History Main / ExtremelyColdCase

* "The Wench Is Dead" was adapted into a Season 11 episode of the TV series ''Series/InspectorMorse'', using the same title.

>'''Detective Vera:''' ...the suspects...

->'''Victim's descendant:''' ''It's all gone now. The house, the money...''
->'''Detective Vera:''' ''...the suspects...''
-->--''Series/ColdCase'', "Torn"

* ''Series/ColdCase'': A few of the episodes go back to the 1930s or earlier. In these cases, the detectives often compliment their interviews of living witnesses (who can be scarce) with interviews of their descendants, diaries, letters and recordings of them while they were still alive. The investigation is almost always triggered by the recent death of a relative of the victim.

* From Gizmondo: ''[[https://io9.gizmodo.com/9-historical-murder-mysteries-solved-more-than-a-centur-1688013210 9 Historical Murder Mysteries Solved More Than A Century Later]]'':

** He found that Juan Prim (Spanish PM shot in an ambush in 1870) was strangled in his bed while he was recovering from the shooting, concluding that he was victim of a more elaborated conspiracy than commonly believed.

* In 2007, the students at a police academy investigated the unsolved Hinterkaifeck family murder of 1922 as if it was a new case. They agreed on a prime suspect, but did not make his identity public out of respect for his still living relatives.

* From Gizmondo: ''[[https://io9.gizmodo.com/9-historical-murder-mysteries-solved-more-than-a-centur-1688013210 9 Historical Murder Mysteries Solved More Than A Century Later]]'' ({{YMMV}} how much they were actually solved):

** The assassination of Giuliano de Medici during the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478. An encrypted letter decyphered only in 2004 revealed the identity of another plotter, the Duke or Urbino.

* The disappearance of a 16-year-old servant girl named Emma Alice Smith in rural Sussex in 1926 was reinvestigated as a murder in 2009, after a short film was made about her. A dying man had allegedly confessed the murder to Emma Alice's sister in his deathbed in 1953, but she had herself died without reporting it and the man's name was unknown. After the investigation, however, the police accepted a different theory about her disappearance (that she had eloped with a married man to Ireland) and closed the case again.

* ''Series/ColdCase'': A few of the episodes go back to the 1930s or earlier. In these cases, the detectives often compliment their interviews of living witnesses (which can be scarce) with interviews of the descendants, diaries, letters and recordings of them while they were still alive.

** In the series premiere, Lilly asks what's the coldest case ever and [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness her old partner]] claims that it's Lucy the ''Australopithecus'', because someone bashed her head in with a rock. [[note]]The line may have been inspired by the documentary ''Series/WalkingWithCavemen'', where Lucy is portrayed as being murdered by another ''Australopithecus'' with a rock, but the cause of her death is actually unknown in reality.[[/note]]

** He found that Juan Prim (Spanish PM shot in an ambush in 1870) was strangled in his bed while he was recovering from the shooting, ruling that he was victim of a more elaborated conspiracy than commonly assumed.
** He ruled that Mateo Morral, the anarchist that tried to kill King Alfonso XIII during his wedding day in 1906, was murdered while in police custody and did not kill himself as historically believed.

* ''Series/ColdCase'':
** In the series premiere, Lilly asks what's the coldest case ever and [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness her old partner]] claims that it's Lucy the australopithecus, because someone bashed her head in with a rock. [[note]]The line may have been inspired by the documentary ''Series/WalkingWithCavemen'', where Lucy is portrayed as being murdered by another australopithecine with a rock, but the cause of her death is still unknown in reality.[[/note]]
** In "Beautiful Little Fool", the team investigate their coldest case up to that point, the murder of a flapper in the aftermath of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. The only living witness was a little girl at the time of the murder, and getting an interview with her (now an old, reclusive socialite in her family's mansion) is an additional challenge. Solving this crime has legal effects in the present day because the murder weapon is proven to have been stolen from the victim, and the police confiscates it from the murderer's grandson.

** In the same episode, Lilly and Scotty revisit the storage for really old cases (before World War II). Lilly reads through some files from the 1910s and pokes fun at how lacklustre they are. One comments that "The suspect is a man with a mustache", and that's it.

* Atapuerca's "Skull 17" has been lauded as the oldest unambiguous instance of murder, about 430,000 years ago. The owner of the skull, a male ''Homo heidelbergensis'', was hit with a hard object, possibly a rock, in two different areas of the skull shortly before his death, thus excluding an accidental impact or fall. A little more ambiguous is "Skull 5" from the same site and similar age, which received a single blow to the face and died possibly years later from an infected tooth broken by that impact. Atapuerca itself has instances of cannibalism going back over 800,000 years, but it can't be excluded that those bodies were eaten after their natural death.

->'''Detective Vera:''' ''The suspects...''

* ''Series/NewTricks'': Although the entire purpose of the UCOS team is to investigate cold cases, they cover new ground in "A Death in the Family" when Stephen Fisher of [=MI5=] asks them to investigate a murder that took place 160 years ago.

* In ''The Wench Is Dead'', Colin Dexter's eighth Literature/InspectorMorse novel, Morse is laid up in hospital and passes the time by re-investigating a murder case from Oxford during the 1860s, which he suspects resulted in three wrongful convictions. (The murder case is fictional, but inspired by a real 1839 case.)

* ''Series/InspectorMorse'': In "The Wench Is Dead", Morse is laid up in hospital and passes the time by reinvestigating a murder case from Oxford during the 1860s, which he suspects resulted in three wrongful convictions. (The murder case is fictional, but inspired by a real 1839 case.)

