History Main / CrimeAfterCrime

A tendency to encourage this is what makes AllCrimesAreEqual a Very Bad Idea. Compare HeKnowsTooMuch, FawltyTowersPlot (this trope's much less dark, non-criminal counterpart), JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope, UnintentionallyNotoriousCrime, and SerialKillingsSpecificTarget (the trope's much more deliberate and heinous cousin). Contrast RevealingCoverUp. A major cause of NeverOneMurder and PlethoraOfMistakes.

* This trope is the most common source of NeverOneMurder in the works of Creator/AgathaChristie; many a murderer finds themselves needing to bump off a [[HeKnowsTooMuch blackmailer or unintended witness to the first crime]]. In several works, such as ''Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd'' and ''Literature/CatAmongThePigeons'', the initial crime witnessed wasn't even a murder. In ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile'', the second victim was murdered because of having witnessed the first murder; and the third because of having witnessed the second.

* In the ''Series/CSIMiami'' episode "Blown Away", wo burglars are revealed to have killed a young woman who walked in on them robbing their house, then to have murdered their partner who walked in on them committing both crimes.

* This is a running theme in ''Series/BreakingBad''. Walt and Jesse want to make and sell meth but to do so they need to make deals with violent and unstable criminals who do not trust them. Sooner or later the other criminals turn on them and Walt and Jesse have to kill them to protect themselves. As they move further up the criminal food chain, they are forced to take more drastic measures and become more ruthless.
** Since Vince Gilligan has described the series as an attempt to turn Walt from Mr. Chips into Scarface, it's pretty much a given that this trope is going to come into play.

[[quoteright:250:[[Webcomic/ToonHole https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_bodybag.jpg]]]]

* In ''Series/TheShield'', the Strike Team starts out making a few deals with some gangs to leave them alone while going after their competitors, and ends up [[spoiler:killing fellow cops]] to cover up their corruption.

->''"But deep in your heart you know the guilt would drive you mad\\
And the shame would leave a permanent scar\\
'Cause you start out stealing songs, and then you're robbing liquor stores\\
And sellin' crack and runnin' over school kids with your car."''
-->-- '''[[Music/WeirdAlYankovic "Weird Al" Yankovic]]''', "Don't Download This Song"

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': The mobsters Etta runs into while trying to get to the dentist compound their insurance fraud with kidnapping and then attempted murder trying to keep their plans from getting out.

* ''Film/PanicRoom'': The burglary was supposed to be an easy "get in, take the money, get out" when [[StupidCrooks Junior]] originally planned it and recruited [[TheSmartGuy Burnham]] on that basis and brings in [[PsychoForHire Raoul]] without telling Burnham. He miscalculated when the house would be re-sold, so he didn't expect to find Meg and Sarah there. Worse still, they fortify themselves inside the panic room, which is where the money belonging to the previous owner is stored. The burglars commit even more crimes in their attempt to get it, including trying to gas Meg and Sarah, threatening Sarah when they find themselves locked in the room with Meg's daughter, [[spoiler:torturing Meg's ex-husband Stephen and forcing her to watch]], and ultimately [[spoiler:Raoul stops caring about the money entirely and attempts to murder the entire family.]]

* ''Film/PanicRoom'': The burglary was supposed to be an easy "get in, take the money, get out" when [[SmugSnake Junior]] originally planned it and recruited [[TheSmartGuy Burnham]] on that basis and brings in [[PsychoForHire Raoul]] without telling Burnham. He miscalculated when the house would be re-sold, so he didn't expect to find Meg and Sarah there. Worse still, they fortify themselves inside the panic room, which is where the money belonging to the previous owner is stored. The burglars commit even more crimes in their attempt to get it, including trying to gas Meg and Sarah, threatening Sarah, [[spoiler:torturing Meg's ex-husband Stephen and forcing her to watch]], and ultimately [[spoiler:Raoul stops caring about the money entirely and attempts to murder the entire family.]]

