The collected musings of Ryan Elder

I could see them taking the body with them to hide evidence but then again if the cop did see it that might hold up in court as well. I would think that the cop would call for backup if he was able to but that could be a big if. it sounds like you have a good story in progress there.

 

I have a difficult time believing that they would take the body. If you think you're getting busted, the idea is to throw out as much evidence as possible, not gather it together. This body would have to mean something to them, otherwise it's not worth risking yourself to take.

As for the roadblocks, I don't see much of a problem here. It would depend on the resources available to the police. You could make something else going on that causes the police to be tied up, or just make the city small enough that the police don't have the resources to make such a chase. Police occasionally give up chases when they'd deemed to be too dangerous to the pedestrian population, though they usually continue to track them from the air.

 

Yep I could make it so the villains get past a perimeter, before it's set up. But the plot hole is, is that they take the body with them, I was told. However, you said they want to get rid of evidence. If the villains are currently trying to be stopped by a cop, wouldn't they need to take the evidence, with them and get rid if it later? They don't have time to dispose of a dead body, in the middle of gun stand off though, so how would they get rid of the evidence, without taking it with them, in their getaway, and then getting rid of it after.

 

It's a calculated risk. A body in the middle of a street, especially one associated with gang violence is not going to tell an investigator much. You'll be able to figure out what type of weapon was used, but not much else, very little to definitively link a specific gang member to a specific crime. Being caught with the body however, is much worse. That's why you see people in movies throwing drugs out the window or eating them when pulled over, opposed to trying to hide it. Would there be a way to link the murder to the specific people if the body was left?

 

Okay then. Well is there any way to tie the body to them later? I thought by taking the body, and then getting caught with it later, before they could dispose of it, would be how they are caught in the climax. But if that is not the most logical way to write it, is their anything to tie them too the body later, if they do not have it, or if they would have likely gotten rid of the murder weapon?

I have went over the villain's reasons, and I cannot think of anything they would have, that could be used as evidence, so if their plan is naturally flawless, and I cannot add a flaw without creating a plot hole, then what would the police do to get them, if they do not have a reason to keep any evidence in their possession?

If the villain's plan is flawless, without creating a plot hole, what then?

 

The police would want the case cleared. If he confessed to it all, they would take it and get the others another day on another crime. Unless it was personal, if they killed a cop or something like that, the cops wouldn't be satisfied.
Most of the gang members wouldn't care less if he confessed. They would remember it and probably take care of his family a little. You might have one or two that will think he would turn against them if he had a long prison sentence. Basically it would be better him than me to them.

 

In the show "The Wire" on hbo, there was a character called Webay that was basically an assassin. When he got caught and knew he would be locked up for life, he started confessing to all the murders that were committed by the gang, even one's the cops knew he was no part of. The police were just happy for the clearance rate for murders going up.
The guy really took one for the team in that show, I think he confessed to like 14-16 open murders. Confessing to them kept him from getting the death penalty and just life in prison. What a system we live in.

 

If I were the cop, I'd memorize the license plate of the getaway car. From there I'd have a short list of suspects, from which I can match bullets to guns.

This is still problematic with gangs though, most of their weapons are not registered nor would their vehicle registration be all that reliable. Gangs get away with murders all the time, the type of crime makes it very difficult to prove who did what and in a system when the burden of proof is on the prosecutor, that means that most of the time, prosecutors try to add as many charges as possible.

It's very easy to provide plausible deniability of a murder: it was dark, there is no DNA... so hose charges often get thrown out, but possession of an illegal firearm or drugs is much easier since there is physical evidence.


You mention a shootout. If your hero hit one of the villains, blood will be spilled. DNA from blood at the scene would be pretty damning.

 

Exactly the vehicles they use are exactly that purpose, not traceable, with phony plates.

Basically I wanted the hero to catch them all at the same time though. If one gets shot, and there is blood, if they trace the blood to a specific suspect eventually, they will go and arrest the suspect and get him to cut a deal and rat out the others.

However, cutting a deal, and ratting out the others, just comes off as kind of underwhelming, and anticlimatic to me. I wanted them to all be caught at the same, in a more suspenseful way if that makes sense, hence being caught disposing of the dead body, in the act. But I would like that to be caught in a more suspenseful way later, if that makes sense.

