Advance Notice Crime

"A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 5th, at Little Paddocks at 6:30 pm. Friends please accept this, the only intimation."

— A Murder Is Announced

A criminal would generally want to keep his illegal plans secret. After all, if the crime is known in advance, it's more likely that it will be prevented, or that someone will be ready to collect evidence earlier.

Then there are these: criminals — oftentimes a Gentleman Thief or a Phantom Thief — who announce their crimes before committing them, letting others know when and where they will do what. It may be to the press (and, as a result, to the entire local population), to law enforcement, or to an individual who they want to know.

Reasons a criminal might do this include:

• The criminal is taunting the intended victim. This is particularly likely if the crime is motivated by revenge rather than gain.
  • In a variation, the criminal might be taunting the police and/or his heroic foes by sending the message "You can't stop me!"
  • The criminal has taken someone close to the victim hostage, and is certain that the victim won't do anything to stop them for fear of putting the hostage in serious danger.
• The criminal tips off an opponent in order to force a confrontation at a time and place of the criminal's choosing in order to set a trap or otherwise gain a tactical advantage.
• The criminal wants to build Villain Cred by pulling off crimes despite the extra difficulty of facing forewarned opponents.
• The criminal likes difficult challenges, and the extra difficulty of facing forewarned opponents makes committing crimes more enjoyable.
• The criminal is insane.
• The criminal in question is a Card-Carrying Villain who considers it good form to give a warning.
• The criminal is an Attention Whore.
• The criminal is deliberately calling attention to the crime because its real purpose is to cover up something else.

Compare Calling Card, which is left after the crime, although it may be itself the announcement for the next when a serial criminal is involved. May overlap with Villain Ball. If you're challenging law enforcement to do its best to stop you, see also Bring It.

(Note: This differs from Calling Your Attacks because that doesn't give the victim time to prepare for the crime as this trope does.)

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Cat's Eye: The titular cat burglar team loves to send cards to the police announcing their next theft, usually because they are factoring the police's attempts at creating countermeasures into their plan.
• D.N.Angel: Phantom Thief Dark will send a note to the media and authorities announcing his intention to steal a valuable piece of artwork. Or, in reality, the mother and grandfather of his current host, Daisuke Niwa, will send out a note, and Daisuke will then have to transform into Dark and successfully steal the item to resume his own form.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: "CASH EYE" begins with Motoko breaking into the corporate office of a CEO for the purpose of leaving a Calling Card. When Section 9 is brought in to investigate and provide security, Chief Aramaki interprets this as her message that her Cash Eye thief persona was going to return and break into the CEO's vault.
• Kaitou Saint Tail: Being a Phantom Thief, Saint Tail sends out warnings to Asuka Jr detailing exactly when she’s going to strike next and what she'll be trying to steal. But being a stage magician as well, she proceeds to make each one increasingly unique — one might be in an arcade machine’s game over screen, another might be on the side of a blimp. These warnings also double as love letters, something that completely flies over Asuka's head until it's pointed out to him by his own kidnapper (who, being from out of town, lacks the context to recognize it as a "theft warning").
• Lupin III: Like his grandfather before him, the titular thief regularly sends out calling cards before his robberies, telling exactly what he plans on stealing. This usually gives Zenigata time to plan how to catch him.
• In Mouse, the eponymous thief announces his crimes before he commits them, specifically to make the heist more challenging. Targets include Swiss banks (as in, the entire bank. He used a tunnel-boring machine and explosives.), collections of priceless gemstones, and masterpiece clocks. He also takes requests, stealing a recently-completed artificial island because the Chief of Police dared him to. It's later revealed that, at least some of the time, it's to add to the mystique of the artifacts he steals. For example, a much-touted "perpetual clock" (invented in the 1800s) that was about to wind down. If he'd left it alone, it would have failed in front of the whole world. If it gets stolen by Mouse on its 100th anniversary, the legend is allowed to continue.
• Phantom Thief Jeanne: Phantom Thief Jeanne always sends out an advance notice to her intended victims, little note cards that say "To <Enter Name Here>, tonight I shall help myself to the beauty in your painting"; she's actually on a mission from God to seal away demons which have possessed the paintings but doing so obliterates the art making her look like a thief. When Phantom Thief Sinbad appears on the scene, he starts sending out note cards just after hers saying he intends to beat her to the punch and steal the art first.
• Pokémon: The Original Series: As told in the episode "Spinarak Attack", the Black Arachnid was a famous thief in Catallia City 100 years earlier. One of his tactics was to send letters to his victims in advance of robbing them.
• Rurouni Kenshin: Early Arc Villain Udo Jin-e is introduced as an assassin targeting officials of the Meiji government. He often announces his Assassination Attempts beforehand because he enjoys cutting his way through the bodyguards on his way to the target.

