History Main / MurderByMistake

* In ''Hit List'' by Creator/LawrenceBlock, [[ProfessionalKiller Keller]] is spooked when he changes rooms at a NoTellMotel to avoid noisy neighbours, only for an adulterous couple to get shot dead apparently by a jealous husband, when they rented the same room. Then he goes on another job and while he's dining in a café, someone steals his raincoat only to get shot dead shortly afterwards. Keller then realises that a [[TheHunterBecomesTheHunted rival hitman is after him]]. Ironically later in the novel Keller kills the wrong man only to discover that he'd inadvertently killed this rival hitman instead.

* ''Series/TheWire'', RecklessGunUsage in a dense city has its consequences.
** in season 2, Bodie and his crew are fighting over turf with an another crew, which escalates into a shootout. However, due to both side's incompotence with guns, neither side gets hit, but one stray bullet hits a small child in the head, killing him.
** in season 4, a man about to testify in a drug case is found shot dead, and Carcetti uses the case to hammer Mayor Royce for not providing funding for witness protection. For the inconvinient politics, the case gets kicked around and buried until the mayoral primaries are over, after which Kima Greggs is allowed to properly investigate the case, and it turns out the guy actually got struck by a stray bullet from someone shooting at empty containers in an alley.

** In "And Then There Were Fewer", [[spoiler:Diana]]'s plan to murder James Woods and frame [[spoiler:her ex-partner Tom Tucker]] for the crime goes OffTheRails when Quagmire's date, one-off character Stephanie, ends up sitting in James' chair when the gun timed to fire at it goes off and shoots her in the heart, resulting in her death. This leads to all the characters assuming Woods had invited them to his mansion so he could kill them all until Woods himself ends up dead [[spoiler:courtesy of Diana]]. While investigating, Joe discovers the gun and timer and realizes that James was the real target all along.

%% Image selected per crowner in the Image Suggestion thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php?crowner_id=b5nxm466
%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
%% Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread.

[[quoteright:275:[[Music/{{Alpocalypse}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mmis24al.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:275:''[[Music/WeirdAlYankovic "I have done a couple of crazy things that have almost gotten me dismissed, like terminating some head of state who wasn't even on my list".]]]]''

* In the Marvel ''[[ComicBook/GIJoeARealAmericanHeroMarvel G.I. Joe]]'' series, this is why the Hard Master was killed. He was teaching Snake-Eyes a technique called the "Cloak of the Chameleon" while imitating the intended target: Snake-Eyes himself.

* ''Fanfic/TheReapingOfHatsuneMiku'': [[Music/{{Vocaloid}} Sakine Meiko]] is killed when she consumes a poisoned drink at a bar. The killer turns himself in some time later and admits that it was meant for someone else; he gave it to a waitress and asked her to "give it to the redheaded lady" without specifying which one.

* A character of ''Literature/AiNoKusabi'' intended to MurderTheHypotenuse but while he succeeded, he also unintentionally got the beloved person killed as well.
* In ''Literature/TheBearAndTheDragon'', the action is kicked off when a relatively high-profile pimp is killed within view of the RVS chairman in a very public way. Because they were both in the same model and color car, the question for half the plot becomes whether or not the pimp was the intended target. He wasn't, the Chinese hired a former Spetznaz guy to kill the chairman to cause disorder in the Russian government.
* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': During the trip to Scotland in book #14 (''The Cat Who Wasn't There''), Irma Hasselrich dies suddenly. It's later revealed that the killer was trying to murder Polly Duncan by substituting her vitamin pills with poisoned capsules. Polly, who'd stopped taking the vitamins in question, gave them to Irma instead, resulting in her death.
* In the Creator/IsaacAsimov sci-fi mystery novel ''Literature/TheCavesOfSteel'', the murderer was initially cleared from suspicion due to a mental scan that revealed that he was [[ThouShaltNotKill psychologically incapable of killing]]. However, he ''was'' perfectly willing to destroy a robot... which is what he ''thought'' he was doing when he pulled the trigger and killed the roboticist who had [[RobotMe created R. Daneel in his own image]].

