An accident that looks like murder

The_Ink_Goddess · Apr 20, 2013

Hi all!

I'm revamping my YA WIP, and the ending is unconvincing. I'm stuck between two so I want to write both and see how it works out. It's basically about a girl who's killed all her exes who falls in love with a guy who may be a serial killer. All of this has worked out and they're trying to live their insiduous happily-ever-after, but I want it to end so that he dies and she goes to prison even though she didn't do it, but she's unable to prove she didn't. None of my versions seem plausible or convincing, so does anyone have any good ideas about how I can bring either of these about?

1) An accident that looks like murder?
2) Somebody else kills him but it looks like she did it?

(Although, with #2, her dad is a cop and she has got away with 3 murders. So it's implausible for her to do something ike pick up the gun he's been shot with or contaminate the crime scene in a really obvious way.)

Canotila · Apr 20, 2013

She accidentally runs over him with a car?

During an argument he accidentally falls to his death, and there are a few eye witnesses to the argument and fall?

I think that the best way for her to get in trouble is for there to be at least one witness who saw enough circumstantial stuff to implicate her, and the prosecutor really being savvy enough to use that testimony to their advantage. Like them having a big argument and him ending up dead soon after.

King Neptune · Apr 20, 2013

Read "Dirty Tricks" by Michael Dibdin. The main character gets accused for killing his wife after she fell down a stair and hit her head on a piece of furniture. That looked innocent, but there was the death of her first husband.

Cyia · Apr 20, 2013

Where's the crime scene? Is there anything in the natural landscaping that could kill your victim, but look like he was stabbed. Thin icicles, which would melt with the vic's body heat, and so leave "evidence" of a puncture caused by a screwdriver or ice pick, for example.

King Neptune · Apr 20, 2013

Then there's drowning. The one who is to die falls into a river, and the survivor tries to hand an oar out. The one in the water can't grab it, and someone on the shore wonders whether it was an attempt to save or a whack on the head to speed drowning.

Shakesbear · Apr 20, 2013

Food poisoning - she does the cooking, he gets ill, dies. She is blamed because they both ate the same food and she had no ill effects. At some point he had a 'take away' from a street vendor that a large bird had pooped on, which is what made him ill and dead. Street vendor also dies from eating contaminated food and is not able to provide the info that could save her.

frimble3 · Apr 20, 2013

If someone else kills him, it should be somehow related, a 'victim' who's a little to quick, a cop who's onto them, a relative of one of the girl's exes thinks the guy has been doing the killings for her and gets revenge. People who have no interest in her innocence.

Or yeah, an actual accident, that unfortunately look less than accidental. There have been a number of people serving time who were later proved innocent by fresh evidence/other people's confessions. But everybody involved thought that the verdict had been correct at the time.
That could be her, minus the fresh evidence/new confession.

JoNightshade · Apr 20, 2013

Rather than an accident, you could have someone else kill him. Maybe the murderer is a dead ringer for her and she gets mis-identified by witnesses.

Cyia · Apr 20, 2013

Shakesbear said:
Food poisoning - she does the cooking, he gets ill, dies. She is blamed because they both ate the same food and she had no ill effects. At some point he had a 'take away' from a street vendor that a large bird had pooped on, which is what made him ill and dead. Street vendor also dies from eating contaminated food and is not able to provide the info that could save her.

This could also work with an extreme allergy.

The victim is allergic to peanuts, which the cook doesn't put into the dish. But maybe the dish called for peanuts and she only realized the mistake after she'd added them, so she scrapes them off quick, but the vic eats a part of the dish they touched. With some highly sensitive people, that's all it takes.

Or, she gives the vic a bite as she's cooking because he wants to taste it, only she's been eating peanut butter out of the jar and doesn't realize that "licked clean" isn't enough to prevent a reaction.

kaitie · Apr 20, 2013

It would be hard to call an allergic reaction murder, though. Accidental ingestion happens often enough that it would almost certainly be seen as an accident unless there was something else to show for it. Now, three dead ex boyfriends might be enough to make it look suspicious, though, and then I could see the cops thinking she on purpose accidentally killed him.

The_Ink_Goddess · Apr 22, 2013

thanks, guys! great ideas here.

funny you should mention her running him over with her car and the allergic reaction, though, because those two are ways in which she kills her other boyfriends.

Chris Graham · Apr 22, 2013

Write in a parallel thread that means that he has some kind of information (or is suspected of knowing something) that is a risk to some other character.
A hit man can be hired by the character that's at risk, unbeknown to the girl, to take him out, leaving her as the only possible suspect as he had no real links to the character that organised his demise.

An accident that looks like murder

The_Ink_Goddess

we're gonna make it out of the fire

Canotila

Sever your leg please.

King Neptune

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

King Neptune

Shakesbear

knows a hawk from a handsaw

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

JoNightshade

has finally arrived

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

kaitie

With great power comes

The_Ink_Goddess

we're gonna make it out of the fire

Chris Graham