How do you prove someone committed a murder over 100 years ago?

Normally I hate these sort of open-ended questions, but I am so stuck. I'm at the end of my rope trying to figure this out. The setting is my fantasy WIP, which is your standard-issue boring expy of medieval Europe.

Basically, I need to have one of my characters convince another (who is being held against his will, and therefore not entirely sympathetic) that a certain well-beloved ancestor of the royal family (regarded as something of a saint, actually) was in fact a rapist and murderer. The rape/murder took place well over 100 years prior to the setting of the story, in a pre-literate society. What sort of irrefutable (or nearly so) evidence could this guy produce?

The good news is that he doesn't really need to -prove- prove it. He just needs to make a plausible enough case that the person he's trying to convince has his belief in the royal family shaken pretty much to the core. He's been beginnign to have doubts for a while, so he's a bit primed for this.

The guy trying to do the convincing is a descendant of the rape/murder victims, and is actually a distant cousin of the royal family. So the only thing I've thought of so far that's even close to an answer is that maybe he has some sort of item--an old chalice or ring or something--that is part of a set, and the royals are known to have the rest of the set, and that ties the whole thing together somehow? See, it's not even an answer, just an inkling.

Anyway. Any suggestions welcome. Hope I've given enough context here, I know it's all a bit convoluted.

 

Yeah, I mean clearly there's no hope of getting anything that a court would convict someone on nowadays. It's more like some circumstantial evidence that doesn't need to be definitive, but is still kinda-sorta convincing enough.

 

Rape, no. You can barely prove a rape today. (Of course if the rape produced offspring, there could be a distinct genetic trait that gets passed along. 100 years is only a couple of generations, so it's unlikely, but definitely not impossible.)

Murder, absolutely. If they somehow have access to the bones, which they very well might depending on burial rites and body preservation, there's a ton you can do. Fractures on the skull from a bludgeoning, cuts in the bones from slashing weapons, that sort of thing. Happens in archaeology all the time.

Many cultures also have some sort of rite of purification. (Think Catholic confession for example, but it could be anything.) If this murderer lived in a culture where something like this was a thing, he may have felt compelled to confess somehow before his own death. It's not uncommon for people to stop caring about secrecy with death looming over them. There could be remnants of that "confession".

And I'm not sure entirely what role the rape plays, but don't underestimate that sort of trauma. I don't want to get into it too much, but historically speaking women have always formed quiet shadow communities to support each other. I can't elaborate since I don't know the politics of the setting you're working with, but don't underestimate the impact oral traditions among women can have. (For example)

 

Well, and I hope I'm not being too gruesome here, but the rape wasn't just a one-off. What happened was the woman's husband was murdered, and then she was kidnapped by the murderer and forced to marry him. That marriage, and the children it produced, are a matter of record, it's just that up to now everyone has thought it was legit. Except for this guy trying to prove it, because he is a descendant of the guy who was murdered, and his whole family certainly hasn't forgotten any of it. It's more the ruling family has tried to bury it, and mostly succeeded.

Thanks for the ideas!

 

Honestly, I would have the murderer keep a journal. Maybe he killed other people before and kept a journal about those, too.

 

lol I admit, I must have not have read the whole thing haha. I'm not so sure about this question now.....hm....

 

Yeah. That's the problem. Of course it's entirely possible that there's just no solution. Maybe I'll just have to lose this whole sequence, and hit the relevant plot and character points some other way.

The only other sort of idea I had is to actually use the long time span itself to provide a solution. In this version, the guy gets kidnapped, is told this wild story about a murder committed by a historical figure he thought was a saint, then gets free and goes back home. He's hanging out with his boss in the royal family, and as an aside says "Yeah, while I was kidnapped they told me this wild story, ha ha who would believe that, right?" And then the prince just sort of shrugs and says, "Oh yeah, that's how it happened." Because at this point, so much time has gone by that they don't really need to cover it up anymore.

Anyway. That might push the bounds of credibility even more...

Thanks, all for the ideas.

