History Main / AbsenceOfEvidence

* In the ''Manga/DeathNote'' novel ''LightNovel/AnotherNote'', this was the basis for all of Beyond Birthday's clues: "Something that should be there, but isn't."

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielefeld_Conspiracy Bielefeld Conspiracy]] {{meme}} parodies conspiracy theories which run on this. Basically, it posits three questions to the person: Do they know anyone from Bielefeld, have they ever been to Bielefeld, and do they know anyone who has been to Bielefeld. Since most people are expected to answer no[[note]]Bielefeld is a mid-size town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, with no particular thing to attract attention to it and no particular dialect that's really distinguishable from Standard German[[/note]] it is concluded that Bielefeld doesn't exist. People who answer "Yes" to the questions [[WithUsOrAgainstUs are said to be working for the conspiracy]], or to have been deceived by it.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielefeld_Conspiracy Bielefeld Conspiracy]] {{meme}} parodies UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories which run on this. Basically, it posits three questions to the person: Do they know anyone from Bielefeld, have they ever been to Bielefeld, and do they know anyone who has been to Bielefeld. Since most people are expected to answer no[[note]]Bielefeld is a mid-size town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, with no particular thing to attract attention to it and no particular dialect that's really distinguishable from Standard German[[/note]] it is concluded that Bielefeld doesn't exist. People who answer "Yes" to the questions [[WithUsOrAgainstUs are said to be working for the conspiracy]], or to have been deceived by it.

* In ''Series/PokerFace'', Charlie sniffs the victim's beer bottle trying to see if it was dosed with anything, but smells nothing (and realizes that she wouldn't be able to recognize the smell of poison anyway). But then she realizes that she smelled ''nothing'', when she should at least be able to smell beer, meaning that the bottle was washed out.

** A specific example in ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' comes when Carrot notices that several pages have been torn out of a notepad, leading him to conclude that someone didn't want them to read the note, and was smart enough to know they could get an impression from the next few pages. Vimes takes it a step further, and reasons that the person ''wants'' them to conclude this, or they'd just have taken the whole pad. Absence of absence of evidence...

* ''Fanfic/AnExtraordinaryJourney'': In the RecursiveFanfiction ''The Faith Chronicles'', the Watchers' Council fake [[spoiler:Faith's death]] with a mystically-created clone. Janet Frasier realizes that the clone is a fake because the clone's stomach is empty; prior to [[spoiler:her abduction Faith]] had eaten a full steak dinner, which should have still been in her stomach if [[spoiler:she'd been killed for real]].

*** [[spoiler:Jezaille Brett]] ''literally'' [[spoiler:disposes of the evidence already shown in court in the ''same spot'' by feigning clumsiness on her part.]]

* In ''Film/ThereWillbeBlood'', Henry doesn't laugh with Daniel Plainview over an amusing story involving them getting girls drunk at the peach-tree dance. This makes Daniel suspicious that Henry wasn't even there [[spoiler:and that he is impersonating his long lost brother]].

** One of the major plot points of the post-Arcadia arc of ''The Girl Who Could Knock Out The Hulk'' is Kara being puzzled by how not only does S.W.O.R.D. apparently have no knowledge of Krypton or the Kryptonian Empire, but that while there ''is'' an asteroid belt in Krypton's former orbit around Rao/Gliese 3707 and all the other planets Kara remembers are there, the actual mass of the asteroids is nowhere even ''close'' to the mass of even one of Krypton's moons, let alone the other moons, Krypton itself, or its sister planet Daxam, not to mention that Kara's best estimates of how long she spent in the Phantom Zone don't give the belt itself enough time to form. Lena's best guess is that maybe time went wonky and Kara was in the Zone longer than she thought, and the explosion was so violent that the remaining mass fell further out of orbit than Kara thought it would, but Kara's still not convinced. [[spoiler: Doctor Doom eventually reveals that this is because Kara's actually from a different universe than the one she's currently in.]]

* In one ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' episode, the killer is a retired forensic expert, meaning the team is left with no evidence whatsoever on the crime scene and are completely in the dark as to finding anything that could lead to a suspect, until Gibbs realize that only a professional would have been able to make the crime scene so clean, which severely narrows down the list of suspects. Then, [[YouWereTryingTooHard the expert's attempt at deflecting suspicion away from him leads Gibbs to definitely pin him down as the culprit because]] [[RevealingCoverup of the sudden evidence that popped up and this expert claimed to have found]].

** Comes up occasionally when using the Mood Matrix in ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies Dual Destinies]]'', most prominently when [[spoiler:Athena and Blackquill team up to trick Fulbright into an "emotional" confession that was anything but]].

*** The final case of ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': The time of death isn't mentioned, [[spoiler: because the murder is fake and the body has actually been dead for a while]], and while the various injuries to the body are described, none are actually listed as the cause of death.

*** The fifth case of ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'': The cause of death is absent, despite a number of visible injuries [[spoiler: because the death was unrelated to any of them; the victim was actually poisoned and the other wounds are a RedHerring.]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': People with silver eyes are powerful warriors with supernatural abilities, but this is a very rare trait. When Maria's father investigated the lineage of people with silver eyes, he found so little information that it made him suspicious. He concluded that such powerful bloodlines being so rare and under-reported meant that something was actively wiping them out. As a result of this suspicion, Maria spent her life hiding her identity by always wearing a mask and being known solely by a nickname instead of her actual name. It did not stop minions of the BigBad from tracking her down and trying to assassinate her for having silver eyes.

