"Money buys a man's silence for a time. A [crossbow] bolt in the heart buys it forever."
— Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, Game of Thrones
An organization or bad guy is involved in something dirty, or just did something nasty. Could be The Government, could be The Mafia or The Syndicate, could be General Ripper, a Corrupt Corporate Executive, or an Ancient Conspiracy. No matter who the bad guy was, somebody saw it all, heard it all, or somehow caught wind of what's going down (or what went down), and the bad guy in question has found out about the witness.
Since the witness now knows too much, the bad guy's entire scheme may come crashing down, so they aim to "silence" the witness in some manner, through bribery, blackmail, intimidation, or even "sealing his lips permanently".
A common variant is that the person who purportedly knows too much is The Everyman who doesn't actually know anything at all (or at least, doesn't understand what knowledge they have) — but the Improperly Paranoid conspirators believe that they do, thus leading to their campaign of persecution and intimidation. There's a good chance the hero will eventually get sick of being relentlessly hounded/threatened/shot at by the conspirators and start fighting back. In the process, they usually learn the "real" secret anyway by constantly coming into contact with said conspirators at every turn and eventually will find a way to bring the plan to ruin. The ironic conclusion, of course, is that if the Big Bad had just relaxed and left the person alone, they'd have succeeded.
If it isn't the hero getting persecuted, it will likely be someone the hero cares about, which will usually prompt either a bodyguard scenario as the hero tries to protect them against the bad guys, or a Roaring Rampage of Revenge if the loved one is killed. Either way, it's an excellent MacGuffin.
The most common motive for bad guys to go after innocent people, and also part of the reason that the U.S. Marshals Service has the Witness Protection Program (in addition to protecting witnesses from retribution after they testify).
Another, less sympathetic variation occurs when a character learns a guilty secret possessed by another character and decides it would be a profitable enterprise to blackmail the second character in exchange for their silence. This one usually overlaps with Asshole Victim, since the second character understandably won't like the idea of being on the hook to a sleazy blackmailer for the rest of their life, and is likely to decide that getting rid of the blackmailer will cost them less in the long run than paying up. If the blackmail victim's guilty secret is that they are a murderer, this may also add elements of Too Dumb to Live to the blackmailer — after all, someone who's already killed at least one person is unlikely to have many qualms about bumping off someone else, particularly if that someone else is trying to exploit them for money.
See Revealing Cover-Up, Have You Told Anyone Else?, and His Name Is.... If this trope involves someone finding out about the supernatural, see Killed to Uphold the Masquerade. If it involves a member of the organization being targeted for finding out too much about their employer, see Hunting the Rogue. If it involves a child who needs to be protected from this trope, see Young Witness Caretaking. If the dangerous knowledge is a natural result of their employment, the boss might be planning to Shoot the Builder. See also Leave No Witnesses for those situations where a roomful of people all Learn Too Much at once. Where the knowledge itself is harmful, see These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. Compare also with You Have Outlived Your Usefulness and Preemptive Threat Elimination. Compare and contrast Diagnosis: Knowing Too Much, where the one with the knowledge has their credibility assassinated rather than themselves. Not to be confused with Too Much Information, in which someone learns something that may make them wish somebody would kill them.
As this can be a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
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Audio Plays
- Torchwood (Big Finish): Ng's usual way of reacting to anyone who discovers that she's taken over Gwen's body to run away from God is to shoot them. This fate befalls Gwen's mother in "Aliens and Sex and Chips and Gravy" and Serena in "Tagged".
Comic Books
- Astro City: A petty criminal accidentally discovers Jack-in-the-Box's secret identity. He considers selling the information to the hero's enemies, but then realizes the problem with that plan: the hero's enemies are ruthless villains who would just force the information out of him and then kill him so he couldn't reveal it to anyone else.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search makes it clear that this trope is the real reason why Ozai sent Ursa away, rather than as punishment for her treason. Ursa made a Perfect Poison which Ozai used to kill Azulon, and once the deed was done, Ozai sent her away so she never got the chance to make the poison again and use it against him.
