Prime_suspect

Prime suspect

Prime suspect

Most likely perpetrator of a crime

For other uses, see Prime suspect (disambiguation).

A prime suspect or key suspect is a person who is considered by the law enforcement agency investigating a crime to be the most likely suspect.[1][2] The idiom "prime suspect" is believed to have originated in 1931.[1] "Key suspect" is seen as early as 1948.[3]

Reasons

There are various reasons a person may be considered a prime suspect.[citation needed] These include:

  • Being positively identified as the only person seen at or near the scene of the crime around the time the crime occurred
  • Being linked by some form of forensic evidence, such as DNA
  • Being named by witness(es)
  • Having the most likely motive to commit the crime
  • Racial profiling[4]
  • Having knowledge that only one who committed the crime would have
  • Having a history of committing crimes with some resemblance to the crime being investigated
  • Having confessed to the act

References

  1. [1]
    "Prime suspect"Archived 2015-09-11 at the Wayback Machine. Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon. Dictionary.com, LLC. 06 Aug. 2014.
  2. [2]
    "prime suspect". USLegal.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2014. Retrieved August 6, 2014.
  3. [3]
    Congressional Record Volume 94, Part 9. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1948. p. A-695. Retrieved August 24, 2014.
  4. [4]
    "Racial Profiling". American Civil Liberties Union. Archived from the original on 2020-12-07. Retrieved 2021-01-31.
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