You Won't Have an Alibi Either
Why are alibis useless?
Most of us won't have alibis for anything important. Sometimes having a cast iron watertight alibi can make you a suspect, especially in crime novels. If you’re simply a normal person doing normal things, you’ll probably find yourself on your own for large parts of the day. Even more so in the days of working from home, can you account for you whereabouts three weeks last Wednesday at around 2pm? I cannot.
If the police wanted to ask me about that Wednesday I would have three different online calendars to search, and a real paper calendar in the kitchen. The most likely result is that I was doing something not very interesting in the spare room at home, alone. If by chance it was anything else, it was probably watching television at home with one or more family members. An alibi provided by a family member is better than nothing, but it won’t satisfy armchair conspiracy theorists. Surely a family member would lie for you, wouldn’t they?
I think there is another reason the police do this. They don’t want to know what I was doing, they want to see how I go about locating an answer. The above paragraph indicates complete innocence in the matter under suspicion.
There is an alternative answer I could have given, on the doorstep of my home, interrupted by the police completely out of the blue. I could have shrugged, laughed in their face, and confidently stated: I was on a train to Penzance that was delayed by eighteen minutes. A hundred people saw me, I will be on CCTV, I have a ticket and I have a stick of rock from Penzance yet to be eaten. Haha! I parked in the car park so you will have the number plate, and I have a parking ticket. I then came home again the next day, which means I have hotel details for that night too. Haha!
This sort of response absolutely guarantees that you are a liar and probably the prime suspect. An alibi is not only useless to you, it actually creates suspicion. An alibi is only useful to the detective and not for the obvious reasons.
there's a recently closed case here in the states that was solved by the girlfriend's CONSTANT use of snapchat, tm's, and a love of photography. the bf had been unfaithful, so he gave her access to his whereabouts.....when he murdered both parents, chopped them up, and disposed of their parts, the gf had his location on her "where are you now" app.....found the bodies, convicted the sucker.
Also, who is that photo of in your blog entry.....
I've always thought about this in the context of the Bamber case. He was alone at home watching TV when the call came in from his father for help. He then did what all of us would do and call the police. And there began his downfall. The tragedy in the entire case to me is that he called for help and it was that help that conspired to convict him to cover up their own ineptitude. I've since met and interviewed people who have now instilled in me the thought to never trust the police.