History Main / UnintentionallyNotoriousCrime

* The Killer of the Week in one episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'' was a meth-head who killed an off-duty cop because he thought the cop was sleeping with his girlfriend. Cop killers get an all-out manhunt in any jurisdiction.

Sister trope to AccidentalMurder (which may or may not be the result of a more minor crime). StupidCrooks are especially prone to this trope. For other cases of things going so well they go badly, see GoneHorriblyRight. Compare RobbingTheMobBank, MuggingTheMonster, and BullyingADragon, where the crime is ''foiled'' because the crooks are in over their head, and CollidingCriminalConspiracies when it's foiled because they're caught up in another crime. This trope can lead to CrimeAfterCrime.

* In the book ''Literature/{{Holes}}'', [[spoiler:Zero]] steals a pair of shoes. Little did he know that they were owned by a famous baseball player and were being sold for charity -- after he took them, he heard lots of people exclaiming, "The shoes are gone!" and shortly afterward, he heard police sirens and threw them away off a highway overpass, ([[spoiler:accidentally framing the protagonist in the process]]).

* ''Film/AbsolutePower'': Luther Withney, a burglar, breaks into a house to steal jewels, but witnesses a murder (by the President, no less) for which he is suspected.

* In ''Film/StealingRembrandt'', some lowlife thugs plan to steal a painting by a relatively unknown artist for some easy cash, only to mistakenly grab the only Rembrandt in their country by accident. This touches off a nation-wide police search, deals with foreign mobsters, and overall chaos for the petty thugs as they try to act like the professional thieves the press describes them to be.

* There's an UrbanLegend about thieves that stole [[Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood Mr. Rogers']] car parked in front of his house, then looked at the papers and props and returned it. In some versions of the tale, they actually included a written apology.

* In the ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' episode "Embraced by a Disguised Net -- CAPTIVATED", a member of an OrganLegging gang accidentally kidnaps the daughter of a politician who was denying their existence. The team is able to take advantage of this trope by having the politician denounce the gang to make the kidnapper panic (they know she's a professional who won't kill the girl). [[spoiler:It turns out that [[UnknownCharacter a rival]] had given her a list which included the politician's daughter so she'd be branded a traitor.]]

* ''Film/ManOnFire'' holds a variation: while kidnapping a little girl is not what we would call a "small" crime, the situation is worsened because it happened on [[SouthOfTheBorder Mexico City]], which we are provided information of [[WretchedHive holding an absurdly high kidnapping percentage]], so kidnapping Lupita Ramos is not something that any of the criminals see as wrong. Unfortunately, they went and pissed off the ''wrong'' OneManArmy RetiredBadass PapaWolf while performing this task, and thus are unprepared for his decision to go on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge...

* ''Literature/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'': When Leon is being berated by a Countess, a silver-haired lady speaks up to talk her out of this awful treatment only for the Countess to call the lady a "Hag" and ask her entourage to remove her from her presence. This causes Leon to go LaughingMad as he unleashes holy hell upon the Entourage: [[KingIncognito because the lady the Countess just insulted happened to be their nations' Queen.]]

* In the ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' episode "Embraced by a Disguised Net -– CAPTIVATED", a member of an OrganLegging gang accidentally kidnaps the daughter of a politician who was denying their existence. The team is able to take advantage of this trope by having the politician denounce the gang to make the kidnapper panic (they know she's a professional who won't kill the girl). [[spoiler:It turns out that [[UnknownCharacter a rival]] had given her a list which included the politician's daughter so she'd be branded a traitor.]]

* An interesting example occurs within the film ''Film/JohnWick'': Iosef steals the [[CoolCar vintage Mustang]] of the titular character, and in doing so both beat the crap out of him and [[KickTheDog kills his dog]]. There is absolutely ''nobody'' in the New York criminal underworld ([[TooDumbToLive except Iosef and his friends, of course]]) that doesn't know [[RetiredBadass the kind of man]] [[OneManArmy that Wick used to be]], and his own father Viggo points out to Iosef [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge the kind of shitstorm that he brought down on himself (and everybody who gets in the way, including Viggo)]] in his decision to let pettiness and greed guide him.

