History Main / DisposableVagrant

* An unusual example of this trope being turned to positive ends in real life was a secret British disinformation operation during World War II known as "Operation Mincemeat." The body of a deceased homeless man named Glyndwr Michael was given a new identity as a Royal Marines officer, dressed in a uniform, and left on a Spanish shore, presumably the victim of a downed aircraft. On his person were falsified documents that indicated that the Allies intended to attack Greece and Sardinia rather than the real target, Sicily. The supposedly neutral Spanish government shared the documents with German intelligence, which fell for the ruse. This allowed the Allies to invade Sicily with a minimum of casualties, giving them their first foothold in the Italian campaign. Michael's body was buried under his alias, Major William Martin, with full military honors.[[/folder]]

And that is precisely what the SerialKiller, MadScientist, [[ToServeMan hungry]] [[HorrorHunger monster]], and TheMafia are counting on. These exceedingly vulnerable {{Innocent Bystander}}s are frequently killed and abducted for fun, spare parts, [[ImAHumanitarian to sate hunger]], or for a spare dead body. They can be sure the police won't push the investigation too hard; at least [[{{Anvilicious}} not until]] an [[MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome attractive young white woman]] becomes one of the victims.

* In ''{{LightNovel/Durarara}}'', Yagiri Pharmaceuticals hires kidnappers to abduct drifters and illegal aliens who won't be missed to be used in their medical experiments.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. The Count got his moniker from the twin-injector marks he left in the fifty-six vagrants and prostitutes [[TestedOnHumans he murdered to perfect the drug Vertigo]]. Despite this serial killing spree, no-one knows who the Count is until the drug hits the streets and starts killing pretty young socialites, and our hero Oliver Queen only finds out [[ItsPersonal when his sister Thea gets high and crashes her car]].
* ''Series/BabylonFive''. Subverted in "Exogenesis", where [[FutureSlang Lurkers]] are being taken over by {{Puppeteer Parasite}}s in what seems to be the usual ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers''-type plot. However it's pointed out that if you were secretly trying to take over the station, you wouldn't choose people with no influence. Turns out it's entirely voluntary.

* In the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "Anne", the MonsterOfTheWeek takes street kids into a hell dimension and works them for many many years, [[YearInsideHourOutside which is equivalent to only a few days on Earth]]. He spits them back to Earth just before they die of old age.

* The [=UnSub=] in the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode ''Legacy'' kidnaps homeless people, prostitutes, drug users, etc. and kills them. He's only caught because a detective whose [[UsefulNotes/ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder OCD]] forces him to catalogue everyone he comes into contact with on the streets notices that ''63'' of them have disappeared without a trace.

--->"[[AC:The prisoners, the refugees, the dispossessed, they ''all'' came to us!]]"

* In ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', a WWII Nazi tests out his ultimate weapon near a homeless person to see if he dies.

* In ''Series/RobocopTheSeries'', the MadScientist Dr. Cray-Z was doing this to get a living brain for his experiment. Unfortunately, his accomplice was simply dumping the bodies, and the police were suspicious, to say the least, of homeless being killed by a SerialKiller who took the brain.

* In the ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'' episode "Mournin' Mess", a secret society of ghouls start a funeral service for homeless people (that they kill) so they can eat the corpses without the risk of being caught gravedigging. Slightly subverted since it's implied that the ghouls have to bribe city officials to keep the police from investigating the violent murders too closely. Some of the city officials ''were'' members of the [[FunWithAcronyms (G)rateful (H)omeless (O)utcast & (U)nwanted (L)ayaway (S)ociety]].

* In ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "731", one member of [[OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness The Syndicate]] informs Scully that Japanese [[DeadlyDoctor Deadly Doctors]] and [[EvilutionaryBiologist Evilutionary Biologists]] were performing horrible experiments on lepers, homeless, and insane people in the USA. However, they usually have no scruples about abducting anybody, not excluding their own family members or fairly high profile FBI agents.

* ''Manga/MadeInAbyss'': Children aren't the only people Bondrewd wants to use for his wicked experiments. Before Reg and Riko shown up in his place, [[spoiler:Srajo and her entire fleet ran into him. When they are negotating procedures for access to the lower layers, Bondrewd announces plans to experiment on her crewmen because they were "Juusou", outcasts who were supposed to be thrown away upon birth. Of course Srajo doesn't let him have it, and fights him alongside her entire fleet.]]