* ''Film/PanicRoom'': The burglary was supposed to be an easy "get in, take the money, get out" when Junior originally planned it and recruited Burnham on that basis and brings in Raoul without telling Burnham. He miscalculated when the house would be re-sold, so he didn't expect to find Meg and Sarah there. Worse still, they fortify themselves inside the panic room, which is where the money belonging to the previous owner is stored. The burglars commit even more crimes in their attempt to get it, including trying to gas Meg and Sarah, threatening Sarah, [[spoiler:torturing Meg's ex-husband Stephen and forcing her to watch]], and ultimately [[spoiler:Raoul stops caring about the money entirely and attempts to murder the entire family.]]

* ''Film/PanicRoom'': The burglary was supposed to be an easy "get in, take the money, get out" when Junior originally planned it and recruited Burnham on that basis and brings in Raoul without telling Burnham. He miscalculated when the house would be re-sold, so he didn't expect to find Meg and Sarah there. Worse still, they fortify themselves inside the panic room, which is where the money belonging to the previous owner is stored. The burglars commit even more crimes in their attempt to get it, including trying to gas Meg and Sarah, threatening Sarah, [[spoiler:torturing Meg's ex-husband Stephen and forcing her to watch]], and ultimately [[spoiler:Raoul stops caring about the money entirely and attempts to murder the entire family.]]

A tendency to encourage this is what makes AllCrimesAreEqual a Very Bad Idea. Compare HeKnowsTooMuch, FawltyTowersPlot (this trope's much less dark, non-criminal counterpart), JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope, and UnintentionallyNotoriousCrime. Contrast RevealingCoverUp. A major cause of NeverOneMurder and PlethoraOfMistakes.

* In ''Film/{{Heat}}'' In the opening, a crew has captured an armored car, has blown the back door, and has lined up the guards outside. Waingro (in a mask) is upset because one of the guards won't follow his instructions, and has to be told that because of the explosion, he can't hear. Waingro ignores explicit instructions not to kill anyone. The detective later investigating the robbery explains what happened.

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* Nikolaos, the PC of ''Roleplay/IliadQuest'', assists Odysseus and Diomedes in their revenge plot to murder Palamedes for [[WouldHurtAChild endangering Odysseus' son's life]] to get him [[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive to answer the call to arms]] in the First Mustering. When Palamedes' father Nauplius comes calling to investigate the death, he gets killed off as well.

* In one of ''Manga/TheKindaichiCaseFiles'', "Smoke and Mirrors", [[spoiler:the teacher Matoba]] ends up killing three people, and attempting to kill a fourth, to cover up a misdeed many years ago.

* Steve Ditko's ''ComicBook/MrA'' stories always revolve around this, the Objectivist moral being that there's no such thing as toeing the line between good and evil.

* In ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' vol. 5 #19, Saturn Queen murders one man and attempts to shoot Chameleon's brains off when he figures out she's the culprit.
* In ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' storyline ''ComicBook/WhoIsSuperwoman'', the titular villain attempts to murder -and frame- ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} and Inspector Henderson to cover up her murder of Agent Liberty.

* Basically the entire plot of ''Film/{{Stag}}'', in which the party-goers, having committed two counts of manslaughter in the second degree, spend the rest of the film debating whether to commit first-degree murder in order to keep a witness from talking.
* The trope description doubles as a plot synopsis for ''Film/VeryBadThings''.
* ''Film/ASimplePlan'' is a rather harrowing example of this plot.

