"The Perfect Murder" is a short story by the British politician and author Jeffrey Archer, first published in his 1988 anthology A Twist in the Tale . [1]
The story is told in the first person by a married man who has been having an affair with beautiful, 32-year-old Pimlico secretary Carla Moorland. After he sees another man leaving her flat, he assumes it's her lover and the two quarrel, ending in him accidentally striking her dead. He leaves unnoticed, then anonymously tips off the police so that the man he saw, a 51-year-old insurance broker called Paul Menzies, will be arrested. The murder inquiry receives vast media attention and Paul Menzies is eventually arrested and brought to trial. The protagonist is eventually sacked from his job, and puts his family life on hold, attending the courthouse hearings every day. His guilt grows ever larger, and he is consumed by the fear that Menzies will be found innocent and the police will identify him as the real murderer. Despite his fears of being caught, the protagonist returns to the courthouse every day, waiting for the court of law to find Menzies guilty. The protagonist's fears that he will be caught continue to grow, and after a lengthy trial and jury deliberation, he is happy to find out that the jury has reached a verdict. The protagonist returns to the courthouse for the verdict, and when the judge asks the foreman to stand and read the verdict, the protagonist stands and delivers the verdict of "guilty", thus bringing out the twist in the tale, which is so aptly described by the book’s title.
The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American male teenagers accused of raping two white women in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a legal injustice in the United States legal system.
Guilty as Sin is a 1993 American legal thriller film written by Larry Cohen, directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Martin Ransohoff. It stars Rebecca De Mornay and Don Johnson, and was produced by Hollywood Pictures.
Murder One is an American legal drama television series that aired on ABC from September 19, 1995, until May 29, 1997. The series was created by Steven Bochco, Charles H. Eglee, and Channing Gibson.
Brian Gene Nichols is a convicted murderer known for his escape and killing spree in the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 11, 2005. Nichols was on trial for rape when he escaped custody and murdered Rowland Barnes, the judge presiding over his trial, a court reporter, a Fulton County Sheriff's deputy, and later an ICE special agent. Twenty-six hours after a large-scale manhunt was launched in the metropolitan Atlanta area, Nichols was taken into custody. The prosecution charged him with committing 54 crimes during the escape; he was found guilty on all counts on November 7, 2008, and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
The Jury is a British television serial broadcast in 2002. The series was the first ever to be allowed to film inside the historic Old Bailey courthouse.
Rainey Bethea, was the last person publicly executed in the United States. Bethea, who confessed to the rape and killing of a 70-year-old woman named Lischia Edwards, was convicted of her rape and publicly hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky.
A Twist in the Tale is a 1988 collection of short stories by British author and politician Jeffrey Archer. The collection contains 12 stories, which are listed below.
The murder of 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe took place in her bedroom inside her home at Escondido, California, sometime between late night January 20, 1998, to early morning January 21, 1998. Stephanie's parents and grandmother found her body on the floor of her bedroom on the morning of January 21, 1998. She had been stabbed eight times. There was no sign of forced entry. Stephanie's window was found unlocked, but a screen was in place and there was no disturbance of accumulated grime and insect traces. A sliding glass door in her parents' bedroom was also unlocked. No knives were found at the scene that seemed consistent with the murder weapon, and no bloody clothing was found despite an exhaustive search.
Guin "Richie" Phillips was a gay man in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Phillips disappeared on June 17, 2003. His body was found on June 25, 2003, in a suitcase in Rough River Lake.
Edward Sapiano was a Canadian defence lawyer, based in Toronto, Ontario, notable for his role in many high-profile criminal cases. He initiated Canada's largest criminal investigation of police, resulting in the arrest and prosecution of several Toronto police officers and was also involved in the so-called Toronto 18 terrorism trial. Edward Sapiano is also noted for demanding immediate DNA testing of his client shortly following the 1996 arrest of the suspected "North York serial rapist", leading to his client Jeremy Foster's full vindication, despite a false confession to the crime. In his quest to get illegal guns off the street, Sapiano also created the only lawyer-operated gun amnesty program available in North America, Piece Options. He is also known for starting a database of rulings and judgements to track alleged misconduct among Toronto-area officers which was then retrievable for cross-examinations in other cases by other lawyers. Edward Sapiano, after putting his practice on hold for two and a half years due to kidney failure, returned to court in 2017 for the Andrea White murder trial. Edward died on March 21, 2020, from complications of kidney disease and was cited to be the first lawyer in Canada to practise while undergoing 10 hours of daily dialysis. He was regularly featured by media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, CBC, and the New York Times commenting on criminal law issues.