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • In his very first appearance in Batman #1, the Joker announces live on public radio his intent to kill Henry Claridge and steal his diamond. He even gives an exact time for when he does this.
  • The Riddler sends riddles whose solutions provide clues about his crimes. Various interpretations of the character present this as a battle of wits intended to showcase his intellect or as a psychological compulsion to tell the truth which he works around by telling the truth in a difficult-to-interpret manner.
• The Black Knight: Arpin Luséne (an Affectionate Parody of Arsène Lupin) is a master thief who is so certain of his success that he tends to announce his crimes up front, sending his victims a postcard signed by his "Black Knight" alter ego, in addition to the usual Calling Card he does after he finishes the job. When he gains the indestructible suit of armor, he doesn't feel the need to even bother with subterfuge anymore, announcing to the citizens of Duckburg that he will steal all of Scrooge's money in broad daylight.
• Teen Titans: The Gentleman Thief André LeBlanc was so sure of himself that he would regularly announce his crime before committing them, smugly believing no-one could stop him.

Fan Works

• A Darker Path: Atropos's cape career debuts by creating a new PHO account and declaring that she's going to kill the gang leaders, one each day, if they don't give up. Then blocking the moderators' attempts to ban her or lock the thread. Then evading all attempts by law enforcement to stop her.
  Atropos: So, the leaders of those gangs I just named: Kaiser, Lung, Coil, Skidmark. You have twenty-four hours to either a) leave town for good or b) surrender to the PRT. In twenty-four hours from midnight tonight, if you haven't all done this, I'm going to kill one of you that hasn't. Just one.
  Then I'll start the clock again.

Film — Animation

• Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum, an installment of the series that pays homage to old-school detective stories, introduces the Gentleman Thief Kaitou DX who publicly announces his theft before committing them, by leaving behind a name-card with "Kaitou DX" on it, mere moments before he strikes.
• "The Dover Boys" features the villain Dan Backslide having a habit of announcing his evil intentions, due to being a No Indoor Voiced Large Ham.
  "A runabout! I'LL STEAL IT! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!"

