Basic Trope: A crime leads to more crimes to cover it up.
- Straight: Bob the burglar goes to steal a suddenly valuable stock from Alice and ends up beating her unconscious and stealing a few decoy odds and ends to get away with it.
- Exaggerated: Bob the burglar goes to steal a suddenly valuable stock from Alice. He ends up killing her and her butler, stealing a few odds and ends as decoys, burning the house down to destroy evidence, attempting to throw suspicion on the innocent Charlie, and driving away with a headlight damaged in the panic.
- Downplayed: Bob the burglar goes to steal a stock from Alice and ends up hitting her to escape.
- Justified: Bob is established as a deeply paranoid character who can't rest easy unless he can Leave No Witnesses, even if it's counterproductive to actually getting away with the crime.
- Inverted: Bob the murder goes to kill Alice, and steals a few odds and ends from her house while he's there because, hey, why not?
- Subverted: Bob is arrested for Alice's murder, and tells the police he only meant to rob her, but wound up following this trope. Except it turns out the murder was entirely premeditated, and Bob is lying in hopes of getting a lesser sentence.
- Double Subverted: Bob's motive for murdering Alice was to cover up a previous string of burglaries.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Parodied: Bob jaywalks, which somehow leads to a series of crimes culminating in an Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
- Averted: Bob robs Alice, and does nothing else to her.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded:Bob: Unfortunately, one crime usually needs another to cover it up.
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob is Genre Savvy enough to realize this is where the situation is going, and decides to either bail or surrender before his initial crime turns into a crime spree that'll earn him the chair or a life sentence.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied:Dracone: What Are You in For?, kid?Bob: Well, it began with a theft.
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