Caylee Marie Anthony was an American toddler who lived in Orlando, Florida, with her mother, Casey Marie Anthony, and her maternal grandparents, George and Cindy Anthony. On July 15, 2008, Caylee was reported missing in a 9-1-1 call made by Cindy, who said she had not seen the child for thirty-one days. According to what Cindy told police dispatchers, Casey had given varied explanations as to Caylee's whereabouts before eventually saying she had not seen her daughter for weeks. Casey later called police and falsely told a dispatcher that Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny on June 9. Casey was charged with first-degree murder in October 2008 and pleaded not guilty.
Adolph Louis Luetgert was a German-American businessman in Chicago, Illinois, convicted of murdering his second wife Louisa Bicknese in 1897 and dissolving her body in a sausage vat filled with lye at his A. L. Luetgert Sausage & Packing Company.
Lemrick Nelson, Jr. is a Trinidadian man who stabbed Hasidic student Yankel Rosenbaum to death during the racial unrest of the 1991 Crown Heights riot. Though his lawyer did not deny at his trial that Nelson stabbed Rosenbaum, he argued that the killing had nothing to do with Rosenbaum's being Jewish.
The Babes in the Wood Murders were the murders of two nine-year-old girls, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, on 9 October 1986, by a 20-year-old local roofer, Russell Bishop in Wild Park, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, Sussex, England. Bishop was tried and acquitted in 1987. The case remained open until 10 December 2018, when Bishop was found guilty of the murders in a second trial. The investigation into the two girls' murders is the largest and longest-running inquiry ever conducted by Sussex Police.
State of Florida v. George Zimmerman was a criminal prosecution of George Zimmerman on the charge of second-degree murder stemming from the killing of Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012.
On November 23, 2012, Jordan Davis, a black American 17-year-old boy, was murdered at a Gate Petroleum gas station in Jacksonville, Florida, United States, by Michael David Dunn, a white 45-year-old software developer, following an argument over loud music played by Davis and his three friends, in what was believed to be a racially motivated shooting.
The lynching of Willie Earle took place in Greenville, South Carolina on February 16, 1947, when Earle, a 24-year-old black man, was arrested, taken from his jail cell and murdered. It is considered the last racially motivated lynching to occur in South Carolina. The subsequent trial gained much media attention, and was covered by Rebecca West for The New Yorker. The trial resulted in the acquittal of 31 white men who had been charged with Earle's murder.
On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was murdered during a racially motivated hate crime while jogging in Satilla Shores, a neighborhood near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia. Three white men, who later claimed to police that they assumed he was a burglar, pursued Arbery in their trucks for several minutes, using the vehicles to block his path as he tried to run away. Two of the men, Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, were armed in one vehicle. Their neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, was in another vehicle. After overtaking Arbery, Travis exited his truck, pointing his weapon at Arbery. Arbery approached Travis and a physical altercation ensued, resulting in Travis fatally shooting Arbery. Bryan recorded this confrontation and Arbery's murder on his cell phone.
State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin was an American criminal case in the District Court of Minnesota in 2021. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was tried and convicted for the murder of George Floyd, which occurred during an arrest on May 25, 2020, and led to global protests over racial injustice and police brutality. A 12-member jury found Chauvin guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. It was the first conviction of a white police officer in Minnesota for the murder of a black person.
On 22 April 1972, Poon Sai Im, a 58-year-old provisions shop owner who lived on the island of Pulau Ubin, Singapore, was ambushed by two men, who had gone from mainland Singapore to the island to rob her of money, cigarettes and gold items. When one of Poon's attackers went into the room to look for valuables, the other attacker, 19-year-old Mohamed Yasin bin Hussin, alias Rosli, took upon himself to rape the victim and while doing so caused the elderly victim to die from fatal rib fractures. Both men were eventually arrested nine months after the case and tried for murder.