Film — Live-Action

• In The Banshees of Inisherin, Pádraic warns Colm ahead of time that he is going to burn his house down, with or without him in it.
• In The Batman (2022), the Riddler posts a secure video for his followers, instructing them to massacre refugees from the seawall falling but also giving a way for Batman and the Gotham police to figure out in advance what's going to happen by hiding the password to unlock the video underneath his carpet.
• The Dark Knight: The Joker makes multiple announcements of his intentions, mainly to spread fear and panic.
  • The first is a self-made film clip sent to Gotham Central News showing him interrogating Brian, the Batman impersonator he captured and later killed, mocking him for his poor imitation of Batman and his belief that Batman's made Gotham a better place. He then says that Batman must unmask and turn himself in or...
    Joker: Oh, every day he doesn't, people will die...starting tonight. I'm a man of my word. [laughs maniacally as the view spins and Brian screams in the background]
  • His second message is a phone call to GCN while Coleman Reese is being interviewed, intending to expose Bruce Wayne as Batman. He says that he's changed his mind about wanting Batman exposed, and announces that if Reese isn't dead within the next hour, he'll blow up a hospital, which he ends up doing to Gotham General Hospital after freeing (and mentally twisting) Harvey Dent.
  • The third is his announcement of his plan with the two ferries to their crews and passengers, letting them know that each has a detonator for the explosives planted on the other ferry and that he will spare the people who blow up the other ferry, otherwise he'll blow up both of them himself. Ultimately, neither detonator is used, and Batman foils his attempt to blow them both up.
• The Pink Panther Strikes Again: Commissioner Dreyfus, Driven to Madness after yet another Humiliation Conga at the hands of Inspector Clouseau, undergoes a Face–Heel Turn and kidnaps the nuclear physicist Professor Fassbender, forcing him to build a Doomsday Device by torturing his daughter with Nails on a Blackboard. Some weeks later, Dreyfus then hijacks every television in the world, telling the world's governments that at 3 PM Eastern Standard Time, he will fire his weapon at the United Nations Building and erase it from the face of the earth. He then finishes his broadcast with an Evil Laugh and goes back to playing his Ominous Pipe Organ. A day later, Dreyfus fires the weapon and destroys the UN Building, as he promised. He then gives the world's governments an ultimatum: give Clouseau to him, or he will start destroying more national landmarks. Thus pressed, the entire world sends their top assassins to the Oktoberfest in Munich just to try murdering Clouseau — for all the good it does them.
• The stock subversion is done in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Lex Luthor sends out a high-frequency message that only Superman can hear warning that he's about to blow twenty stories off the top of a nearby skyscraper, but it turns out to be a trick to lure Superman in so Lex can sic his new creation Nuclear Man on him.

Literature

• In The ABC Murders, a murderer announces his crimes in letters to Hercule Poirot. Subverted for the third, as the letter was intentionally misaddressed to arrive after the murder, but played straight with the others.
• And Then There Were None: When the "guests" have all arrived at the mansion on the island, a record is played in which "U.N. Owen" (a play on "unknown") announces his intention to kill everyone in attendance as retribution for crimes which they escaped justice, either because the law could not touch them, or because they had concealed their crimes too well. There is even a rhyme that spells out how each of the victims is to die. The narrative makes plain before the story is out that each of them was guilty of the crime they were accused of, making all of them Asshole Victims.
• Arsène Lupin is possibly the Trope Codifier. Lupin frequently sends out calling cards to victims announcing his crimes as a way to set up audacious plans by playing to his reputation.
• The Black Falcon sends challenging letters to the police before his crimes to see if they can stop him based on what little he tells them and occasionally misleads them with Exact Words.
• Double Z does this partially to reinforce a misconception. His whole alias came into being because he left an item with his monogram, Matthew Wade, at a crime scene, and people reading it sideways thought it said ZZ. Consequently, he began signing his letters to the police and people he is threatening to kill for his schemes with those initials to distract them from the truth.
• Used against the titular character of The Enormous Crocodile. He outright tells four animals that he intends to eat children as he makes his way to civilization. In turn, whenever he tries to do so, these animals disrupt and thwart his attempts one by one, and it culminates with the last one throwing him into the sun to stop him once and for all.
• Lensman: The campaign of terror that destroys the social order on Antigan IV culminates in a declaration that at midnight on a specific day, the president will disappear. Despite the president being in a vault surrounded by unquestionably trustworthy guards at the time, he does indeed disappear (along with the guards); Kinnison guesses afterward that a hyper-spatial tube was used to bypass all the defences. Then a similar campaign and announcement occurred on Radelix... and it turns out that in both cases, the president was incidental; the whole thing was actually a trap for Kinnison himself, snatching him when he comes to the president's rescue.
• The title A Murder Is Announced is the beginning of an ad in the local newspaper, which says in which house and at what time it would occur. Double subverted. The man who shows up at the time appears to shoot without actually killing, or even seriously hurting, anyone before shooting himself dead; it turns out that a third party did the shooting, and he was the victim.
• Happens a few times in the Please Don't Tell My Parents series:
  • Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain:
    • After The Inscrutable Machine team become supervillains by trashing a science fair, another super "Sharky" makes a forum post declaring his intention to go on a rampage. In an effort to make amends for losing their temper, The Inscrutable Machine promptly stops him.
    • In order to not be in violation of a community truce, Spider has her representative at the superhero conference announce on Saturday that she has a large operation planned for Monday. She also has a bunch of diversions planned to distract from her actual plan.
  • Please Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen: Cassie aka Lightning Wisp challenges Penny Akk (not knowing she's already a high-ranking super) to a duel at the school football game, with her challenge implying she means to cause trouble if not stopped. Penny promptly stomps her and another super who was also causing trouble.
  • Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Giant Monster: Supervillain Entropy tells Mirabelle in advance that he's going to use his mirror magic to steal two shards of the Heart of Vermiel from his on-and-off girlfriend Little Witch. Since Mirabelle is his sister and a non-combatant in the heroes vs villains thing, he doesn't consider it a big secret to keep from her. As Mirabelle has another of the shards and the shards can locate each other, she promptly piggybacks off his mirror magic teleportation with her own to steal one of the shards out from under Entropy's nose.