* ''Film/ManOnFire'' holds a variation: while kidnapping a little girl is not what we would call a "small" crime, the situation is worsened because it happened on [[SouthOfTheBorder Mexico City]], which we are provided information of [[WretchedHive holding an absurdly high kidnapping percentage]], so kidnapping Lupita Ramos is not something that any of the criminals see as wrong. Unfortunately, they went and pissed off the ''wrong'' OneManArmy RetiredBadass PapaWolf while performing this task, and thus are unprepared for his decision to go on a KillEmAll RoaringRampageOfRevenge...

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'', a watchmaker steals a rare watch from his shop, setting off the alarm. In the confusion, he causes a major traffic accident. He's sentenced to 20 years and plans revenge after discovering he has the ability to rewind time for a few seconds. [[spoiler:At the end, he realizes his plan killed his son, and this somehow supercharges his power, returning him to just before he took the watch. He leaves it there this time.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory''. Woody is jealous of the attention Andy pays to Buzz Lightyear. He schemes to knock Buzz down behind a desk, which would inconvenience him but not hurt him. Instead, because of a series of accidents, Buzz is knocked out the room's window, and the other toys want to lynch Woody because they think he did that on purpose.

* A subversion in ''Series/LaCasaDePapel'': the policemen think at first that the thieves didn't expect the daughter of the British ambassador to be among the hostages, but it turns out to be part of the plan all along.

* [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1173697/Burglars-tie-woman--flee-house-realise-shes-married-action-hero-actor-Dolph-Lundgren.html Some robbers]] in Marbella, Spain cut a robbery short when they realized they were ''this'' close to pulling this trope. They tied up the lady of a house and threatened her with knives, but fled in terror when they realized she was the wife of ''Creator/DolphLundgren''. Yes, ''[[GeniusBruiser that]]'' Dolph Lundgren.

* There's an unconfirmed story: thieves stole [[Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood Mr. Rogers']] car parked in front of his house, then looked at the papers and props and returned it. In some versions of the tale, they actually included a written apology.

* ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' has an interesting case. When the Undersiders attempt to rob a bank, the young super-villains take great care to plan it for when most of the heroes will be busy at a function across the city, and the teenage superhero team the Wards will be stuck in school, risking how many can be pulled out of class without raising suspicions on their secret identities. It's a good plan, unfortunately, one of their hostages happens to be Amy Dallon, the most powerful healer in the world, and someone the hero-community definitely wants to see safe. Almost all of the Wards show up immediately, including Amy's very annoyed older sister [[FlyingBrick Victoria Dallon]].

* In the ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' episode "Embraced by a Disguised Net – CAPTIVATED", a member of an OrganLegging gang accidentally kidnaps the daughter of a politician who was denying their existence. The team is able to take advantage of this trope by having the politician denounce the gang to make the kidnapper panic (they know she's a professional who won't kill the girl). [[spoiler:It turns out that [[UnknownCharacter a rival]] had given her a list which included the politician's daughter so she'd be branded a traitor.]]

* This trope is part of the origin story of ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'' Simon Baz: being forced to resort to grand theft auto after being fired, he once stole the wrong car and mid police chase, he found a bomb inside. Faced with no other options, he drove the car into his now abandoned former workplace and ran. The explosion was seen as an act of terrorism and Baz was captured and under interrogation when the ring came to him...
* The plot of the ''[[{{Series/Firefly}} Serenity: Better Days]]'' miniseries involves the crew raiding a buried money cache that turns out to be several thousand times more valuable than they thought.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' is nearly the same deal as Batman, a small-time crook killing a homeowner in a burglary and practically changing the face of the world. In fact, their two origins were compared in the first ''Batman/Spider-Man'' crossover.

* Just about anyone who threatens Lois Lane in any incarnation of ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' (except for continuities where it would be a case of MuggingTheMonster).

* ''Inner City Blues'': The comic starts when a pair of car thieves bring back what they believe to be the biggest haul of their lives... except that when they bring it to the mechanic, he identifies it as belonging to a powerful mob boss. Who calls him up a few seconds later to ask that they return it. Surprisingly enough, the mobster doesn't have them killed, instead putting them to work for him as enforcers.

* In ''Film/MurderInTheFirst'', the main character stole money from the till of a shop out of desperation. Because the shop in question had a post office, he was charged with a federal crime and ended up being punished as if he were a bank robber.

