History Headscratchers / ColdCase

* They found out that the man who killed the girl in 1938 was her now Alzheimer-ridden, over-90-year-old husband. Yay them! What the hell is the justice system supposed to do with him?

** Reminds me of that Columbo episode where the killer turns out to have a brain tumour that has caused her to lose memory of actually doing it, and Columbo is just about to arrest her when her friend confesses to spare her, and Columbo accepts because although the evidence will eventually show that he's innocent, by that time she'll be dead.
** Some of it has less to do with the fact that they actually can do anything about it and more to do with A. Getting the truth out, and B. Clearing out some of the administrative clogging from too many cold cases.

** She stalked that one suspect, having him hauled in for minor things over the course of a season (e.g. got in his car after a drink and had him arrested as soon as he puts the key in the ignition) seriously, that kind of harassment will torpedo your higher management opportunities.... even if they ''are'' guilty. Rush of all the detectives probably has a file cabinet full of complaints.

* In "Creatures of the Night," why doesn't the state of New Jersey just have Roy Brigham Anthony involuntarily committed? He's a raving schizophrenic who's happy to tell anyone who will listen about how excited he is to get the chance to kill more people on God's orders when he's released from prison. A commitment hearing should be a slam-dunk.

* Why Don't the police have cameras and audio tapes to record the confession? It would make it easier to hold up the confession in court.

** If it was done early enough in the night where everyone was in bed the doer could have easily dragged the body out, avoiding the few people that could hear the body being moved, and was lucky enough to avoid anyone seeing the body. Then they hide the body in a trunk, get a friend who can drive to pick them up, and then dump the case at the site till they are ready to dig the grave.

** Don't forget at this point to her he's just a guy with car trouble. She does get a little suspicious when he asks her to get in the car but you can see she shakes it off and decides to trust him.

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* In "Daniela" how come the police didn't know she was transgender? Did no one do an autopsy on her?

** It was Sister Vivian.

** If it was done early enough in the night where everyone was in bed the doer could have easily dragged the body out avoiding the few people that could hear the body being moved and was lucky enough to avoid anyone seeing the body. Then they hide the body in a trunk, get a friend who can drive to pick them up and then dump the case at the site till they are ready to dig the grave.

** Don't forget at this point to her he's just a guy with car trouble. She does get a little suspicious when he askes her to get in the car but you can see she shakes it off and decides to trust him.

* When exactly was Iris Felice, the victim of "Baby Blues", born? Her grave said "1982-1982", but if she died in April/May of 1982 (basically the last practical month for it to be snowing in Philadeplhia, freak weather storm and all), she was six months old at the time of her death and her mother even said herself that she was also born on a day it was snowing, then she was most likely born around October/November of 1981.

** If it was done early enough in the night where everyone was in bed the doer could of easily dragged the body out avoiding the few people that could hear the body being moved and was lucky enough to avoid anyone seeing the body. Then they hide the body in a trunk, get a friend who can drive to pick them up and then dump the case at the site till they are ready to dig the grave.

** Well, they have many cases to do. Most of the time one with obvious motive is the killer. But this cases are not interested enough to show.

* is it just me or are people killing eachother for the stupidest reasons in this show?

* At least two thirds of the cases seems to be related to they killed the victim because he or she was too enlightened or too different to be accepted that time, granted it's TruthInTelevision, sadly, but it has gotten tiresome.

*** This Troper always asumed it was an artistic way to tell us that the case was now closed.

* The very premise of this show is mind-boggling: first, each episode is a case getting reopened from some out-of-the-blue new piece of evidence appearing out of nowhere. In the earlier seasons, the evidence was usually relevant to the murder itself but in later episodes, its a RedHerring used to get the ball rolling, like a suspect who threatened to kill the victim but is later found to have an alibi. Then they HandWave why the original investigators never turned up a single shred of evidence because they thought it was a robbery gone bad, as if the Philly PD were looking for a reason not to do any real follow-up on the victim's personal life to see if anyone wanted them dead. The family members are all [[RuleOfDrama contractually-obliged]] to withhold information and lie to the police when asked about last time they saw the victim or where they were, citing some half-assed crap-filled excuse that took priority over solving their loved one's murder. It makes for good TV and the flashbacks mitigate most of this but it makes it hard to feel sorry for the living victims who put their personal embarrassments over seeing justice done.

