, but the scene was changed at the last minute, and the killer couldn't switch the guns back before it happened.

* ''TheABCMurders'' by AgathaChristie

* Done accidentally in an episode of TheSeventies TV series ''ElleryQueen''. [[WhoWouldWantToWatchUs A movie is being filmed based on Ellery]] and the man playing Ellery is killed by [[NotSoFakePropWeapon a gun that was supposed to be filled with blanks]]. Then a little while later - after recasting Ellery - the stunt double is killed in a stunt gone wrong. Is the production cursed? Is someone out to shut it down? It turns out that the stuntman was the target in the first place, he was originally supposed to do the getting shot stunt but at the last minute they changed it and the killer couldn't switch the guns back before it happened.