** Similarly played with in ''Three Act Tragedy''. The first murder, which appears to be a mistake, turns out to be a "dress rehearsal" in which the killer didn't have a specific target in mind to begin with.

** In ''Sparkling Cyanide'', the killers poisoned their intended victim's glass of wine at a restaurant, but then everyone at the table got up to dance and returned to the wrong chairs, so someone else got the poisoned glass.

* Creator/AnthonyPrice:
** The plot of ''Gunner Kelly'' kicks off when a respected old gentleman without an enemy in the world is killed by a car bomb intended to kill his driver (who achieves a SerendipitousSurvival).
** The plot of another Price novel seems to similarly involve an innocent killed by a bomb intended for another, but it turns out in the end that it was set up to look that way when he was the intended victim all along.

* ''Literature/{{Clue}}'': Happens a couple of times (though given the rules of the series, the victim is never actually dead).
** In book 6, chapter 8, there's a chain of bathrobe thefts (kicked off by one guest stealing a bathrobe because he forgot to bring his own). One of the guests keeps a diary in their bathrobe; when the robe and diary are stolen, the thief tries to blackmail the diary keeper, who instead tries to kill the thief. However, by the time they make the attempt, Miss Scarlet has stolen the bathrobe from its original thief, and the diary-writer accidentally attacks her, mistaking her for the first thief. Luckily, Scarlet survives the attack (with the side-effect of curing her insomnia).
** In book 16, chapter 9, the furnace is broken and all the guests are wearing heavy quilts that Mr. Boddy gave them to keep warm. After everyone winds up switching quilts (having lost their originals during a brief blackout), one of the guests attempts to kill Colonel Mustard and accidentally shoots another guest who was wearing the colonel's original quilt. Fortunately, all six quilts are slash-proof, crash-proof and bulletproof, protecting the accidental victim from serious harm.

* ''Literature/GirlsDontHit'': On her first solo hit, Echo screws up and shoots the wrong person, putting the cops on her tail while she runs. Joss has to track her down and fix things.

* ''The Medium'' by Gian-Carlo Menotti ends with Baba shooting and killing her mute assistant Toby, believing his image behind a curtain to be that of a ghost.

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: When the Nazis invent a death ray and start using it on US generals they accidentally kill one general's aide when Diana tackles the general out of the way and the aide steps forward into the invisible beam to try and stop her. The Nazis are not upset about killing him, but are annoyed that their target survived.
* ''Franchise/XMen'':

* In ''Film/TheTerminator'', the titular machine mistakenly kills two women who were unfortunate enough to share the same name with the heroine Sarah Connor because it didn't have enough info to find the right one in 1984, requiring it to systematically kill every Sarah Connor in the LA phone book to make sure it got its specific target. It also murdered Sarah's roommate Ginger due to not knowing what Sarah looked like.

* In ''Film/TheTerminator'', the titular machine mistakenly kills two women who were unfortunate enough to share the same name with the heroine Sarah Connor because it didn't have enough info to find the right one, requiring it to systemitically kill every Sarah Connor in the LA phone book to make sure it got its specific target. It also murdered Sarah's roommate Ginger due to not knowing what Sarah looked like.

* ''Film/TheTerminator'' mistakenly kills two women who were unfortunate enough to share the same name with the heroine Sarah Connor because it didn't know her full name and precisely where she lived in 1984, and was simply killing every Sarah Connor in the LA phone book to make sure it got the specific one it was looking for. It also murdered Sarah's roommate Ginger due to not knowing what Sarah looked like.

* Film/TheTerminator mistakenly kills two women who were unfortunate enough to share the same name with the heroine Sarah Connor because it didn't know her full name and precisely where she lived in 1984, and was simply killing every Sarah Connor in the LA phone book to make sure it got the specific one it was looking for. It also murdered Sarah's roommate Ginger due to not knowing what Sarah looked like.

** The first VictimOfTheWeek in "Castles in the Air". The killer shot her when she opned the door of the chalet the killer believed their intended victim was staying. The motion-sensor lights were shining directly in the killer's face and they coudn't see the identity of the woman in the doorway.

* ''Series/{{Vera}}'': In "Black Ice", the killer fatally rams a car off the road; not realising that his intended victim was not the one driving.