Live-Action TV

• Castle (2009): In "Scared to Death", a young woman is found dead with no apparent mark on her body after she'd called the police to say something was coming for her. Castle finds a DVD in her player that warns "You saw. On the third night, you die." They track the DVD to an apartment, where they find another person dead, also without a mark, who'd also received the DVD. It turns out that the people being killed incorrectly and under pressure identified an innocent man as being responsible for the work of a serial killer who was later caught. The innocent man, under suspicion of murder, cracked under the pressure and killed himself, leaving behind a very vengeful daughter who wanted to punish the people who she blamed for her father's death.
• CSI: NY: In "Vigilante", the killer calls 911 to report a murder and gives the location of the body. The operator asks when it happened and the perp replies, "It's about to," and hangs up. The call, conversation, and crime are repeated before the killer is caught.
• In Diagnosis: Murder episode "Down Among the Dead Men", a note is sent to police officer Steve Sloan, before each of a series of crimes, with the official penal code number and text of the crime.
• Leverage: In the Season 1 finale "The Second David Job", Nate announces to his Corrupt Corporate Executive ex-boss Ian that he is going to rob the Two Davids exhibit. Ian already figured Nate would try this because the crew already tried to steal the Two Davids before. Ian thought he would be able to catch Nate in the act so he didn't bother to call the cops. But then came the reveal that Nate wasn't planning to steal the Two Davids, he stole everything else in the gallery, leaving Ian on the hook for hundreds of millions in insurance payments, and the reason he announced his crime in advance was so that he would have a recording of Ian choosing not to call the cops so he would look completely incompetent.
• An episode of Monk has the eponymous detective be hired by a woman whose husband told her he was going to murder her. The husband is known to be very brilliant, and the woman hires Monk not to prevent her from being killed, but to investigate her murder after it happens. She's right, and he successfully murders her.
• Nathan for You: In "Claw of Shame", Nathan performs an escape act before a robotic claw pulls his pants down in front of a group of children, which would theoretically make him a sex offender. Before he begins, he makes sure to deliberately state to the camera (and the cops) that he is doing this of his own free will, with full knowledge of the consequences.
• Trailer Park Boys: At the end of season 3, Ricky decides that he wants to go back to jail for his own reasons, so he starts carrying out a long list of crimes to get the police to arrest him, including this little gem:
  Ricky: [to a crowd of people outside a supermarket, while sitting on top of his car] Hey, everybody! Come on over here, please! I just want you guys to know that I am drunk as fuck, driving around town drunk, I'm on dope, and I want you to call the police! I wanna go back to jail! Please? Not only that, [pulls out a gun] but I got a loaded handgun right here. [loads the handgun] I'm gonna start firing this off, so please call the cops. [he fires the gun twice, only for his audience to run off] What, you're not gonna call the police?!

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: Villetorus from the Polyhedron magazine #22 adventure "In the Black Hours Part 1" is a famous thief in the city of Terkos who always warns his victims before committing a significant theft. He warns the owner of Sarchon's Crown (a magical art object) that he will steal the Crown that very night.

