Let me say ahead of time that I am not certain I’m going to need to get away with it. But if I did, here’s what I’d remember to do. First of all, grab the wallet. Always grab the wallet. People have scrubbed down entire houses with bleach and vacuumed many a trunk, only to forget the wallet or purse, keys, and cell phone. (Take the battery out of the cell phone first.) Even if you don’t scrub down the house, you still want to go ahead and take these things because when the victim’s personal property is missing, it always adds another element to the investigation. If none of those things are missing, then detectives assume it was some kind of revenge killing or a crime of passion or some such. If they are missing, then they’ve absolutely got to throw robbery, kidnapping, or carjacking into the mix. One poor fool murdered his girlfriend because he couldn’t bear to just break up with her like the rest of the world does it. The guy goes through the entire house scrubbing it like it’s got a communicable disease, vacuums, even uses air freshener.