 

Random thoughts along the lines of the jewelry: imagine a tradition where wives captured in war wore one sort of wedding ring, to make their status as property clear, while wives by choice (or in normal arranged marriages) wore another sort. But only recent research makes it clear that that's what an heirloom ring is.

If that tradition doesn't work only 100 years ago, then the evil guy maybe had the ring made based on an older tradition, because it was a sort of joke that contented his evilness.

Or children of forced/prisoner marriages might similarly have had some sort of symbolic jewelry, and the wife had something made, with the evil ancestor being unaware of the symbolism.

I am befuddled at the idea that written language came into existence in only 100 years?

 

Not exactly came into existence from nowhere. More like it was imported and an indigenous literate class arose within 100 years.

 

Could the woman involved have found another way to communicate what happened to her, for instance if she was imprisoned in a castle could she have scratched pictures or markers on the wall about what happened? Or hidden clues about it in embroidery, maybe using certain symbols to represent herself and her husband? May be far fetched but as others have said it is hard without writing.

 

Family birthmark. The rapist has got a portrait/firm reputation of having a penguin-shaped birthmark on the back of his neck, a trait the descendant of the victim shares.

 

This is the best suggestion I've seen...

But, don't forget that the arrow in Harold's eye appears to be a later addition to the Bayeux tapestry.

Which might suit the OP better...hero produces said incriminating embroidery, but we all know that he got a little seamstress in downtown Gotham to knock it up only last week...

As far as a family birthmark...this sounds so Robert Baratheon, black of visage...the whole thing about genetics really only stems from Gregor Mendel in the 19th century. - Although selective breeding was practiced upon Arabian horses for maybe 4 millennia, but without Mendel's scientific approach.

 

You wouldn't need written evidence in a modern murder, but because everyone is gone, written words would be all you could really unambiguously point to (and even then there is question about the credibility or motive of the writer). Maybe a letter, or notation in a family Bible (or other sacred and maintained text). The letter wouldn't have to be by or to the murderer, perhaps about him or her, maybe a recollection years later after the writer became literate.

Or circumstantial evidence strongly suggesting what happened. Coincidences of time and/or place that cannot be plausibly explained away.

If the characters didn't write, which I guess is your situation, there could be recorded oral traditions by an outsider. And I like the forensic evidence, maybe cuts to the bones that can be tied to a weapon owned by the bad guy.

And remember, you don't have to prove it definitively, only convincingly. Which means the persuasive abilities of the person bringing the accusation would be critical. Some people can pretty much prove black is white, or that things must have been black. And then who cares what the "real" evidence is?

 

What do the 'modern' characters think the victim died of? If the murderer claimed it was natural causes and an exhumation showed she died violently, that would cast significant doubt - the guy would at least have to admit that his royal ancestor lied about his wife's demise. He could ascribe other motives, like a cover-up that the ancestor didn't know about, but if you combine it with some shaky oral testimony it might be enough...?

 

It's apt that you allude to that scene from ASoIaF, because it drives me absolutely nuts and is, to some extent, something I'm trying to write against in much of this WIP. I didn't even think about the "lack of knowledge of genetics" angle, more like it's just an extremely unrealistic view of how history gets written down, especially for a medieval-ish society.

But, in writing the passage in question here I may have just painted myself back into that corner. I'm starting to think that some kind of unimpeachable evidence would have to be physical, and I just don't see much in the way of possibilities there. That is to say, I'd rather change other things than change the story enough to where something like that would make sense.

Right now I'm thinking it would be easier to change the circumstances of the discovery to simply lower the burden of proof. I'm thinking either:

1. Someone actually of the royal family tells him about it in an offhanded manner, because it happened so long ago that they no longer feel the need to actively cover it up (and have maintained knowledge of it among themselves over the years, as a secret that's embarrassing but too salacious not to retell at least a few times). I already have a character who's a bit disaffected, it would be right in her wheelhouse.

OR

2. Instead of being kidnapped he goes to visit this guy more-or-less voluntarily (maybe some kind of peace envoy?). That means that if he's told about the real story of what happened, the motive of the guy doing the telling isn't quite as self-interested and questionable. More of just an aside.

Anyway. Thanks as always for all the good ideas.