* Why are the murderers on here (at least the ones that are still alive) shown cooperating w/ the police? While I know that if they didn't,it would slow the episode or kill the show...but NOBODY successfully stonewalls or asks for a lawyer BEFORE blurting out a confession?
** I remember just one episode where lawyer come with suspect. Suspect, however, was innocent. [[spoiler: Lawyer did it]].
** In one epsecially egregious case, the man who really raped and murdered a teenage girl confessed to Geoffreys right ''someone had just been executed for the crime.'' If his conscience was bothering him, he had horrible timing.

** She stalked that one suspect having him hauled in for minor things over the course of a season (e.g. got in his car after a drink and had him arrested as soon as he puts the key in the ignition) seriously, that kind of harassment will torpedo your higher management opportunities.... even if they ''are'' guilty. Rush of all the detectives probably has a file cabinet full of complaints.

* Why Don't the Police have Camera's and Audio Tapes to record the confession? It would make it easier to hold up the confession in court.

** If it was done early enough in the night where everyone was in bed the dooer could of easily dragged the body out avoiding the few people that could hear the body being moved and was lucky enough to avoid anyone seeing the body. then they hide the body in a trunk gets a friend who can drive to pick them up and then dumps the case at the site till they are ready to dig the grave

* Why is it that some people, i.e., strangers who have no connection to the victim/doer/crime itself, have no problem holding onto something that clearly didn't belong to them, in spite of it being crucial evidence?One instance occurred in "Fireflies" where a recently deceased mailman held onto a letter of a long missing friend of a Black girl for years (this is justified, as the man was [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain a racist)]], but other examples don't hold up as well.

* Speaking of the episode "Fireflies", there's always been one big thing that has bothered me about it. There was a lot of hoopla about the missing little girl and then it turns out that she was not murdered (in spite of her gunshot wound to the chest) and that she just ended up in another part of town/the outskirts. Even if she was suffering from amnesia from her injuries and couldn't find her way back, were the people/police department of Philadelphia so dim that they had no knowledge of another seriously injured little girl who matched her description in another town? Additionally, her assailant was a child himself (an older boy young teenager) who, since he could not drive, would be unable to take the victim very far from home.
** She was still alive and managed to make it to a road a state trooper picked her up and probably dropped her off a town over for reasons.

** If it was done early enough in the night where everyone was in bed the dooer could of easily dragged the body out avoiding the few people that could hear the body being moved and was lucky enough to avoid anyone seeing the body. then he hides the body in a trunk gets a friend who can drive to pick him up and he dumps the case at the site till hes ready to dig the grave

** He could drive he drove her to the woods to kill her. They probably never looked for a body because they assumed the brother killed her and hid the body well and the hospital she was dumped at probably didn't bother going on a wild goose chase finding out which town she was from

** How did [[spoiler:Carlos]] dispose of Andy's body in "Andy In C Minor"? [[spoiler:He would have had to]] sneak the body out of the crowded school. Not to mention that [[spoiler:he was deaf and likely couldn't drive a car]], so [[spoiler:he would have to drag and bury the corpse himself]].

* In "The Red and the Blue", why didn't Edie [[spoiler:report on Dusty murdering Truck? Was she afraid of Dusty taking revenge on her? Was she unwilling to be mentioned in Truck's murder?]]
* In the beginning of "Andy In C Minor", how are the kids dancing to the music if they are deaf?
* In "Andy In C Minor" how did [[spoiler:Carlos hide Andy's body? Did he physically drag the body or hijack a car and drive off]]?

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