* In ''Film/OfficeSpace'', the characters create a software program which will take the rounded-off fractions of pennies from financial transactions from their employer and deposit it in a bank account they created -- an idea they stole from ''Film/SupermanIII''. They figure that the money would never be missed by Initech, the company they work for, because the theft would be so gradual. But when they check the account the following day, it has already deposited over $300,000, because they MisplacedADecimalPoint.
* In ''Film/StealingRembrandt'', some lowlife thugs plan to steal a painting by a relatively unknown artist for some easy cash, only to mistakenly grab the only Rembrandt in their country by accident. This touches off a nation-wide police search, deals with foreign mobsters, and overall chaos for the petty thugs as they try to act like the professional thieves the press describes them to be.
* In ''Film/HarleyDavidsonAndTheMarlboroMan'', the protagonists steal bags of what they think is cash from a bank owned by a corporation that is trying to acquire and then demolish a bar owned by their friend and build a skyscraper office building on the land. When they open the bags, they find nothing but a highly addictive and lethal new drug. The bank and the drug empire they're in business with want it back and send their best assassins after the heroes.

* ''Film/AbsolutePower'': Luther Withney, a burglar, breaks into a house to steal jewels, but witnesses a murder (by the President, no less) for which he is suspected.
* ''Film/{{Tsotsi}}'': The title character steals a woman's car, only to realize that there's a baby in the backseat.

* An interesting example occurs within the film ''Film/JohnWick'': Iosef steals the [[CoolCar vintage Mustang]] of the titular character, and in doing so both beat the crap out of him and [[KickTheDog kills his dog]]. There is absolutely ''nobody'' in the New York criminal underworld ([[TooDumbToLive except Iosef and his friends, of course]]) that doesn't know [[RetiredBadass the kind of man]] [[OneManArmy that Wick used to be]], and his own father Viggo points out to Iosef [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge the kind of shitstorm that he brought down on himself (and everybody who gets in the way, including Viggo)]] in his decision to let pettiness and greed guide him.
* ''Film/TheWayOfTheGun''. Two villains kidnap the surrogate mother of a rich man who turns out to be a mob accountant. Even when warned that their victim has organised crime connections who will be unwilling to see their dirty money handed over to a couple of small-time criminals, and they're offered a 'mere' million dollars to walk away clean, they turn down the offer in favor of the $15 million ransom they're demanding.
* In ''Film/PickupOnSouthStreet'', Skip lifts a wallet from the purse of a random woman on the subway. Unbeknownst to him, the wallet contains a microfilm the woman is ferrying to the head of [[DirtyCommies Communist spy ring]]. Stealing the wallet puts the police, the feds and the Commies on Skip's trail.

* In the book ''Literature/{{Holes}}'', [[spoiler:Zero]] steals a pair of shoes. Little did he know that they were owned by a famous baseball player and were being sold for charity -- after he took them, he heard lots of people exclaiming, "The shoes are gone!" and shortly afterward, he heard police sirens and threw them away off a highway overpass, ([[spoiler:accidentally framing the protagonist in the process]]).

* In ''Literature/JudgeDee'', an influential criminal tries to kill the judge by trapping him and his deputies under a huge bell, nearly suffocating them. When they manage to prove he was the culprit, he admits to it but tries to pass it off as a prank gone wrong, finally settling on the charge of assault, hoping his connections will let him go free... only for Dee to remind everyone that as a judge in office, he represents the state and the will of the Emperor -- and as such, assaulting him constitutes high treason, punishable by CruelAndUnusualDeath (getting pulled apart by four buffalos).
* In the Literature/EightySeventhPrecinct novel ''Lady, Lady, I Did It'', a shooter opens fire in a store and guns down four people. One of them happens to be Detective Bert Kling's fiancee, thereby guaranteeing that the crime has the attention of every cop in the city.
* In ''The Professional Killers'' by Creator/JTEdson, a pair of hit-men commit MurderByMistake when they gun down a man who matches the description of their target as he gets off a train. It turns out their target had never got on the train and the man they killed was senior sheriff's deputy.
* The FBI's manhunt for Buffalo Bill in ''Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' becomes a '''lot''' more intense when his latest victim to be abducted turns out to be the daughter of a U.S. Senator. There's never any indication that he knew who Catherine Martin's mother was, she just had the right body-type for his sick purposes.