* In ''Literature/TheSagaOfDarrenShan'', the vampaneze are a clan of vampires who are biologically compelled to kill anyone they drink from (other vampires generally only take a small amount of blood without much harming their prey). A prophecy makes the villain of the series into their absolute ruler, who none dare obey. They begin to target homeless people as an easy way to eat while staying under the radar, as the fight between them and the protagonist's clan of vampires escalates. This later bites the vampaneze back when the vampires recruit the homeless community to aid them, and they're all too happy to fight back.

* In ''Literature/TheSagaOfDarrenShan'', the vampeze target homeless people as an easy way to eat while staying under the radar, as the fight between them and the vampires escalates. This later bites them in the ass when Debbie and Alice recruit the homeless community to aid the vampires and they're all too happy to fight back.

* The [=UnSub=] in the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode ''Legacy'' kidnaps homeless people, prostitutes, drug users, etc. and kills them. He's only caught because a detective whose [[SuperOCD OCD]] forces him to catalogue everyone he comes into contact with on the streets notices that ''63'' of them have disappeared without a trace.

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* In ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine strip ''The Screams of Death'', the Doctor and co find a tramp who died from having his eardrums burst, and are confused, due to the man only having a few days left to live anyway and the scream being a female voice. [[spoiler: The BigBad turns out to have killed him as a dry run for his scheme to MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight by eliminating his treacherous subordinates from history by killing their ancestors.]]

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13357907/ Abraxas]]'', Alan Jonah's militia utilize refugees from Moscow's destruction as manual labor and {{Unwitting Test Subject}}s.

* ''Film/TortureGarden'': The first victim Colin murders at the behest of the cat in "Enoch" is a tramp he finds sleeping in the barn.
* In ''Film/{{Stuck}}'', Brandi and Rashid use this trope to justify letting Tom die after Brandi hits him with her car and leaves him in her garage to die, having decided that he’s “just” a homeless man.
* Alex, the BigBad of ''Film/{{TAU}}'', deliberately kidnaps people living on the fringes of society for his AI research, reasoning (correctly) that they won't be missed.
* ''Film/TheTheatreBizarre'': "Vision Stains" is about a writer/serial killer who cannot dream. She extracts fluid from her victims' eyes as they die and injects it into her own eye so she can experience the others' lives as they flash by in their dying moments. She preys on female vagrants, runaways and prostitutes, believing that only women are truly ccreative, and claims that she only targets women who want to die.

* Discussed in ''[[Literature/TheLaundrySeries The Rhesus Chart]]'' regarding OurVampiresAreDifferent. Unlike [[YourVampiresSuck movie vampires]], the ones in the novel are essentially {{serial killer}}s, so need to pick victims that no one will miss. That means the elderly or homeless runaways, not pretty young things who can [[VampiresOwnNightClubs afford to go to nightclubs]].

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation''

* ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'': [[WrongSideOfTheTracks The slums]], whose residents aren't much better off than vagrants, are used as CannonFodder in multiple ways, and also for experiments.

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Vagrants, the homeless, drifters, runaways, society's castoffs; there are many, ''many'' names for them, none of them nice. Most people [[BystanderSyndrome look away]] and pretend not to hear the {{Hobos}} they ask for change, if not outright disdain and mistreat them for the crime of having been left behind by society -- or having left society behind. With so many moving around, who would even care enough to notice the bum who is usually in the street corner of [[JustForFun/TropeTan Trope and Tan]] every morning has gone missing?

** The most notorious ''Doctor Who'' example is the incomprehensible Pigbin Josh from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E3TheClawsOfAxos The Claws of Axos]]".

* In ''Fanfic/{{Daemorphing}}: The Guided and the Lost'', the Animorphs learn that the Yeerks have figured out how to sever people from their anchors, and have already successfully separated several homeless humans from their daemons (and Alloran from his [[WiseTree guide tree]]). They're able to save one of the humans before she can be severed, who then becomes a refugee in the Hork-Bajir valley.

* The short-lived MarvelUniverse comic series ''ComicBook/TheOrder'' had "zobos", down-and-outs turned into zombified cyborgs by the BigBad.

8 In ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine strip ''The Screams of Death'', the Doctor and co find a tramp who died from havinghis eardrums burst, and are confused, due to the man only having a few days left to live anyway and the scream being a female voice. [[spoiler: The BigBad turns out to have killed him as a dry run for his scheme to MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight by eliminating his treacherous subordinates from history by killing their ancestors.]]

** Andrei the Tzimice used, among others, homeless people as raw material for his experiments...and his home improvement projects.
** The PlayerCharacter can take advantage of this trope by feeding on homeless men. This still provokes a police response if anyone else sees you, but the homeless tend to lurk in alleys out of sight of the main roads, so this is unlikely. It's still a [[KarmaMeter Humanity violation]] if you kill them, though.

