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:
“When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“It’s a hard feeling when everyone’s in a hurry to talk to somebody else, but not to talk to you. Sometimes you get a feeling of need to talk to somebody. Somebody who wants to listen to you other than “Why didn’t you get me the right number?””
—Heather Lamb, U.S. telephone operator. As quoted in Working, book 2, by Studs Terkel (1973)