 

Okay thanks. Well for my story, the ending make sense when it comes to this villain's decision to turn himself in. But, I feel that the ending is anticlimatic when it comes to the other gang members.

I mean the villain just turns himself in, takes the rap, and the others are just not seen again. So I feel something should be done about them. You say one or two may come after him, thinking he will rat them out, is that what you mean? Do you think maybe the majority would, which would give me more options for a possibly better ending, or would the majority not act this way about him turning himself in? If this is the case though, would he even tell his gang, he was going to take the rap, or would that be illogical of him, since the gang may not agree with it, and he would logically turn himself in and not tell them?

But if he doesn't tell them, and they don't know, than they could screw up their changes of freedom, and not know that the boss is taking the rap for them, and they will be free. What do you think on how that would go?

Also, one of the murder victims in a cop, so would the police be still okay with only the leader taking the rap, if the leader can convince them that it was all him to blame, and not the others?

 

That's true. How did the TV show The Wire do it with that assassin, where the cops gave all the punishment to the one guy, and let the others go? What was it about that one particularly that worked out that way?

 

I think they would pretty much know he is taking the rap. The ones who might turn against him would more than likely be the next leaders. Regular members would probably have a lot of respect for him. The leadership would fear he would eventually rat them out.
It would go two ways. They would change up most of their operation. Or they would have him killed in prison. The first is more likely to happen. Time would tell if they decided to take out the original leader.

 

The key to any story problem like this is motivation. Give them a compelling reason to take the body. Dig a little deeper than just having them cover up a murder.

As for the escape, there are tons of reasons how this could work. Get into the details of the escape, the narrowly-missed opportunities to catch them, the plan the gang had in place for getting away (if they did), etc.

 

Okay thanks. Well the only motivation the villains have is to get away with murder. Any other motivations might feel forced, or at least I cannot think of any others in the characters and the story they are set in.

What if the villains escape and leave the body there, and the MC, not knowing who most of the villains are, decides to take the body away from, the crime scene himself... He takes it away cause he thinks that there will likely not be enough physical evidence to get any leads and tie them to the murder. So he takes the body himself, and once he finds out more about the gang and the members, he plants the body on their property, and arranges for it to be found by the police.

Would this make more sense, or does the MC not have enough of a reason to move the body from the scene, and keep it till he can use it later, since that may also pose problems, evidence wise?

 

In your book, do you give any reason why they load the dead man's body into the vehicle?
Was this man important? Are they going to sell his organs (lol)? Etc. Etc.

And the MC is a cop. He saw the murder, so he is a witness. It doesn't matter if they took the body or not.

 

Depends on the kind of gang, I guess, and who the victim is. Where I live gangs are delineated along lines of where they live. They are defined by their neighborhood. Gang wars happen all the time. When the Villa Blanca gang kills someone from the Coralis gang, it's a thing they want to be known. They aren't invested in hiding the information. Quite the opposite.

A few months ago I had to transcribe and translate a video recording made on a cellphone where an "employee" of a rival drug point was caught selling within someone else's territory and was subsecuently beaten to death in the recording. The recording was purposefully made and disseminated. They wanted it to be known.

 

No; that's less plausible than the villains carrying the body away.

Why do you need the villains to carry the body away?

 

He's a witness to men in masks and gloves though. He wants to get them convicted later, so he wants to do something other than rely on a dead body at a scene which will probably likely not carry enough evidence to convict all of them, especially since he doesn't know them and cannot identify them later.

I wanted the villains to carry the body away so no one finds it, and they can get away with the murder, easier. But also, it gives the villains a chance to be caught later, when they are disposing of the body. Mainly, if they are caught now, the story is too short, and I need to delay them being caught to keep it going to an acceptable length. But if they are not caught with the body of the victim, I cannot think of any other evidence they would have to convict them later.

What if I wrote it so that the gang leader villain had collateral on his fellow gang members, in case they ever turned on him, and the police come across this collateral, and use it as evidence against them in court?

I asked a couple of people and got mixed opinions. One says it does not make sense for a villain to have collateral on the others in case of betrayal, cause he is just setting up evidence against himself, to get taken down by the police as a result, when it would be better to have no evidence at all that anyone can use against you, including within the gang itself.

