History Main / MistakenForEvidence

You've apprehended a suspect. You have a video of him carrying a large plastic bag filled with a suspicious-looking white powder. This must be the easiest OpenAndShutCase you've seen all year. In fact, the bag of powder has just come back from the lab identified as...cake mix?

* Played straight in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks 2002 Beltway sniper attacks.]] The snipers targeted people just off of interstates and major highways, to ensure they could get away quickly. Because of he high volume of commercial traffic that used those highways, many eyewitnesses at the shootings reported seeing a "white van or box truck speeding away." The police and FBI ran with this theory, and [[CassandraTruth ignored a report at one of the first shootings]] about an older blue Chevrolet Caprice. Eventually, other evidence was revealed tying the Caprice to the snipers, at which point the investigators realized that [[PoliceAreUseless it had been found at multiple checkpoints after each shooting]].

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* WesternAnimation/MaoMaoHeroesOfPureHeart: After Mao Mao's [[HoverBike areocycle]] gets stolen and [[NeverMyFault refuses to believe that he was wrong]] about how the SkyPirates would never steal it. Mao Mao finds a bag of cookies and a silly straw where his bike was and thinks that they're clues; Badgerclops points out that he's ''literally'' grasping at straws.
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You've apprehended a suspect. You have a video of him carrying a large plastic bag filled with a suspicious-looking white powder. This must be the easiest open-and-shut case you've seen all year. In fact, the bag of powder has just come back from the lab identified as...cake mix?

* In the ''Literature/FernHollow'' short story "The Tortoise Fair", the lead wagon of the titular fair caravan races out of the village like a bat out of hell. Later on, it's discovered that two kids are missing, convincing PC Hoppit (the local constable) the tortoises took the two missing kids with them. [[RightForTheWrongReasons The kids are indeed in the caravan, but not for the reasons PC Hoppit thinks]]: [[RanAwayToTheCircus they are stowaways, not kidnap victims.]] The "evidence" of the racing horse was the result of the horse being spooked by a train whistle.

* In the ''Literature/FernHollow'' short story "The Tortoise Fair", the lead wagon of the titular fair caravan races out of the village like a bat out of hell. Later on, it's discovered that two kids are missing, convincing PC Hoppit (the local constable) the tortoises took the two missing kids with them. [[RightForTheWrongReasons The kids are indeed in the caravan, but not for the reasons PC Hoppit thinks]]: [[CircusBrat they are stowaways, not kidnap victims.]] The "evidence" of the racing horse was the result of the horse being spooked by a train whistle.

* In the ''Literature/FernHollow'' short story "The Tortoise Fair", the lead wagon of the titular fair caravanb races out of the village like a bat out of hell. Later on, it's discovered that two kids are missing, convincing PC Hoppit (the local constable) the tortoises took the two missing kids with him. [[RightForTheWrongReasons The kids are indeed in the caravan, but not for the reasons PC Hoppit thinks]]: [[CircusBrat they are stowaways, not kidnap victims.]] The "evidence" of the racing horse was the result of the horse being spooked by a train whistle.

* One episode of ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'' had Drew's being investigated on suspicion of being a junkie. The white powder on Drew's coffee table is revealed to be powdered sugar from an extraordinary quantity of donuts, and one police officer found a professional-grade scale thinking it was being used to make meth, when Drew was trying to prove that Quarter Pounders weigh less than a quarter pound in order to file a lawsuit.

--> "When ribs are outlawed, only outlaws will have ribs!"

--> "It's like they've never seen a baggie full of eye shadow before."

* In Arthur Conan Doyle's ''A Study in Scarlet'', victims are found surrounded by splashes of blood, including a word written in blood on the wall. Like the CSI example below, it's actually a murderer with a nosebleed. That is, there IS evidence present that helps catch the killer - but the blood isn't it.

* In the ''Series/RaisingTheBar'' episode "Is There a Doctor in the House", Kellerman's client is arrested after the police find a large amount of white powder in her car. It's laundry detergent, as she was on her way to the laundromat. The cop who arrested her is humiliated and fraudulently charges her with selling a BeatBag.

* In the Literature/{{Discworld}} novel ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'' a group of "respectable citizens" discover Vimes drunk and unconscious at his desk with a bag of suspicious white power in his drawer... and the Patrician has been recently poisoned with arsenic. Vimes wakes up and quickly eats the evidence. [[spoiler:It was just sugar, he hid the actual arsenic that had been planted in his desk to frame him and then faked being drunk.]]

Sometimes overlaps with ABloodyMess, for which TheKetchupTest might be used for TheReveal. If the object in question is a powder or liquid, the FingertipDrugAnalysis may be used instead.

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