* The ''Creator/JohnGrisham'' book ''Rogue Lawyer'' has a young woman kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring turn out to be the daughter of the deputy chief of police. [[DownplayedTrope although it's still two years before they manage to catch the guys, during which time they've continued operating business as usual]].

* In the pilot of ''Series/Vegas2012'', a woman is murdered and her body dumped in the desert. The local sheriff is corrupt and the murder might be linked to the mob. Given this, the case would have probably been left unsolved, except the woman was the governor's niece. The governor threatens to send in the National Guard if Las Vegas cannot get a grip on its rising crime. This gives the mayor the political clout to appoint Ralph Lamb as the new sheriff.

* There is an episode of ''Series/CHiPs'' where someone steals a car that had the owner's baby still in the car, escalating their crime from joyriding to kidnapping.
* A frequent event on ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent''. The victim will turn out to be a judge or a cop (or the relative of a judge or a cop), the victim or suspect will have mafia ties, or the case will draw a lot of media attention. This is necessary to keep the crime in the Major Case squad, instead of being reassigned to another division.
* In season four of ''Series/TheWire'', a state's witness from a key case is murdered in an alley, right as long-shot mayoral candidate Carcetti is making a big deal about the monumental crime levels of the city in general and the lack of protection for anyone [[TheMobBossIsScarier who actually dares to testify against the drug gangs]] in particular. The resulting scandal is so damaging to the current mayor, and the timing is so perfect (coming just before the election) that it actually helps Carcetti win the mayoral election. After the election, the case is still unsolved and Detective Greggs continues to investigate - and discovers that the death wasn't a murder meant to silence the witness, but a stray round from two drunken idiots shooting at bottles two blocks away.
-->'''Detective Norris:''' So our guy's dead because a bullet misses a bleach bottle and this fuck Carcetti gets to be the mayor behind the stupidity. I fucking love this town.
* In the first series of ''Series/PeakyBlinders'', the Peaky Blinders rob the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) factory with the intention of stealing motorcycles (yes, BSA made motorcycles). However, the thieves were so drunk that they didn't realize that the crate they took didn't contain motorcycles, but rather [[MoreDakka 25 Lewis machine guns and 100,000 rounds of ammunition]], produced on government contract and bound for Libya. The guns quickly become a MacGuffin, with the government, the [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles IRA]], and the [[DirtyCommunists Communists]] all looking to get their hands on these weapons. Tommy Shelby uses the fact that only he and a few other Blinders know where the guns are to play all three of them against each other to effectuate the establishment of the Shelby family as a power in the British underworld--and in legitimate business (obtaining on-track gambling licenses for the races).

* A subversion in ''Series/LaCasaDePapel'': the policemen think at first that the thieves didn't expect the daughter of the British ambassador to be among the hostages, but it turns out to be part of the plan all along.
* Happens surprisingly often on ''Series/CriminalMinds'':
** One episode features a bombing at a local coffee shop. The explosives expert points out that it was a very small charge that wouldn't have hurt anyone, except it was placed over the coffee shop's gas line, resulting in a huge explosion that killed several people and injured more. The team wonders whether it was on purpose (indicating a master bomb maker) or accident (in line with this trope). It turns out to be the latter ([[spoiler: the bomber just wanted his wife to view him as a hero, so he figured running into a "safe" explosion to save a victim would be a good move]]), and the unsub is horrified at what he's done.
** One episode features a man who, in a moment of rage, killed his wife's lover. Unfortunately for him, said lover was a terrorist, whose co-conspirator witnessed the whole thing and is now blackmailing the man into becoming his scapegoat. Murder's a serious enough crime on its own, but it's not going to get you shot by the FBI for instigating a large-scale gas attack.
** An episode features two teenage girls who got abducted, one of whom was killed. The surviving girl is in Witness Protection because her father is testifying against (and is a former member of) the Mob, and the team believes the kidnappers knew this and are trying to stop him from testifying. Turns out the ''other'' girl was the intended target, the mobster's daughter went with her under the mistaken belief that she could better control the situation, and the kidnappers turn out to be a pair of high school students who are in no way prepared for a mafia hitman's RoaringRampageOfRevenge.
** One killer (though not the ''main'' killer of the episode, just a copycat) thought he was killing a mugger but wound up killing an undercover cop.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'': in one episode, a criminal conspiracy kidnaps Dr Jackson and Major Carter as part of a ploy. Their boss is a bit smarter than his henchmen and is ''furious'' with them for doing so, because he had hoped to fly under the radar, but now that he's kidnapped two of the lead members of one of the most top-secret projects on the planet, his operation just shot way up on the military's threat list.
-->"Those two are members of SG-1! Do you have any ''idea'' what kind of resources the government will deploy to save them!?"
* ''Series/TheFBI'': In "The Hijackers", a former trucker named Smitty and two of his friends hijack a truck belonging to Smitty's former boss as an elaborate practical joke to pay him back for sacking Smitty. However, the company had changed its schedule and, instead of stealing a truck full of cheese, they steal a trucking a half a million dollars worth of furs.
* In ''Series/GangsOfLondon'' two Traveller teenagers are hired to murder a man. This is a pretty serious crime but they figure that no one will link them to the murder of some sleazy businessman. Turns out the man they kill is Finn Wallace, the head of the largest organized crime family in London. This means that every criminal gang in London is after them either to curry favor with the Wallaces or to prove that they were not behind the hit. Their actions trigger a MobWar that results in multiple bloody massacres, [[spoiler: their own deaths]] and ends in a massive manhunt by all levels of British law enforcement after Sean Wallace goes too far in his desire for revenge.

