In the 2003 detective novel The Murder Room, English crime writer P.D. James allowed that “all the motives for murder are covered by four Ls: Love, Lust, Lucre, and Loathing.” James accurately assessed motivations that typically accompany a homicide. And any consumer of police dramas on television knows that the discovery of a murder weapon combined with a plausible motive are typically essential elements in proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yet, motive can be difficult to discern in certain crimes, particularly when the suspect takes his or her own life or is killed by police during an attempted apprehension. With 21st-century forensic science so effective and television dramas such as CSI: [fill in city here] so neatly effective in solving crime mysteries in one concisely packaged, revelatory hour, the public demand for immediate answers is satiated via celluloid simplicity.