Discussion Main / SerialKillingsSpecificTarget

Would a Copycat Killer trying to take advantage of a convenient Serial Killer doing the rounds to try to hide him settling a personal vendetta count as a Downplayed Trope ?

Would a series of Vigilante Execution to disguise a Revenge against a specific criminal count?

"* Mark Hofmann, the forger who was in danger of having his epic scam of the Mormons come to light, did an interesting variation. In order to provide an excuse why a promised collection of documents (which he hadn't yet forged) wasn't available, he killed a local document collector with a bomb, then a woman connected to the first victim, then blew up his own car in an apparent failed attempted murder. He was his own specific victim, the goal to portray himself as a lucky survivor of a serial bomber/killer and giving him an excuse to lay low and not have to provide the documents."

There's also the theory that he was aiming for another potential victim (another person he'd sold/promised phony documents too) and the bomb went off by accident while he was fiddling with it. So it might be another accidental use of the trope.

Perhaps change the quote to one from G.K.Chesterton's "The Sign of the Broken Sword": Going by memory "... Where does the wise man hide a leaf? In a forest. ... But what if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in."

Would Agatha Christie's "The Moving Finger" count as a variant? A small village is plagued by a "poison pen" writer, accusing the villagers of all manner of scandals. Then, a woman is found dead of apparent suicide after receiving a letter accusing her of having a child from an affair. It turns out she was murdered by her husband, who had sent out the previous letters specifically to give a plausible justification for her taking her own life.