Video Games

• At the beginning of The Hex, the bartender Reginald receives a phone call informing him that somebody in his bar is planning a murder, which he then announces to his patrons and, by extension, the player. In the end, it's revealed that the murder was being planned by him all along, with all but one of the patrons in on it, and the phone call was most likely staged.
• Persona 5: The Phantom Thieves of Hearts send their Calling Card to the Palace rulers in the real world before they complete their theft. Justified as sending the calling card allows the Treasure to manifest as a tangible object in the first place, which is how they change hearts.

Visual Novels

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations has Mask☆DeMasque, Gentleman Thief, send his card to victims ahead of time.

Western Animation

• Arthur: Discussed in "Bugged" when the Brain and Binky are watching an episode of Bionic Bunny where the villain announces his plan to rob banks disguised as the titular bunny superhero. Brain notes that it's a nonsensical plot device having the villain describe their crimes for no reason.
• The Batman: In "JTV", the Joker hijacks Gotham's television broadcasts, letting everyone know what crimes he'll be committing, to the bafflement of Mayor Marion Grange.
  Mayor Grange: What kind of nut announces his crimes before he commits them?
• Big Hero 6: The Series: Video game-themed supervillain Hardlight announces his plan to steal a diamond from the museum, whilst daring the eponymous team of superheroes to stop him. Justified, as he has no interest in the actual diamond — he just wants to fight the heroes as part of a real-life video game.
  Hardlight: Oh, while I have your attention, I'm gonna steal the biggest diamond in the city! Tomorrow night, at the museum!
  Chief Cruz: And you're announcing it?
  Hardlight: It's an invitation! Not to you, Chief Snooze, but the real players — BIG HERO 6! So, do me a solid and pass that on to the superheroes, okay?
• Hamster & Gretel: The Flake announces his crimes on the city's timekeeping devices in advance and provides a time for when he'll do the crime. However, he's always late, showing up just when the titular heroes let their guard down.
• In the Justice League episode "Legends", the Injustice Guild sends a letter to the police announcing their intention to steal several valuable objects, who then deliver it to Justice Guild. The Flash even questions what kind of villains tip off the authorities.
• The Real Ghostbusters:
  • In "20,000 Leagues Under the Street", Aphsai describes in great detail his scheme to make the insects destroy the humans and then Take Over the World.
  • In "Halloween II 1/2", when Samhain ties three children up, he explains to them that he plans to kill the Ghostbusters when they come to rescue them.
• The Simpsons: In "Homer the Vigilante", Homer sets up a neighborhood watch group in response to a spate of burglaries throughout Springfield. When the group is accused of vigilantism, he goes onto Kent Brockman's talk show to defend their actions. The cat burglar calls the show and tells Homer that his next crime will be stealing the world's largest cubic zirconium, currently on display at Springfield Museum.
• Superfriends: Most of the time, the Legion of Doom will either taunt the Superfriends via video call from Lex Luthor about their plan, or the Riddler will leave clues that drop hints about what it is.
• T.U.F.F. Puppy: In "Doom and Gloom", Verminious Snaptrap always announces his evil plans to T.U.F.F. so they can stop him. When Larry tells Snaptrap that it's not a good idea to tell T.U.F.F. his plans, Snaptrap tells them that the only reason he does so is because he feels it would be rude not to (this is despite the fact that as a villain, he has no obligation to be polite). After being released from prison, Snaptrap is ready to tell T.U.F.F. his next plan. Larry points out that the reason they keep getting arrested is because he keeps telling T.U.F.F. his plans, and when Snaptrap doesn't listen to him, Larry quits working for him, taking over the Diabolical Order of Mayhem (or D.O.O.M. for short), renaming it Genius Larry's Order of Mayhem (G.L.O.O.M. for short), committing crimes without telling T.U.F.F. his plans, and changing his name to Murray. Although this doesn't stop Larry from telling his plans to Snaptrap by the phone just to brag, which leads to Snaptrap telling T.U.F.F. the details.

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