In law enforcement parlance, the term murder book refers to the case file of a murder investigation. Typically, murder books include crime scene photographs and sketches, autopsy and forensic reports, transcripts of investigators' notes and witness interviews. The murder book encapsulates the complete paper trail of a murder investigation, from the time the murder is first reported through the arrest of a suspect.
Law enforcement agencies typically guard murder books carefully, and it is unusual for civilians to be given unfettered access to these kinds of records, especially for unsolved cases.
Famous quotes containing the words murder and/or book:
“If we Americans are to survive it will have to be because we choose and elect and defend to be first of all Americans; to present to the world one homogeneous and unbroken front, whether of white Americans or black ones or purple or blue or green.... If we in America have reached that point in our desperate culture when we must murder children, no matter for what reason or what color, we don’t deserve to survive, and probably won’t.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“My job as a reservationist was very routine, computerized ... I had no free will. I was just part of that stupid computer.”
—Beryl Simpson, U.S. employment counselor; former airline reservationist. As quoted in Working, book 2, by Studs Terkel (1973)