History Main / EvidenceDungeon

(Proceed to find Gumb's torture chamber, victim, Death's Head Moth collection, sewing machine, skin suit)

[[quoteright:318:[[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gdt_basement1.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:318:[[RoomFullOfCrazy Let's see... Murder table, check. Huge library of video tapes, check. Trophy photos, check.]]]]

* The narrators in Hideshi Hino's horror stories (like PanoramaOfHell) invariably have houses or shops full of crazy, filled with disturbing paintings, horrible things in jars, and/or macabre junk.

** Even worse, but seemingly more innocent: "Remember Sammy Jenkis." [[spoiler:This is Leonard's way of [[MindRape using his own condition against himself]], to continue perpetuating the lie that is Sammy Jenkis as a existing person and that he's not a walking, talking Evidence Dungeon. By putting it on his hand, he ensures he'll look at it every so often.]]

* Dr. Henry Holmes [[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_455.html built a three-story hotel]] in Chicago to serve as his TortureCellar. After his arrest, police found four skeletons in a lime pit,, a pile of human bones mixed with animal bones, a dissection table covered with dry blood, and a pile of bloody women's clothes and jewelry belonging to victims,

* The assault on Makarov's safehouse in ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare2''. Inside, you can find schematics related to his terrorist attacks, enormous caches of weapons to outfit his personal army, valuable computer data your commanding officer needs to find Makarov, [[AllThereInTheManual expository newspaper clippings that are the only place in the game explaining Makarov's motivations]], and....a blow-up doll.

* The train car in ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'' is packed with incriminating evidence including a map with the photos of all the fourteen missing mammals.

* Season 2 of ''Series/TheSarahConnorChronicles'' had a basement with names, numbers and dates written on the walls, in blood.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* The Nazis; after the war, the Allies were astonished at the amount of evidence and paperwork related to the Holocaust they were able to uncover. The sheer amount of incriminating evidence pretty much made the convictions at the Nuremberg Trials a foregone conclusion.
* When John Reginald Halliday Christie rented out a room in his house, the new tenants started to wonder about the smell from a papered-over wall closet. When the police finally came to search 10 Rillington Place, the back garden fence was found to be propped up with a human thighbone.
* In his apartment, Jeffery Dahmer had muriatic acid used to flense corpses, photos of dismemebered corpses in various stages of decomposition, four severed heads in the refrigerator, seven cleaned skulls, a full torso in the freezer, three torsos in a 57 gallon plastic drum and two full skeletons. The chief medical examiner later stated: "It was more like dismantling someone's museum than an actual crime scene." All it took was police officers just walking into his apartment to provoke an arrest.
* Dr. Henry Holmes [[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_455.html built a three-story hotel]] in Chicago to serve as his TortureCellar. After his arrest, police found four skeletons in a lime pit,, a pile of human bones mixed with animal bones, a dissection table covered with dry blood, and a pile of bloody women's clothes and jewelry belonging to victims,
* Ed Gein's house would be an example. He decorated his home with body parts from graves he dug up, and eventually two victims. This included (but was far from limited to): a wastebasket made of human skin, human skin covering several chair seats, skulls on his bedposts, a corset made from a female torso skinned from shoulders to waist and a mask he'd made from victim Mary Hogan's face in a paper bag. The police arrested him immediately on investigating.
[[/folder]]

* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'', an insane murderer wanting to avenge the Dark Brotherhood for the death of his mother has a lair in the cellar of a lighthouse. Among other things, the place holds: a rabid living dog, multiple rotting dead bodies (possibly as dog food), walls splattered with blood, the decayed head of said mother, and a really creepy diary. Half of it a personal message to his mother, promising revenge, the rest is the word "killhim" written over and over, in blood.

* Averted in ''TheWire''; most criminals are always shown dumping their guns or otherwise eliminating eviedence. Even the otherwise dumb-as-bricks ones are smart enough to listen to their cleverer colleagues and dump their guns.

* In ''TabletopGames/{{Clue}}'', the very premise is finding all the evidence that the murderer left just laying around.

[[quoteright:288:[[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gdt_basement.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:288:[[RoomFullOfCrazy Let's see... Murder table, check. Huge library of video tapes, check. Trophy photos, check.]]]]

The '''Evidence Dungeon''' is the lair of the villain, which is full of all the things a good villain needs to do their work...and to be charged with said work when the police find it.

[[quoteright:288:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gdt_basement.jpg]]

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': In ''Literature/WhiteNight'', Harry Dresden is investigating [[spoiler:his half-brother, Thomas]]. During the investigation, Harry snoops around the suspect's apartment, and stumbles onto one of these.

* 'Patrick Bateman in 'Literature/AmericanPsycho'' uses both his apartment and appropriates Paul Owen/Allen's apartment[[spoiler: after killing him]] to commit most of his murders. In his apartment, there is a head in the fridge and numerous implements of murder and torture. In Paul Owen/Allen's apartment, there are two bodies hanging on hooks in a closet, another on the bathroom floor and [[RoomFullOfCrazy a room with 'Die Yuppie Scum' scrawled on the walls.]] [[SubvertedTrope Subverted as ]][[spoiler: the ending implies that Bateman may be having psychotic delusions about his murders. As he is an [[UnreliableNarrator incredibly unreliable narrator]], it calls into question everything we've seen and whether the 'evidence' was really there.]]

Differs from ChronicEvidenceRetentionSyndrome which can be more specific, for example, keeping a single incriminating note or weapon. Also not the same as a RoomFullOfCrazy which proves insanity but not necessarily guilt. TheBigBoard can be a non-insane version of Evidence Dungeon.

