History Main / SerialKillingsSpecificTarget

Subtrope of SerialKiller. Related to MakeItLookLikeAnAccident and the {{Inverted}} form of MurderByMistake, both of which are other ways to disguise the significance of a murder victim. Compare NeedleInANeedleStack, a trope about hiding something among things that look similar, so that even if it's noticed, people won't think it's special.

* In ''Film/TheCabinetOfDrCaligari'', one unnamed character tries to murder his landlady and [[JackTheRipoff disguise it]] as the work of the SerialKiller who is already terrorizing the town.

* ''Film/MissCongeniality'': This is the BigBad's plan to get away with murdering the winner of the "Miss United States" beauty pageant: they set the whole thing up to look like it was committed by a notorious serial killer calling themselves "The Citizen". Backfires when "The Citizen" is captured by the FBI partway through the film, leaving the villains to improvise a new set of possible notes that would 'frame' other criminals for the attack.

* In ''Film/SherlockHolmesAGameOfShadows'', Moriarty bombs an entire hotel full of industrialists in order to obfuscate Moran's murder of one specific delegate.

Related to CrimeAfterCrime, another trope that often involves secondary murders surrounding a primary one, but with a crucial difference: with CrimeAfterCrime, the killer ends up having to commit additional murders that weren't originally planned (e.g. of [[HeKnowsTooMuch witnesses and/or blackmailers]]) in order to conceal the first murder, while with SerialKillingsSpecificTarget, the murderer plans ''right from the start'' to kill the extra victims simply to create a smokescreen for the primary murder. This trope therefore represents another level of heinousness and is ''very'' likely to push the killer over the MoralEventHorizon.

* A variant in ''Film/TheAlphabetKiller'': The murderer initially targeted a single victim, a girl named Carla Castillo. The fact that she had an AlliterativeName and few other details made the lead detective think there had to be a serial killer behind it and she drove herself crazy trying to prove it. [[spoiler: While in a support group, she met the killer without knowing it and related stories of how she'd lost her job to him. He felt bad for her, so he committed more murders of girls with alliterative names so that the police would see that her theory had been correct and give her back her job.]]
* PsychoForHire [[Creator/JohnLithgow Burke]] (a.k.a. "The Liberty Bell Strangler") adopts this method in ''Film/BlowOut'' to cover up a political assassination. The last witness to the killing was a call girl (played by [[Franchise/{{Robocop}} Nancy]] [[Film/{{Carrie|1976}} Allen]]), so he starts targeting women who resemble her, in the hope that when he finally ''does'' kill her, it won't seem particularly suspicious. [[spoiler: Despite being killed himself, he's completely successful.]]

* In ''Film/TheSleepingCarMurders'' 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 short story ''Hard Sell'' by Craig Rice, multiple door to door salesmen are murdered. [[spoiler: One of the victims has died by suicide, having previously killed the others so that his family will receive his insurance payout because the police will suspect a business rival or a serial killer.]]
* Another early example of the device, the Creator/JorgeLuisBorges story "Death and the Compass," offers an interesting DoubleSubversion in that the villain's intended victim is [[spoiler: the detective himself, who turns up early after deducing the particular place and time suggested by the pattern to try and stop the last murder. He thus becomes the victim of an ambush by the killer, his longtime ArchEnemy.]] As above, the added twist makes this story a bit of an early, UnbuiltTrope version of the device.

** In one episode, a comedian dies from drinking a poisoned bottle of water. Then a kid dies from drinking the same brand.[[spoiler: The first victim was the target, the killer (a rival comedian who hated his style) says he [[MoralMyopia blames the CSIs for not finding the poisoned bottle in time]] as he's arrested after confessing out of remorse.]]

** An unintentional example in "Code Blue Plate Special". When his brother refuses to agree to sell off their diner for a huge payday, an owner decides to have someone stage a robbery with the specific aim of shooting the brother. But it goes horribly wrong when [[spoiler: his brother fights back and ends up removing the guy's mask. Panicking, the guy proceeds to shoot the other seven people in the diner. The owner then came out of hiding to shoot the guy himself and make it look like he was a random customer. The guy defends himself on how it was just a bad idea gotten out of hand but Nick coldly points out how they realize his own daughter was still alive and saw the whole thing so he shot her himself to cover the massacre up.]]

* In ''Series/DaysOfOurLives'', the Salem Stalker killed one woman [[spoiler: (who was going to marry the man she loved)]] and was forced to keep killing people in order to cover up the murders.

** The murderer in "Dr Osler Regrets" poses as a serial killer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Osler#Controversy euthanizing the over-sixties with chloroform]]. Further complicated by [[spoiler: the killer [[JackTheRipOff copycatting]] a SuicideNotMurder he had an alibi for]].

* ''Series/PeterGunn'': "The Crossbow" centers around three seemingly random murders (an elderly recluse, a carnival fire-eater, and a judge) who were killed by a stolen crossbow. Suspicion falls on the weapon's owner, who was having problems with the judge concerning a possible property acquisition. However, a fourth murder happens while the owner is being detained by police. That death, along with forged checks found at the judge's murder scene, leads Gunn to the real killer - [[spoiler: the judge's disillusioned son, who used the checks to support a gambling habit]].