* Michael and Franklin in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' end up escalating their criminal activities when Michael destroys the house where the tennis coach his wife is cheating with is hiding. The house belongs to a notorious drug baron, who demands that they work to pay off the reconstruction costs. Later, Trevor arranges for the trio to steal an unspecified piece of experimental military technology. After the heist succeeds, they're told the device [[EmptyQuiver is really some kind of nuke]] and if they don't put it back fast, they and everyone they ever knew will be on the government's kill list. [[spoiler:They ''do'' put it back, without a hitch, so the only purpose of that was to ensure that FailureIsTheOnlyOption.]]

* 1784's "Affair of the Diamond Necklace" was initially both inverted and played straight, in that Jeanne de la Motte knew full well [[UsefulNotes/MarieAntoinette just whom]] she'd hired a prostitute to impersonate for a late-night encounter, as part of her plan to defraud a pair of jewelers who'd created an elaborate necklace of diamonds, and from there work her way into the high society of 18th-century France—except Cardinal de Rohan, with whom the encounter had been arranged, believed he was meeting the ''real'' Antoinette. For this reason, the cardinal was probably the only person who got off easy in the ''enormous'' scandal that followed; he at least had the luxury of being exiled to his own property. No one else escaped unblemished, however; not de la Motte, who was branded a thief, imprisoned, escaped, and eventually died in 1791 after a fall while on the run from debt collectors—and certainly not Antoinette herself, who, while relatively uninvolved in the entire mess, had garnered a lousy enough reputation with the public that [[Main/TheTysonZone no one would have been shocked if she'd been involved at all]], and so this destroyed her public standing further still. By the time things ''[[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution really]]'' went south in 1789, the Affair had become a contributing cause in a long line of them to the abolition of the French Monarchy, and profoundly altered the course of modern history. All over an expensive necklace that, by all accounts, Antoinette wanted little to do with in the first place.

[[folder:Comics]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* In the pilot of ''{{Series/Vegas 2012}}'', a woman is murdered and her body dumped in the desert. The local sheriff is corrupt and the murder might be linked to the mob. Given this, the case would have probably been left unsolved, except the woman was the governor's niece. The governor threatens to send in the National Guard if Las Vegas cannot get a grip on its rising crime. This gives the mayor the political clout to appoint Ralph Lamb as the new sheriff.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''Film/TheChase'': Kidnapping a girl and taking her car would just be another notch on the getaway list of Jack Hammond... had the girl not been the daughter of the wealthiest man in California. Thus TheChase ensues.

* In ''Series/{{Copper}}'', a thief breaks into a house and discovers the body of a dead child inside. He is GenreSavvy enough to know that this makes the crime high profile enough that the corrupt police will not be able to ignore it, but not high profile enough for the police to bother with a proper investigation. Rather than becoming a FallGuy and hanging for a murder he did not commit, he signs up on the next ship to leave port and does not come back to New York City for more than a year.