Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

I am doing research for a murder mystery and have a question I could not find an answer to. The story involves a serial killer and one of the victims is the girlfriend of the lead detective.

My question is... Is a Detective permitted to investigate the murder of a husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend or would he be considered a suspect and not allowewed to investigate that particular murder?

Here, the detective would immediately be taken off the case. The problems caused by allowing him to even be on the perimeter would be insurmountable in not only the investigation, but the prosecution.

Same here.

Thank you for the response. As a follow up if I may

If he is taken off of the case and then later removed as a suspect would he be allowed to resume his part of investigating or would he just be off the case entirely/permanently because one of the victims was his girlfriend?

Thank you for the response. As a follow up if I may

If he is taken off of the case and then later removed as a suspect would he be allowed to resume his part of investigating or would he just be off the case entirely/permanently because one of the victims was his girlfriend?

The latter. If his GF was a victim, he shouldn't have anything to do with it.

If he is taken off of the case and then later removed as a suspect would he be allowed to resume his part of investigating or would he just be off the case entirely/permanently because one of the victims was his girlfriend?

First, a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse doesn't become an automatic suspect in a murder unless there's reason and evidence to do so. A person of interest, absolutely, but there's a difference in a person of interest (someone the police will look into as far as their whereabouts, alibis, motives, etc. as to whether they may have committed a crime) and a suspect (someone actually suspected of committing a crime based on evidence - either physical or testimonial).

Second, unless it was some po-dunk town with few officers to hand the case off to, I don't think any reputable agency would allow one of their officers/investigators to investigate a homicide involving said officers spouse or someone they were intimate with. Even if the officer were immediately cleared as a person of interest, that would be absolutely horrible case management by an agency and any defense attorney worth a damn would have a field day in court on the investigation. Investigations by police are supposed to be unbiased - as much as humanly possible - and as much as I'm sure if one of my loved ones were killed I'd want to be actively involved in finding the person responsible, my emotions would likely cloud my judgment and bias my investigation. That's just human nature.

Thanks again for the replies. I figured that would be the case but I just wanted to make sure. I want to be as accurate as I possible can. I know a lot of writers that don't bother and just chaulk it up to "poetic lisence" but that's not me. I know I will never get it 100% right but I like to be as close as possible to the facts.

People close to the victim are generally looked at first, that needs to be said. Something like 90+% of all homicide victims know their killer. If a cop's girl friend is killed, I would work to clear him first to get that out of the way. If my wife or GF was murdered, I'd expect the investigators to look at me right away. Usually, you figure out fairly quickly if they are a suspect or you can clear them.

But, anyone with any sort of personal stake in an investigation cannot have anything to do with it. Even if they act professionally as hell, there is always the taint that goes with it and the defense attorney will have a heyday with that.

Thank you all for all the information. It has been a great help. I have modified my story to reflect this information and it opened up another question.

So first, I removed the detective from the case. His partner is investigating alone. My question now is...

Would a detective talk to his partner about the case if his partner was removed from the case because his loved one was a victim?

He could give him updates. I had a case where the son of another detective was murdered. My partner and I would talk to him now and then about the progress of the case w/o giving him many details. He mostly wanted to know if we were getting somewhere with the investigation. It needs to be said that this detective, though upset that his son was killed knew that we wouldn't give him a whole lot and he was okay with that. If he had been pushy or if we thought he might do something stupid, we would have frozen him out completely.

Thank you again retdetsgt. This was the last bit of information I needed to finish my story. Thankfully I won't have to change anything. I wrote it presuming what you just told me. I didn't think his partner would give away details of the case just in case he was involved.