* The whole film ''Film/{{Armored}}'' is basically a big example of this trope. The main plot starts off with a plan by a group of six or so armored truck drivers to steal the money they're transporting. The protagonist has more of a conscience than the average felon but needs the money and agrees to go along with it. Things start out alright for them when they take the truck to an abandoned warehouse where they plan to hide the money and then retrieve it after they pretend their truck was attacked. At some point, they decide that they need to blow up the truck in order to hide the evidence, but things still look like they might go off without any major hitches. However: [[spoiler:it turns out that a homeless man is living in the warehouse. When the homeless man sees them, the trigger-happy member of the heist team shoots him. When the protagonist suggests calling an ambulance, the team's leader finishes off the homeless man. Then, the protagonist [[HeelFaceTurn turns on them]] and sounds an alarm that draws a police officer to the warehouse. The trigger-happy guy shoots the cop, seriously wounding him. Then, in order to force the protagonist to cooperate with them, the crooks kidnap a member of his family. Meanwhile, another member of the team decides he can't handle it anymore and says he wants out, to which the other criminals respond by murdering him. In the end, the gang's leader tries to run over the protagonist with an armored truck.]]
* In ''Film/TheBadLieutenantPortOfCallNewOrleans'' a DirtyCop's life starts to spiral out of control as he has to keep committing new crimes in order to deal with the fallout from his old crimes. And since his old crimes were motivated by ''massive'' drug and gambling addictions he hasn't kicked yet, he keeps creating new problems just as soon as it looks like he's solved the old ones.
* Both versions of ''Film/TheLadykillers'' involve a gang of thieves who rent an old woman's basement under false pretenses in order to commit grand theft. She discovers the crime and threatens to go to the police, so they try to silence her. [[spoiler:They all die in the attempt.]]
* ''Film/SixtyEightKill'': What starts out as a burglary eventually entails murder, kidnapping, car theft, assault, false imprisonment, and arson.
* In ''Film/{{Heat}}'' In the opening, a crew has captured an armored car, has blown the back door, and has lined up the guards outside. Waingro (in a mask) is upset because one of the guards won't follow his instructions, and has to be told that because of the explosion, he can't hear. Waingro ignores explicit instructions not to kill anyone. The detective later investigating the robbery explains what happened.
** "Once it escalated to a murder one beef for all of 'em after they killed the first two guards, they didn't hesitate. Pop guard number three because...what difference does it make? Why leave a living witness? Drop of a hat these guys will rock and roll..."
* ''Film/{{Airheads}}'': Rex being called "Hollywood Boulevard trash" by station manager Milo causes the situation to degenerate from mere trespassing to hostage taking.

** ''The Hot Rock'' sets the tone for the entire Literature/{{Dortmunder}} series that follows. A following story, ''What's The Worst That Could Happen?'' (which was adapted into a movie starring Creator/MartinLawrence and Creator/DannyDeVito [[AdaptedOut with all series elements removed]]) has Dortmunder going on a crime spree to strike back against a rich man who got him arrested -- not because he got him arrested, but because the man took Dortmunder's ring (a family heirloom) from him by lying to the cops that it was one of the things Dortmunder stole ([[EvilIsPetty just for the kicks of "stealing something from the thief"]]) and became dead-set in not giving it back even if that meant losing ''everything else'' he owned.
* Happens in the ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''Necropolis''. A trader disobeyed an order to seal off a fuel pipeline he owned since he was making a fortune selling the fuel in the besieged city. Then the pipeline was used by Chaos forces to infiltrate the city and his crime became an act of treason. To get rid of witnesses, he killed the civilian workers he used in his scheme, then he killed his bodyguards who helped him kill the civilians, then his aide (or was planning to, at least), then tried to kill the medics of the titular Ghosts who were investigating the murders. Luckily, he was stopped by Gaunt, but one has to wonder how he was planning to kill the 1500+ pissed-off Imperial Guardsmen that would have torn the city apart looking for him.

* In ''Native Son'', Bigger Thomas accidentally suffocates a white girl in her bed. Believing that society would presume a black man like him guilty of having raped and murdered her, he burns her body and writes a ransom note claiming she's been kidnapped. Before Bigger is tracked down and arrested, he rapes and murders a black girlfriend.
* The elderly murderer in ''Dying to Live in Palm Beach'' accidentally took and used her wealthier friend's credit card, then began to do it deliberately until her friend mentioned her kids got her a bookkeeper. She poisons that friend, realizes she likes having money, arranges an overdose for another friend after abusing her card, and shoves a third off a boat when she catches her in the act.

* In one of his novels, Bayard Kendrick has his blind detective explain that you kill the first person because you absolutely have to. Then you kill the next person because they know too much. Then you kill again because there are loose ends. In the end, you just keep killing because you've gotten good at it.
* ''Literature/NickVelvet'': A comparatively mild example happens in "The Theft of the Banker's Ashtray", where Nick ends up having to steal the same ashtray twice (and the ashtray is actually stolen three times). Nick is peeved because he gets paid for one theft.
* This trope is the most common source of NeverOneMurder in the works of Creator/AgathaChristie; many a murderer finds themselves needing to bump off a [[HeKnowsTooMuch blackmailer or unintended witness to the first crime]]. In several works, such as ''Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd'' and ''Literature/CatAmongThePigeons'', the initial crime witnessed wasn't even a murder. In ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile'', the second victim was murdered because of having witnessed the first murder; and the third because of having witnessed the second.