* The Farm at North Cross and Lennox from the ''ComicBook/SinCity'' series, featuring in both "The Hard Goodbye," where it was Kevin and Cardinal Roark's base of operation for their cannibalistic impulses has (at minimum) the decapitated heads of their victims.

The defining features of an Evidence Dungeon is the [[ChronicEvidenceRetentionSyndrome expositional shit]] lying around that any sane person would hide or dispose of immediately. It's a place that is not only the villain's lair but is also where all the incriminating evidence is kept. This may make for a very foolish criminal, or just the right kind of delusional mind that would commit the crimes in the first place.

''(Proceed to find Gumb's torture chamber, victim, Death's Head Moth collection, sewing machine, skin suit)

->'''Clarice:''' Did she leave any records here? Tax or business records? Maybe a list of employees?
->'''Mr. Gumb:''' No, nothing at all. Has the FBI learned something? Because the police here don't seem to have the first clue.
->
->Proceed to find Gumb's torture chamber, victim, Death's Head Moth collection, sewing machine, skin suit...

[[caption-width-right:288:[[RoomFullOfCrazy Let's see... Murder table, check. Video recorder, check.]]]]

----

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Kind of like StalkerShrine?

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What is an evidence dungeon? Explain.

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^ a room full of exonerating evidence.

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Like I have in the body, the lair of a killer, which is full of all the things a good serial killer needs to do their work...and to be charged with said work by the police when they find the Evidence Dungeon.

The scene when the protagonist walks into a room, finds the torture devices, restraints, newspaper clippings, video tapes. Everything.

It's not a Room Full of Crazy, because it has evidence not just Patrick Bateman writing Yuppie Scum on the walls.

It's not Chronic Evidence Retention because it's not just evidence, it's the scene of the crime.

A good example is I know Who Killed Me where they walk into the basement and find weapons, newspaper clippings, everything.

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So it's like the Bloody Chamber of Literature/TheBloodyChamber, for various crimes. Usually the room of evidence isn't where the crimes were committed (unless it's a torture chamber). In any case, NeedsABetterName. [[strike:And a rewrite.]]

'''EDIT:''' Formatted and expanded.

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* De-{{Red Link}}ed improper {{Circular Link}}s to the YKTTW's current name as per Administrivia/LinkingToAnArticleWithinTheArticle.
* Examples section
** Added a line separating the Description and Examples sections.
** BlueLinked (Creator/EdgarAllenPoe).

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I'm not sure if this is an example, but...

* Invoked in the final chapter of ''VisualNovel/{{Danganronpa}}'', where The Mastermind opens every door in the school except for the ones leading outside, challenging the students to solve every single mystery within a few hours lest they all be executed ([[TrumanShowPlot to make for an entertaining finale]]). These Evidence Dungeons had all been locked up with the threat of execution should they be broken into because of how incriminating their contents were, and all the students split up to whichever they felt was most important towards figuring out The Mastermind's identity. During the following Class Trial, after revealing AwfulTruth after Awful Truth, the Mastermind tells the students that the whole point of filling the school with mysteries was to [[HopeSpot give them hope that solving these mysteries was being them closer to victory]], only [[DespairGambit drive them to despair]] by the horrific revelations that awaited them at the end of it all.

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"Exonerating" means the opposite of what you think it means.

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^ Yes, I was just about to post that I think the word you were looking for is "incriminating."

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I'm gonna say that was my fault, my first comment with it was made before the trope was clear.

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Shouldn't that ''Podcast/TheFlopHouse'' example be listed under "Podcast" (or "Audioplays and Podcasts" or whatever we call the category for those on trope pages) rather than under "Real Life"? This looks like it's got potential, but the description could maybe use some fleshing out. Maybe some elaboration on RoomFullOfCrazy and other elements commonly found in or in conjunction with an Evidence Dungeon? Maybe something about the type of characters likely to have one, the type of characters likely to discover one, ect.?

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TheFarSide has a rat in prison talking to his cellmate: "I would have gotten away scot-free if I'd gotten rid of the evidence... but shoot, I'm a packrat."

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Your [[AC:Television]] should be [[AC:Live Action TV]].

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': In the episode "Cartman's Incredible Gift" South Park is terrorized by a serial killer who steals the left hands form his victims. At one point the cops manage to find his hideout with all the hands, but at first don't think they're in the right place because they think all the hands there are right hands - they actually are left hands, but because the cops are looking at the hands from the opposite direction they think that they're rights. It is only after several days of studying that the cops realize that they're lefts.

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* In ''Literature/{{Unique}}'', [[WhiteMage Sajan]] and [[MonsterHunter Jan]] unwittingly team up to find and report the serial killer's dungeon. It's supposed to be a furniture workshop, so all the power tools and even the welding equipment kinda belong, but the dentist's chair, bondage equipment, surgical instruments and reek of disinfectant definitely don't (not to mention the psychic aura of cruelty and agony that [[AllergicToEvil makes Sajan physically sick]]).

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Contrast OrgyOfEvidence (when there's too much evidence, something's wrong)

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I like this. "Bonus points" if the dungeon is full of evidence, but all of the directly incriminating evidence is in one room/level.

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FYI, the 'Motions to Discard' were both added on the first day I posted when there was hardly anything to the article.

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''Series/{{Bones}}'': In the episode where Booth & Brennan are on their honeymoon they [[BusmansHoliday stumble into a murder investigation]], where it turns out the VictimOfTheWeek is a FormerNazi. They learn this by finding a secret room in his estate filled with all his old Nazi paraphernalia.

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[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* Played with in the second episode of ''Series/{{Quantico}}'', where the trainees are allowed to visit recreations of three rooms where three different terrorist attacks were planned, and they are asked to comb through the rooms and determine which one, if any, contained actionable evidence of an impending threat. [[spoiler:It turned out that none of them did.]]

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