Before Video Cameras & Forensics how did criminals get caught?

[concise]

exactly. You always hear about serial abductors and how they finally get caught 10-15 bodies later and its never because they were a suspect in any of the people's deaths its because after so much success they have that one sloppy moment and someone sees em. Or their house gets too hot (pun intended) with the bodies and someone smells something, or their dumping grounds gets discovered.

I mean what are the authorities to do if no one saw you get murdered/abducted and there was nothing connecting you to the perp?

I mean, just look at the BTK killer as an example.
Killed a bunch of people in the 70s and 80s, went on hiatus living a regular life, and would have never been caught if he didn't start writing and taunting the media again in 2004. Caught by his own stupidity.

Dennis Rader - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[El Poyo Loco]

The same way criminals get caught now and days
Snitching

Or snitching on themselves

 

[SheriffOG]

I mean, just look at the BTK killer as an example.
Killed a bunch of people in the 70s and 80s, went on hiatus living a regular life, and would have never been caught if he didn't start writing and taunting the media again in 2004. Caught by his own stupidity.

Dennis Rader - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Or snitching on themselves

In a weird way though do you feel them doing that dumb shyt after getting away with it is like a natural conscious balance. They kinda wanna get caught deep down? very few people on this planet are soulless and without remorse contrary to popular belief

 

[concise]

In a weird way though do you feel them doing that dumb shyt after getting away with it is like a natural conscious balance. They kinda wanna get caught deep down? very few people on this planet are soulless and without remorse contrary to popular belief

I don't know about that.
Maybe they just want the attention for doing a good job (escaping so easily).
They pulled off something most people wouldn't have the balls to do and they can't tell anybody.
Like BTK, his name stopped being hot for a long time when he started contacting the media again. He didn't want to get caught, he just wanted the attention and satisfaction of seeing his crimes and his deeds talked about daily on the local news. DC snipers in 2002 as well. They had everyone fooled looking for white vans and white box trucks starting feeling themselves and started leaving handwritten notes and stupid messages they wanted the police to read on television for their own personal joy.

So maybe if somebody just wanted to kill randoms and didn't care about the fame, didn't have some need to feed his ego, that person would probably get away with it. You better hope that kind of person doesn't exist.

 

[Black Magisterialness]

Let me first of start by saying I am not a criminal and do not condone criminal activity in anyway Mr. Officer on your spy account

Now that's out of the way a lot of the time when I'm watching shows with a criminal element e.g. CSI, Dexter I always think the days before forensics and security cameras committing murder, robbery or theft would be pretty easy to get away with it if you had a decent plan, hid your identity and got away.

Obviously there were aspects to content with like people partners getting caught and snitching, eye witnesses and just being a fool and fukking up but those are still factors today

It leads me to think that mad crazy craft cacs killed and robbed a whole load of people and they buried out in the lands while criminal cac raising a family of 3 on that stolen money / sleeping peacefully on a couple bodies.

Am I missing something here and being stupid since I'm not about that criminal life and don't know shyt or do people think this too?

Alot of times they didn't.

Tons of people's family history is loaded with "my granddad killed a guy at a bar in Vermont and moved to California and changed his name to Arthur Stokeworth and met my grandma a year later" type stuff.

 

[SheriffOG]

Alot of times they didn't.

Tons of people's family history is loaded with "my granddad killed a guy at a bar in Vermont and moved to California and changed his name to Arthur Stokeworth and met my grandma a year later" type stuff.

That's crazy I know what you mean, those casual crime stories they drop. Imagine we were still in those times with our current knowledge and tech Would be like real life GTA

 

[Black Magisterialness]

That's crazy I know what you mean, those casual crime stories they drop. Imagine we were still in those times with our current knowledge and tech Would be like real life GTA

Well i mean not really. Its not that more crime happened (there were less people in the world too...and living alot less packed into cities). Its just that cop work took a much longer time, and paperwork wasn't just a massive database to be referenced at a moments notice. A dude could be a mob boss literally, and just hop on a boat to america or england or argentina and not one person in the entire country know who he is.

 

[SheriffOG]

Well i mean not really. Its not that more crime happened (there were less people in the world too...and living alot less packed into cities). Its just that cop work took a much longer time, and paperwork wasn't just a massive database to be referenced at a moments notice. A dude could be a mob boss literally, and just hop on a boat to america or england or argentina and not one person in the entire country know who he is.

yeah there less people so individual accounts of crime would have been less but as a proportion in relation the to the population size I think crimes would be at a higher %. yeah the paperwork aspect is true, would make looking back on shyt much slower but I know some police factions still use paper based filing in the states which is funny. yeah would take weeks to travel and catch a guy who fled, would be some global Scooby doo shyt