* In the ''Series/CSIMiami'' episode "Blown Away", wo burglars are revealed to have killed a young woman who walked in on them robbing their house, then to have murdered their partner who walked in on them committing both crimes.
* In ''Series/TheShield'', the Strike Team starts out making a few deals with some gangs to leave them alone while going after their competitors, and ends up [[spoiler:killing fellow cops]] to cover up their corruption.
* Played with, or perhaps subverted in ''Series/VeronicaMars'' season one, in which the Kanes commit various counts of conspiracy ([[ArtisticLicenseLaw mislabeled in the show as obstruction of justice]]) in order to conceal that [[spoiler:Duncan did not kill]] Lilly. Well, technically, [[spoiler:they ''thought'' he killed her]] and that's why they covered it up. In their defense, they did find him [[spoiler:in a position where he was covered in her blood]]. Which could have been used against him, no matter how innocent he was.
* ''Series/PrisonBreak'' contains several cases of this. Charles Westmoreland even tells Michael at one point that there's no such thing as an ex-con, which Michael repeats sometime in season two when he realizes how many crimes [[spoiler:and deaths]] he's been directly and indirectly involved in, since he decided to break Lincoln out of prison. Sucre, C-Note, and Mahone are also arguable examples of this, as their backstory gradually reveals.
* ''Series/ColdCase''
** An early episode had a guy shoot a man to death, and in attempt to cover it up, he set a fire... which killed at least twenty-two others.
** In another episode the BigBad doesn't even kill the victim -- he just gets rid of the body to protect the idiot that killed her almost by accident. However, as the investigation goes on, he kills another man to keep the secret and when that also fails, he attempts to kill the detective in charge of the investigation.
* Common in ''Series/{{Monk}}'' and ''Series/{{Psych}},'' particularly in Monk where many of the murders are relatively innocent people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The mystery is finding out why they were murdered in the first place, and it often comes down to the murder being used to cover up some other crime, which is only discovered through the murder investigation. If that's not the case, someone else is likely to be murdered in an attempt to cover up evidence from the first murder.
** A typical use of this, for example, occurs in "Mr. Monk and the Very Very Old Man," in which a politician accidentally killed an innocent teenager in a drunken hit and run years before the plot happened. Unable to resist confessing somehow, he wrote a letter detailing his guilt and put it in a time capsule, which was supposed to be opened again sooner than expected if the world's oldest man were to live five more years. The politician was eventually forced to kill the man in order to stop the time capsule from being opened, during which he also had to kill a security guard. He goes down for triple homicide in an attempt to cover up his single hit and run.

* In ''Series/PersonOfInterest'' this is usually what gets Finch and Reese involved. The machine is unable to predict impulse crimes but once a crime is committed it can predict that the cover-up will involve murders. In the pilot when [[spoiler:{{DirtyCop}}s kill some drug dealers]] the cover-up escalates to the attempted murder of a teenage witness and then the attempted murder of the prosecutor looking into the matter. The criminals were willing to escalate things even further since the prosecutor had his young son with him when they tried to kill him and they did not want any witnesses.

* This is a running theme in ''Series/BreakingBad''. Walt and Jesse want to make and sell meth but to do so they need to make deals with violent and unstable criminals who do not trust them. Sooner or later the other criminals turn on them and Walt and Jesse have to kill them to protect themselves. As they move further up the criminal food chain, they are forced to take more drastic measures and become more ruthless.
** Since Vince Gilligan has described the series as an attempt to turn Walt from Mr. Chips into Scarface, it's pretty much a given that this trope is going to come into play.