* The story of the ''Blood and Wine'' expansion of ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3'' starts with a string of murders of prominent knights of the Duchy of Toussaint, with the murderer's motive seemingly to punish these knights for failing to live up to one of the five Knightly Virtues of Honor, Valor, Generosity, Wisdom, and Compassion. If you decide to investigate further, you'll discover that the final target was Duchess Anna Henrietta. It turns out that [[spoiler: her sister Sylvia Anna was planning to kill Anna Henrietta to take vengeance for a tragic event during her childhood, which led to Sylvia's banishment.]] The murders of the previous victims were purposefully connected to the Five Knightly Virtues so people would assume these to be divine punishments and also assume the death of Anna Henrietta to be one, allowing[[spoiler: Sylvia Anna]] to be free of suspicion.

* In an episode of ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' dealt with a man and woman hitman pair who covered up their targets by killing 7 other random people alongside their target. Their current target is ADA Alex Cahill.

** Inverted in "[[Recap/MonkS8E7MrMonkAndTheVoodooCurse Mr. Monk and the Voodoo Curse]]": A paramedic leaves {{Voodoo Doll}}s 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 elderly uncle, who she then poisons with an untraceable drug for the inheritance, but he is the only one she actually to be murdered as the others died in freak accidents (hit by a baseball or struck by lightning).

** ''Literature/ThreeActTragedy'' has one that is disguised as a CrimeAfterCrime. An aged clergyman is killed by poison, and a respectable daughter is killed in a similar fashion at a different party that involves the same guest list. This is meant to mislead the investigators to think that the first victim was the intended target, and the second one has discovered something about the killer and has to be silenced. In fact, the intended victim is the second one, and the first one was randomly chosen.
** Not exactly a serial killing, but ''Literature/TowardsZero'' has a case where the murder victim and the intended target are not the same. Instead, the criminal murders an old lady and somehow ensures that their intended victim be charged with the crime and hanged for it.

* ''Literature/NickVelvet'': In "The Theft of Santa's Beard", two men dressed as Santa are killed, seemingly at random. Several large department stores then receive extortion letters warning that their Santa will be murdered in their store unless they make a large cash payment to the killer. However, the first two Santas were the intended victims all along, and the extortion attempt is a smokescreen.

* In ''ComicBook/TheMazeAgency'' story "The Return of Jack the Ripper?", a rando, nearly fatal, mugging attempt on one member of the Ripperologists gives a member the inspiration to kill their intended victim then try to kill the other members of the club to make it look like an organised series of attacks (including the first, unrelated attack).

* In ''ComicBook/TheMazeAgency'' story "The Return of Jack the Ripper?", an unrelated attack on one member of the Ripperologists gives a member the inspiration to kill their intended victim then try to kill the other members of the club to make it look like an organised series of attacks (including the first, unrelated attack).

* In 2001, Rosa Lewis filed for divorce from her husband William Charles Lewis. He was enraged, but much like the "Muhammad" example above, knew that the police would immediately focus on him if anything would happen to her. To that end, over several weeks, he randomly gunned down four other people -- one of whom was one of her co-workers -- leaving notes with the name "Jack" printed on them, culminating in shooting his wife herself. His efforts failed when (a) his wife survived; (b) while in the hospital, a friend of hers came to the police with a letter she had given him, explicitly stating that if anything happened to her, that her ex-husband was likely the one responsible; and (c) when the cops came to inform him of his wife's shooting, his IncriminatingIndifference made them suspicious, as well as the presence of paper and the type of pen similar to what was used to write the "Jack" notes.

* ''Series/InTheRed'' features a serial killer targeting bank managers who turns out to be this trope.

* In the short story ''Hard Sell'' by Craig Rice, multiple door to door salesmen are murdered. [[spoiler: one of the victims has died by suicide, having previously killed the others so that his family will receive his insurance payout because the police will suspect a business rival or a serial killer.]]

* An Arizona woman named Julie Andrews died after mysteriously collapsing at work, from what was later determined to be cyanide poisoning. It was later discovered that the water cooler and coffee pot at her workplace had been poisoned, meaning only sheer luck prevented a mass murder. The perpetrator turned out to be Lewis Harry Jr., a man who had been trying unsuccessfully to kill his wife for several months and, in frustration, decided to simply poison everyone in her office in the hopes that would work. [[EpicFail He still didn't manage to kill his wife]] and ended up serving a life sentence for killing a complete stranger.

** An unintentional example in "Code Blue Plate Special". When his brother refuses to agree to sell off their diner for a huge payday, an owner decides to have someone stage a robbery with the specific aim of shooting the brother. But it goes horribly wrong ''not'' when [[spoiler: the brother fights back - the owner expected that his brother would do that - but rather when his brother ends up removing the guy's mask. Panicking, the guy proceeds to shoot the other seven people in the diner. The owner then came out of hiding to shoot the guy himself and make it look like he was a random customer. The guy defends himself on how it was just a bad idea gotten out of hand but Nick coldly points out how they realize his own daughter was still alive and saw the whole thing so he shot her himself to cover the massacre up.]]