Perfect crime

A perfect crime is a crime that is undetected, unattributed to an identifiable perpetrator, or otherwise unsolved or unsolvable. The term is used colloquially in law and fiction (especially crime fiction) for both crimes committed as crimes foremost, and those committed as a kind of technical achievement on the part of the perpetrator.

The term perfect crime connotes one that is (or appears likely to be) unable to be solved, which distinguishes it from one that has merely not yet been solved, or where everyday chance or procedural matters frustrate a conviction.

In certain contexts, such as a poisoning, some argue the bar must be raised to where the mere detection of a crime having been committed renders it imperfect.^[1]

^ Timmermans, Stefan (2007). Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths. University of Chicago Press. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-226-80399-9.

[Timmermans-1] Timmermans, Stefan (2007). Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths. University of Chicago Press. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-226-80399-9.

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