* ''Literature/CanYouSpareAQuarter'': Mike complains that police don't care about missing street boys and thus are making no progress in catching the SerialKillr.

->"''You need subjects for your Servant project, and I can provide them. Beggars, prostitutes, street scum — those who will not be missed by anyone of consequence...''"

Vagrants, the homeless, drifters, runaways, society's castoffs; there are many, ''many'' names for them, none of them nice. Most people [[BystanderSyndrome look away]] and pretend not to hear the {{Hobos}} they ask for change, if not outright disdain and mistreat them for the crime of having been left behind by society — or having left society behind. With so many moving around, who would even care enough to notice the bum who is usually in the street corner of [[JustForFun/TropeTan Trope and Tan]] every morning has gone missing?

* Androids 17 & 18 from ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' were originally ordinary humans that were kidnapped and experimented on by Dr. Gero.

* Subverted in the first arc of ''ComicBook/TheFuse'' - two homeless people are the murder victims but the killings turn out to have been personally motivated.

* In one ''ComicBook/XMen'' story, ''The Watch'', Marvel's biggest JerkWithAHeartOfGold himself Wolverine befriends an elderly homeless man he rescues from an angry driver. The old guy's only prized possession is an antique pocket watch he intends to give to his son someday. When the guy goes missing, Logan realizes something is up because the old man left the pocketwatch behind, something he'd never do. So Wolvie stakes out the local homeless shelter, and, get, whaddaya know? [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Bloodscream]] and [[RatMen Vermin]], the {{Mooks}} of evil [[IAmAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] sorcerer Mauvais, are abducting homeless people for their master to eat to regain his powers. Mauvais figured nobody would notice a few derelicts, drifters, and druggies going missing. But he didn't count on Logan. Cue him kicking much fanny and stopping the kidnappings, albeit too late to save his friend, after which he tracks down the guy's son and gives him his estranged father's pocket watch - the closest thing to a happy ending ''The Watch'' gets.

** In ''[[Literature/Slime1953 Slime]]'', homeless drifter Henry Hossing is the slime's first victim. He's just passing through, and consequently, no one notices his disappearance - everyone just assumes he moved on. By the time someone ''does'' discover that he's missing, the initial assumption is that Henry himself is the murderer. Only after people begin surviving the slime's attacks to tell their story do the police realize Henry was just another victim.

* In ''Literature/HopeAndRed'', the biomancers, who are a frightening hybrid of MadScientist and KnightTemplar, view the population of Paradise Circle - a largely impoverished and criminal neighborhood - this way.

* In the Literature/ModestyBlaise novel ''The Night of Morningstar'', terrorists order a potential new recruit to murder a teenaged drug addict abducted at random from the streets as an IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten test.

* Subverted by Literature/SherlockHolmes. His network of homeless people sees basically everything that goes on in London, and all he has to do to get information is to provide a hot meal.
* The ending of Creator/MarkTwain's ''The Carnival of Crime in Connecticut'' reveals (after the narrator has vigorously beaten his conscience to death) that he has a large stock of homeless people in his basement for sale.
--> In conclusion, I wish to state, by way of advertisement, that medical colleges desiring assorted tramps for scientific purposes, either by the gross, by cord measurement, or per ton, will do well to examine the lot in my cellar before purchasing elsewhere, as these were all selected and prepared by myself, and can be had at a low rate, because I wish to clear out my stock and get ready for the spring trade.

* In ''Literature/TheMigaxCycle'', the lower classes are often treated like they are worthless, and Mililabs has no trouble getting away with running experiments on them.
* ''Literature/ThePlaceInsideTheStorm'': The brain implant that's supposed to cure autism was originally tested on homeless people. For all [[IdentityAmnesia Loki]] knows, he might have been one.
* Discussed in ''[[Literature/TheLaundrySeries The Rhesus Chart]]'' regarding OurVampiresAreDifferent. Unlike [[YourVampiresSuck movie vampires]], the ones in the novel are essentially {{serial killer}}s, so need to pick victims that no one will miss. That means the elderly or homeless runaways, not pretty young things who can [[VampiresOwnNightClubs afford to go to nightclubs]].

* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'': Trevor notes he hadn't 'killed a human' before meeting Michael - just some foxes, bears, vagrants...

* In ''ComicBook/WonderWomanTempestTossed'' Diana has a hard time understanding how people could allow their fellow man to live on the street while they themselves are homed and do nothing to try and stop homelessness or help them with most people ignoring and deriding them. She's then deeply upset to learn how many missing people are not being looked for by authorities and that human trafficking is such a threat to marginalized communities. She is able to dismantle the major human trafficking ring attacking the part of New York she is living in.