How to Get Away with Murder Olivers?
When Annalise Keating (played by Viola Davis) introduced the idea of "Olivers" to her students in ABC’s television series How to Get Away with Murder, many wondered what this concept truly represented. Olivers were the victims who helped create false stories that framed another innocent person for their crimes, allowing the true murderers to escape punishment. The "Olivers" refer to the manipulated victims or eyewitnesses who, by recounting fabricated details of events, ultimately contributed to someone else being accused, judged, and convicted.
How to get away with such a scheme, even before the dawn of psychological analysis and investigative techniques?
Step 1: Choose Your Victim Carefully
The key is not to just select an indiscriminate target. Select those who have committed unsavory or potentially ruinous actions, perhaps holding secrets that could land an innocent party in an untenable position. Once, you have identified someone compromising, exploit their darker history to craft a motive in your fabricated narrative. To increase your chances, gather information and intelligence by either manipulating your "olivers" into sharing specific anecdotes or exploiting existing rifts within your victim’s orbit.
Step 2: Craft an Expertly Crafted Scheme
Fabricate Circumstantial Evidence: Present incriminating "forensics," false leads and misinterpretation data against your intended victim while emphasizing the reliability of expert witnesses (those who’ve already become oblivious to reality due to an addiction or an aquired psychological trauma).
For instance, an in vitro fertilization clinic would falsify pregnancy records as it relates to a ‘tainted sample’. With meticulous planning and calculated persuasion you can successfully convince individuals it was they who manipulated (or performed the DNA sequencing) thus incriminates another. An attorney with deep understanding for jury psychology might find clever avenues (see Fig1 and refer to our example.)
Fig 1 : Step 1 & Step 2 of crafting circumstantial evidence (faking & misdirection)
Steps 1 and Step
2 – An important precursor to "getting away
with" – manipulation for a victim (specially
when their crime / past makes it risky )
Manipulate circumstances then create evidence
or lead you into giving us time as for their true purpose)