* In ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'', people with silver eyes are powerful warriors with supernatural abilities. This is a very rare trait, however. Maria Calavera realizes that if silver-eyed people are so powerful, they would have dominated the planet and thus become more common. She uses the lack of this to deduce that someone is targeting and eliminating silver-eyed individuals, so she dons a mask to keep hers hidden. [[CareerEndingInjury She's later proven right.]]

* ''Series/WhodunnitUK'': In [[spoiler:"Final Trumpet"]], the clinching piece of evidence for the sergeant investigating is the lack of muddy footprints on the pristine white carpet inside the caravan. Only one suspect have the suspects could have entered without using the door, and thus avoid tracking mud in from outside.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

--->'''Twilight''': I... I don't ''want'' to be right about this, [[spoiler:Pinkie Pie, but it seems like the only solution that fits, which is why I’m hoping you can give me that one piece of evidence that]] I’m missing—something that wraps everything up in a neat, logical package.\\
'''Pinkie''': [[spoiler:I’m sorry, Twilight, but I can't.]]\\
'''Twilight''': [[spoiler:You don’t want to talk about it?]]\\
'''Pinkie''': [[spoiler:No, I mean that I can’t]] give you the missing information you want... [[WhamLine because there isn’t any.]]]]

* ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'': In ''Dragondrums'', Piemur is sent to the Drum towers to learn drumming while his voice is changing from puberty. During his time there, he proves skilled and adept at learning the drumming codes enough to piss off the boys who have been there much longer. So, they start bullying him in progressively harsh ways. The final attack on Piemur is when [[spoiler:they place grease on some steps they know he would be rushing on to deliver the message. After his hard slip and cracking his head on the stone floor, the culprits clean off the grease. While one of Piemur's seniors doesn't believe him about the greased steps noting they were perfectly clean, the responsible one realizes that the steps in question were too clean. The other steps in that staircase were dirty compared to these few ones. They also didn't clean the grease off of Piemur's shoes.]]

* ''Literature/HerculePoirot'': In ''Literature/{{Curtain}}'', Poirot uses this to point out the flaw in Hastings' aborted plan to murder Major Allerton (who Hastings suspects has dark intentions towards Hastings' daughter) by poisoning him, as wiping his fingerprints off the bottle containing the poison he planned to use would have wiped away all the fingerprints on that bottle, making it obvious that someone had killed Allerton and with Hastings the prime suspect.

* ''Series/{{Motive}}'': In "Creeping Tom", when the police arrive at the scene of the crime, they find the BodyOfTheWeek is guarded by an angry guard dog that barks at anyone who tries to approach the body. Later Angie realises that while the dog barked at all the police, it did not bark when the intruder was in the house, meaning it was someone the dog knew and trusted.
* In one ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' episode, the killer is a retired forensic expert, meaning the team is left with no evidence whatsoever on the crime scene and are completely in the dark as to finding anything that could lead to a suspect, until Gibbs realize that only a professional would have been able to make the crime scene so clean, which severely narrows down the list of suspects. Then, [[YouWereTryingTooHard the forensic's attempt at deflecting suspicion away from him leads to Gibbs definitely pin him down as the culprit because]] [[RevealingCoverup of the sudden evidence that popped up and this expert claimed to have found]].

* ''Series/{{Psych}}'': GentlemanThief Pierre Despereaux was never caught and couldn't have been convicted even if he had been because he never left any evidence behind. It turns out the reason he was able to do this was because he never actually stole anything; he just made deals with museum owners so they could collect the insurance money.

* ''Series/{{Vera}}'': In "Tuesday's Child", Vera realizes that a story that the VictimOfTheWeek had left of his own accord is false when she searches the victim's holdall and discovers that he hadn't packed his insulin. As she puts it, why would he leave behind the one thing he depended on for survival?

* This is actually a big part of game sense in MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena titles (''VideoGame/Dota2'', ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', etc). These games typically come with a minimap that displays the entire level, with icons showing the location of every enemy you can see, but some of the map -- and possibly, some of the characters -- obscured by FogOfWar. If those enemies aren't visible on the minimap, what does that mean? Who knows... but the wise player expects trouble. (This is then {{exaggerated|Trope}} by various characters that have {{Invisibility Cloak}}s and can disappear from the minimap no matter ''what'' they're doing.)

* In ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', Blue Zircon notices something wrong with the story of Pink Diamond's assassination- the assassin (Rose Quartz) supposedly approached her at her palanquin, took her by surprise and killed her. So why wasn't Pink's retinue doing anything to stop her? Rose Quartz was immediately recognizable; she was the only active one of her kind. And ''nobody'' noticed she was there? Pink's PraetorianGuard didn't try to fight Rose? Her [[{{Seers}} Sapphires]] didn't see it coming? Her Pearl (who would have been expected to always be by her side) never warned her of the danger? Blue Zircon then concludes that what ''actually'' happened was a conspiracy by the only Gems with the authority to order all others away, and who Pink Diamond would trust if they asked her to step out of the palanquin... the Diamonds themselves. This gets her poofed. [[spoiler: But she was right. A Diamond was involved- ''Pink'' Diamond, conspiring with her Pearl to fake her own death. Rose was never spotted because "Rose" was actually her Pearl shapeshifted, the Sapphires saw nothing because they weren't looking for their leader plotting against herself, and her Pearl said nothing because she was in on it.]]