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