What happens when a prominent person is assassinated and the perpetrator cannot be identified? Are there real world examples of such cases?
What happens when a prominent person is assassinated and the perpetrator cannot be identified? Are there real world examples of such cases?
Prominent people like Politicians, CEOS, etc...
Old joke: Conspiracy theorist Ted Tinfoil dies and goes to heaven and gets to meet God. God welcomes Ted to the afterlife and asks if he has any questions. Ted wants to know who killed JFK. God says "it was Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone". Ted says "oh no, the cover-up goes all the way to the top!".
God is the real CIA Director
It’s a great joke.
"... and he was aiming for John Connally."
So this BBC show was actually a documentary? Did that guy end up getting a curry? https://youtu.be/W6naJ08Tskk
Edit I just realized I misread the joke.
Ask Bruce Ivins. (Or, well... you can't...) Five people died from the 2001 anthrax attacks, but they could never find a perpetrator. The prominent people didn't die, but they came close to being exposed.
Bruce Ivins was railroaded by Robert fucking Meuller no less until he committed suicide and years later it would be proven, without a shadow of a doubt I might add, that the facility Ivins worked in did not have the capability to produce anthrax as pure as that used in the attacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Edwards_Ivins#Death
When it's high profile, they will find someone to pin it on. It's anyone's guess if that person is the actual culprit or just someone that the cops thought they could pin it on.
I'd say not just cops, it's more which power brokers are involved and need this contained.
Cops are low-influence actors in such cases. They're as railroaded as the accused.
A salient point and having lived through that period and remember how shithouse panicked everyone was about the anthrax attacks because of how quickly they followed 9/11 (just a week later), I can see there being a lot of impetus for them to find someone, anyone to pin it on so they could calm the US public and make them feel at ease.
The same thing that happens when anyone else is killed and the culprit isn't identified, only with a bunch of added conspiracy theories.
Even if the assassin is identified, there will be conspiracy theories and rumors. Now that I think of it, the part with murder and death is completely optional. There will always be conspiracies, as long as the person in question is famous enough.
The first one that comes to mind is Jimmy Hoffa, but they never found the body. He was almost certainly killed by the Mafia, but no specific person was ever prosecuted for it.
Depends on who's funding the investigation. If there's limited funds, people tend to move on and just accept things as they are.
Another infamous way to go around this is to offer a scapegoat to take the blame.
As has happened a thousand times. The criminal justice system needs to be perceived as effective to the masses, so they will often use a patsy.
Truth is that killing someone and getting away with it is not too difficult if you’re very smart and plan it well.
It becomes an accident or suicide. Like with Russian windows and Epstein's cell.
Just look at the JFK and Olof Palme investigations for your answer.
Summary:
Decades are spent running investigations, complex conspiracy theories appear, society moves on.
Nothing.
Today, the CEO of a major healthcare company was assassinated in broad daylight on the street in New York City. The suspect was masked and still at large. So I guess we will see? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-fatally-shot-nyc-hotel-police-say-rcna182789
Yea that's was the inspiration for this post. The question was more about historical cases, since this hasn't been concluded yet.