* ''Series/HowToGetAwayWithMurder'' pretty much runs on this. Every character is sooner rather than later a murderer, a murder accomplice, committing crimes to cover up the murder, framing somebody else for murder, framing themselves for murder committing crimes to get out of said framing or otherwise doing very bad things to hide a very bad thing they did in the past. And since the web of lies is ever expanding in severity and number of people involved, every time there's more people willing to do worse things to get out of trouble.
* In the ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' episode "Poison", a daffy woman wants to buy a baby-clothing franchise but needs money to do so. So she murders her husband by poisoning his aspirin, hoping to file a wrongful-death suit. But the company refuses to pay out for one death, so she engineers a string of poisonings to make it look like there was a bad batch but discovers that she can't collect a payout during an active crisis, so she then frames her mother for the poisonings. She finally collects her payout, but then discovers that the franchise she's trying to buy won't accept money from someone whose mother supposedly went on a killing spree...
* In ''Series/InsideNo9'' episode "Once Removed", [[ProfessionalKiller Viktor]] was tasked with killing one person; May. But thanks to May [[SixIsNine switching the number]] on Natasha's house, he ends up killing Natasha, her father upstairs, and her real estate agent to [[LeaveNoWitnesses leave no witnesses]]. He looked like he was about to kill the removal man as well when May and her screwdriver intervened.
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': "Talking to the Dead" is a textbook example. The original crime (which the viewer only learns about after several murders) was the comparatively minor one of stealing goods that were already stolen. When of the crooks they were stealing from discovered them, the murderer killed him and blackmailed his accomplice into helping him dispose of the body. However, things quickly escalated and he committed three subsequent murders to prevent his crimes from being discovered and would have committed a fourth if Barnaby had not caught him.
* On ''Series/MagnumPI2018'' Magnum lampshades this when he is held prisoner by two blackmailers. If they let him go immediately and surrender to the police, they will probably serve no time or might even have all charges against them dropped if they got a really good lawyer. Their blackmail scheme fizzled out before they even had the opportunity to demand money and given what they discovered, ''briefly'' holding Magnum at gunpoint might have been justified. However, if they want to proceed with their scheme they will have to kill Magnum and risk spending the rest of their life in prison. [[spoiler: The criminals do not follow Magnum's advice and end in jail on attempted murder charges.]]

* In ''Film/{{Heat}}'' In the opening, a crew has captured an armored car, has blown the back door, and has lined up the guards outside. Waingro (in a mask) is upset because one of the guards won't follow his instructions, and has to be told that because of the explosion, he can't hear. Waingro ignores explicit instructions not to kill anyone. The detective later investigating the robbery explains what happened. "So he pops one of the guards. This has now gone from an armed robbery to murder. Since they're all now [[AllCrimesAreEqual eligible for the death penalty]], why leave any witnesses? So they kill all the other guards."

* A recurring plan in ''{{Comicbook/Starman}}'' is a CorruptCorporateExecutive hiring a SuperVillain to go on a crime spree to cover up a single, financially motivated murder.
* In ''ComicBook/TheVision2015'', Virginia Vision kills the Grim Reaper in self-defense, but is caught disposing of the body by her neighbor, so she kills him, then kills his son to get rid of any witnesses. And then, of course, the Avengers send Victor Mancha to covertly investigate the family...

* This trope is the most common source of NeverOneMurder in the works of Creator/AgathaChristie; many a murderer finds themselves needing to bump off a [[HeKnowsTooMuch blackmailer or unintended witness to the first crime]]. In several works, such as ''Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd'' and ''Literature/CatAmongThePigeons'', the initial crime witnessed wasn't even a murder.

* In a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d50PYS-spk banned video]] by Creator/{{Smosh}}, Ian pours mercury into a friend's drink as a prank, only for it to kill him. Desperate to hide the evidence, he ends up assaulting/killing witness after witness. Then it's revealed that his friend had been PlayingPossum the whole time.

* In ''Literature/TeaWithTheBlackDragon'', the villains start out with non-violent cybercrime. When an audit threatens to expose the money they've stolen, they commit other crimes, including kidnapping the mother of an accomplice who's planning to go to the police. The hostage refuses to co-operate, and one of the kidnappers loses his temper and attacks her, apparently killing her. Finding themselves on the hook for one murder, they decide they might as well keep going, and plan to murder the accomplice as well, along with a friend of the family who has been investigating the kidnapping.

** On ''Series/CSINewYork'', Mac spends some time being stalked by a criminal he put away while he was still a rookie, who has some [[YouKnowWhatYouDid unspecified grudge]] against him and his old mentor/first partner. [[spoiler:It turns out that Mac's mentor stole some money the crook was caught with and stashed it at the scene. When he went to pick it up, the crook's girlfriend caught him so he killed her.]]