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=cold-case&episode=s04e21

** He ruled that Mateo Morral, the Anarchist that tried to kill King Alfonso XIII during his wedding day in 1906, was murdered while in police custody and did not kill himself as historically believed.

** In the same episode, Lilly and Scotty revisit the storage for really old cases (before WW2). Lilly reads through some files from the 1910s and pokes fun at how lacklustre they are. One comments that "The suspect is a man with a mustache", and that's it.

* ''Series/ColdCase'': In "Torn", Lilly and her team investigate their coldest case ever, the murder of a woman who was killed in 1919. They soon learn that she may have been murdered because of her activism for the women's vote. The only person from the original investigation still alive was a young child at the time.

** "Torn" is [[RecycledScript largely similar]] to an earlier episode which was their previous coldest case yet. In "Beautiful Little Fool", the team investigated the murder of a flapper in the aftermath of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. The only living witness in that case was also a little girl at the time of the murder, and getting an interview with her (now an old, reclusive socialite in her family' mansion) is an additional challenge. Unlike in "Torn" ([[spoiler:where the murder was more or less an accident]]), solving this crime has legal effects in the present day because the murder weapon is proven to have been stolen from the victim, and the police confiscates it from the murderer's grandson.
** In the series premiere, Lilly asks what's the coldest case ever and [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness her old partner]] claims that it's Lucy the australopithecus, because someone bashed her head in with a rock. [[note]]The line may have been inspired by the documentary ''[[WalkingWithDinosaurs Walking with Cavemen]]'', where Lucy is portrayed as being murdered by another australopithecine with a rock, but the cause of her death is still unknown in reality.[[/note]]

* The non-fiction book ''Cold Case Homicides: Practical Investigative Techniques'' (2006) argues that the coldest criminal case ever investigated is the death of Ötzi the Iceman ca. 3300 BCE. He was found 5,000 years later in 1991 and initially mistaken for an accidented mountaineer. Once dated better, he was speculated to be an accident still, or a ritual sacrifice (which would make his death not a crime under the law of the "jurisdiction" it was committed in), but further testing, using the same techniques employed in modern crime investigation, found unambiguous evidence that he had fought for his life against several people before being murdered. Now we know where he was before his murder, what he ate, how many people were involved in his killing, that they were all men from the area, and that he tried to save another wounded man by carrying him over his back before he met his fate. [[CaptainObvious Still no arrests coming, thought.]]

** In the same episode, Lilly and Scotty revisit the storage for really old cases (before WW2). Lilly reads through some files from the 1910s and pokes fun at how lacklustre they are (e.g. One comments that "The suspect is a man with a mustache").

** "Torn" is [[RecycledScript largely similar]] to an earlier episode which was their previous coldest case yet. In "Beautiful Little Fool", the team investigated the murder of a flapper in the aftermath of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. The only living witness in that case was also a little girl at the time of the murder, and getting an interview with her (now an old, reclusive socialite in her family' mansion) is an additional challenge.

** "Torn" is [[RecycledScript largely similar]] to an earlier episode which was their previous coldest case yet. In "Beautiful Little Fool", the team investigated the murder of a flapper in the aftermath of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. The only living witness in that case was also a little girl at the time of the murder, and getting an interview with her (now an old, reclusive socialite in her family' mansion) is an additional challenge.

* The non-fiction book ''Cold Case Homicides: Practical Investigative Techniques'' (2006) argues that the coldest criminal case ever investigated is the death of Ötzi the Iceman ca. 3300 BCE. He was found 5,000 years later and initially taken for an accidented mountaineer. Once dated better, he was speculated to be an accident still, or a ritual sacrifice (which would make it not a crime under the law of the "jurisdiction" it was committed in), but further testing, using the same techniques employed in modern crime investigation, found unambiguous evidence that he had fought for his life against several people before being murdered. Now we know where he was before his murder, what he ate, how many people were involved in his killing, that they were all men from the area, and that he tried to save another wounded man by carrying him over his back before he met his fate. [[CaptainObvious Still no arrests coming, thought.]]

* ''Series/ColdCase'': In "Torn", Lilly and her team investigate their oldest case yet, the murder of a woman who was killed in 1919. They soon learn that she may have been murdered because of her activism for woman rights. The only person from the original investigation still alive was a young child at the time.

** He ruled that Mateo Morral, the Anarchist that tried to kill King Alfonso XIII during his wedding day in 1906, was murdered while in police custody and did not kill himself.

* In ''The Wench Is Dead'', Colin Dexter's eighth Inspector Morse novel, Morse is laid up in hospital and passes the time by reinvestigating a murder case from Oxford during the 1860s, which he suspects resulted in three wrongful convictions. (The murder case is fictional, but inspired by a real 1839 case.)

* ''Series/ColdCase'': In "Torn", Lilly and her team investigate their oldest case yet, the murder of a woman who was killed in 1919. They soon learn that she may have been murdered because of her activism for woman rights. The only person from the original investigation still alive as a young child at the time.

[[AC:Literature]]

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]

[[AC:Real Life]]
* Spanish criminologist Francisco Pérez Abellán investigated three magnicides from the 19th and early 20th century in the 2010s:

** He confirmed that José Canalejas, Spanish PM murdered in 1912, was indeed murdered the way he is said to have been in History books, but also found that his killer, the anarchist Manuel Pardiñas, did not kill himself to evade arrest. Instead, he was beaten and then shot twice in the head by Canalejas' bodyguard.
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''Note: The trope description portion of this draft has undergone a number of significant revisions in response to comments. The original comments below still reflect the state of the draft at the time they were made.''