History Main / NeverOneMurder

* 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 becase 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."

* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'': Usually downplayed, as Monokuma imposes a two-kill limit for each killer to prevent anyone from [[LeaveNoSurvivors killing everyone else]]. However, the third chapter of each game generally has two victims.

* Parodied in the first "Anthology of Interest" episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''. The "What If" machine shows what would happen if Leela were more impulsive: she murders the professor and then kills nearly all the remaining cast members to cover it up--except for Fry, who she [[IsThatWhatTheyreCallingItNow keeps quiet in another way]]...

* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'': Usually downplayed, as Monokuma imposes a two-kill limit for each killer to prevent anyone from resorting to a KillEmAll solution. However, the third chapter of each game generally has two victims.

* A second ([[UpToEleven and even a third, fourth...]]) body very frequently shows up in ''Series/SilentWitness'', often providing the piece of evidence that cracks the case.

* OlderThanSteam: This is most of the plot of ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}.'' Macbeth murders Duncan to become king and finds himself forced to commit more and more murders for self-preservation.
** [[Literature/TheSevenBasicPlots Christopher Booker]]'s understanding of the Tragedy plot, well displayed in ''Macbeth'', includes three murders: the Good Old Man, the Rival (or Shadow), and the Innocent Young Girl. Each has symbolic significance. The first murder tends to lead to the others (downward spiral into worse crimes) and the fate of the Girl tends to [[MoralEventHorizon seal the fate]] of the tragic hero (ultimate destruction). (It's possible to avoid direct murder of her: violation works (as attempted in ''Theatre/RichardIII'', when he tries to marry Princess Elizabeth, as does driving her toward insanity or suicide.)

This trope is sometimes used (e.g. by Creator/AgathaChristie) to deconstruct the idea that murder of an AssholeVictim is morally justifiable; it turns out that our supposedly upright, reluctant killer finds the second murder now much easier, loses sight of the value of human life, and starts killing innocents to cover their tracks.

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* Creator/AgathaChristie's detectives (particularly Literature/HerculePoirot and Literature/MissMarple) would often posit that once someone has committed a murder for a dire reason, it [[ItGetsEasier becomes easier to kill again]] (often [[CrimeAfterCrime to cover up the first crime]]), and then increasingly easy after that, until the killer is acting on the most trivial of threats or slights.
** In ''Literature/TheABCMurders'', a serial killer [[spoiler:hides the murder that would benefit him amongst a series of others, creating an ABC murderer. "When are you least likely to notice a pin?" "When it's in a pincushion!"]] This is also lampshaded in the book, where Poirot and Hastings discuss detective stories, and Hasting says that more than one murder makes them more exciting.
** In ''Literature/ThreeActTragedy'', the culprit plans at least two murders: one as a "dress rehearsal", and one to kill the actual target. Another is later killed to distract the sleuths from the real clues.
** Also happens in ''Literature/AMurderIsAnnounced'', where [[spoiler:Charlotte, who's been posing as her sister Letitia all this time, murders her best friend and another one of her friends for coming close to discovering that she was responsible for the first murder of the man.]]
** Other examples include ''Literature/CatAmongThePigeons'' [[spoiler: in which there are three murders committed by two people with entirely different motives who are not working together]][[note]]In the 2008 ''Series/{{Poirot}}'' adaptation, however, [[spoiler:there are two murders, as the murder of Eleanor Vansittart by Miss Chadwick is replaced by the attempted murder of Eileen Rich]][[/note]] and ''Literature/TheClocks'' in which a second murder is committed to help cover up the first.
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* In Val McDermid's ''Clean Break'' Kate Brannigan puts a second case on a back burner, ruling the murder to be an accident until more people start dying and she severely regrets it.

* In Donald Moffitt's ShortStory "A Snitch in Time" (published in ''Magazine/AnalogSFAndF''), the cop hero, Delehanty, [[spoiler:is killed by the murderer he's been chasing]], which finally results in the murderer being caught.

Subtrope of CrimeAfterCrime. MurderIsTheBestSolution can lead to this outcome. NotTheFirstVictim is a variant of this, but that trope refers to a single person committing a series of crimes that not discovered at the beginning.

* Creator/AgathaChristie's detectives (particularly Literature/HerculePoirot and Literature/MissMarple) would often posit that once someone has committed a murder for a dire reason, it [[ItGetsEasier becomes easier to kill again]] (often to cover up the first crime), and then increasingly easy after that, until the killer is acting on the most trivial of threats or slights.

Subtrope of CrimeAfterCrime. MurderIsTheBestSolution can lead to this outcome.