The other says he can see this working. But does that count as a plot hole too, if the villain were to have that, even though he normally wouldn't want to have evidence stashed away that can be used against them?

 

Well, if your villains were masked, readers might ask "why?" To a reader, there should be no reason for a gang member to wear a mask to kill someone. Especially if it's on their own territory. But if it's not on their territory, then a reader might ask "why were the gang members in a different territory?"

And also, even without a body, the cop could trace the vehicle back to an owner. He could go back to the gang and ask, "hey, does one of your men own a car like _____"
(The car in question would have bullets or windows shattered due to the shootout from earlier, so the gang members will have to hide the car or abandon it. And if the gang members abandoned it, the police would find it eventually and trace it back to the owner.)

Also, street/store cameras could record the vehicle on the road, possibly leading to the finding of the vehicle/gang members.

 

The reason why they wear a mask is even though they are in a secluded area, there is still a chance someone might see them. Plus what if they fail to kill the victim and the victim gets away? Then the victim can still ID his attackers, so wouldn't it make sense to wear masks for those two reasons? As for territory, the gang has to kill a witness because he knows too much no matter what the territory.

The vehicle has phony plates and cannot be traced since the gang uses that vehicle specifically to commit crimes with. As for cameras, I could use that angle, but since they wear masks and have an untraceable vehicle, the cameras wouldn't do as much good I don't think, would they? That's another reason to wear masks, in case there happens to be a camera somewhere around.

 

Maybe the gang know or suspect the victim was carrying expensive drugs or other contraband in his body cavities, and had always intended to take the body along? Or maybe they originally planned to kidnap him, take him to their hideout, extract the drugs, and kill him later--- but some dispute or fracas arose that made some trigger-happy fool shoot him there on the street?

If your cop is undercover with this gang (is that what you mean by "surveying the gang"?), does he know they're going after this victim already? If he knows and the original intention is kidnapping, I could see the cop having arranged for a sting at the gang's hideout, where they'd get both the gang he's infiltrated and a way into the rival gang who's procuring these illegal drugs. But then it all goes wrong; the gang grab the drugs-laden corpse, and disappear who knows where.

And maybe the reason the cops don't catch them on the road is that our undercover cop assumes they're heading for the hideout and calls for the roadblocks on that route. But they don't go there.

Now, if your cop is merely staking out the gang from a safe distance, the plot hole, in my opinion, is, why is he alone? Do cops ever do stakeouts on their own? Sounds off to me. And would he necessarily run in and intervene? Would his oath "to protect and serve" be enough to motivate that? Or if he knows who the victim is, a member of a rival gang, might he not be hardnosed about it and let the thing go down? And if the cop does run in, why isn't he shot, too?

A lot, IMO, depends on who the victim is and why he's being offed. And what the MC knows about it ahead of time.

 

The cop is watching them from a safe distance. Basically there was a suspect the police had before but they had to let him go, because of lack of evidence. The cop then digs into the person's life on his own, because he becomes more personal and obsessed with the case. The suspect meets up with some other people, then the cop follows those people, after the suspect separates from them. Those people put on masks and gloves and kill the guy, while the cop is following them from a safe distance in his car. The cop didn't have time to save him and the reason why he is alone, is because he took it upon himself to investigate, after the one suspect was released before.

The MC had no idea they were going to kill someone though. But he cannot identify the killers, and the original suspect he knows was somewhere else at the time, would have an alibi, and say he doesn't know what the police are talking about, when being questioned about meeting up with some men who went to go kill someone later. It would be the his word against the one cop's, and not enough proof.

His oath to protect and serve is enough to attempt to intervene, at least the way I see the character as written. The cop isn't shot cause he takes cover, or something like that.

 

OK. But could it still turn out later that the gang took the body because it contained the contraband they wanted? That might close your plot hole for you. And really mess with your MC's head.

 

Well the person who is killed, was recording the gang's phone calls and conversations earlier, to get some evidence and collateral on them, so he could have the recordings on him. But if the only reason that the gang wanted the body was to get to the recordings, wouldn't it just be quicker to search the pockets for the recordings and take them, rather than take the whole body with them, if they would logically not care to dispose of it?