- In Batman (Tom King) #86, two Joker henchmen in masks are burning several other Joker henchmen alive. As they leave, one of them comments to the other that they've proved their loyalty, and the other responds by shooting him in the head. He then phones the Joker to say all the henchmen who knew the plan are dead. The Joker replies "Not quite all", and his van blows up.
- Blake and Mortimer: Han-Dié betrays Mortimer and had him captured to be delivered to Nathan Chase (actually a disguised Olrik). Han-Dié is also captured so he wouldn't leak the professor's kidnapping.
- This is essentially the reason that The Boys haven't been brutally butchered by the ruthless Seven; the only reason they aren't dead is that they have even more damaging information on someone that The Seven fear more.
- Button Man: Offing is standard procedure of dealing with anyone who knows too much about the killing game. Even Harry himself has tied up some loose ends of his own.
- In Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader captures Jocasta Nu and one of the clone troopers with him insults her for being a Jedi. Jocasta then bluntly informs them that they're taking orders from a Jedi, and reveals Vader's true identity as Anakin Skywalker. Before they can react Vader then throws the clones out of the midair ship with the Force before turning on her.
- The Incredible Hulk (1962): One of the first things the newly emerged Hulk tries to do is kill Rick Jones, simply because he knows he used to be Bruce Banner. Fortunately the sun comes up at that moment, immediately reverting the Hulk back to Banner, and the next time the Hulk emerges he decides to forgo killing Rick.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992): Following Sahasrala's direction, Link heads for the Library to study the Book of Mudora, only to find it has been set on fire by soldiers. The boy alerts Link that the Librarian is stuck inside.
- Operation: Galactic Storm: Deathbird has a guy smuggle her on to Hala, then immediately kills him, because she's too paranoid to believe he wouldn't tell someone she's there eventually (and the Supreme Intelligence already knows).
- In The Punisher MAX, this trope drives a great deal of the series' plot. Frank is induced into taking part in a highly illegal and dangerous black ops mission in Russia on behalf of a cabal of corrupt generals. The mission ends with a lot of dead civilians (not Frank's fault), a lot of dead Russian soldiers (definitely Frank's fault), the largest, deadliest terror attack in Russian history (the generals' fault) and the mission's actual objective a total bust (to be fair to Frank, that last part was deliberate). Unsurprisingly, any information pertaining to the mission is sealed and the generals attempt to have Frank killed several times all of which fail and ultimately result in their deaths at Frank's hands.
- Robin (1993): When Strader Pharmaceuticals realizes their illegal experiments on Gotham's downtrodden have started to gain attention they hire mercenaries to kill and dispose of their surviving victims and those who are investigating the mysterious new deadly drug on the streets.
- Rom: Spaceknight: Standard operating procedure for the Dire Wraiths if any human gets too close. Brandy only survives thanks to her boyfriend Steve following her, but a gossip reporter has significantly less luck, not least because her boss is also a Dire Wraith.
- Dynamite's run on The Shadow:
- In #8, a seemingly ordinary couple is killed. Their deaths are widely dismissed as just another murder, but the Shadow knows they chanced on something that the murderers were trying to hide.
- In the Light arc, the first victim of that murderer doesn't match the profile of the subsequent victims. After some investigation, the Shadow concludes that he must have known something about the Light that she didn't want to get out.
- Sin City: The whole plot of the first story "The Hard Goodbye" in set in motion as Goldie is killed on orders from another character after she discovered his nasty secret habit. Another character dies after mistaking a death squad for honest cops and telling them everything.
- Star Wars: Republic: Jedi Knight Ronhar Kim and his Padawan come up with a good plan to root out Darth Sidious; give every Senator a midi-chlorian test. Unfortunately, he brings this idea to Chancellor Palpatine first, and doesn't tell anyone else about it, allowing Palpatine to arrange an ambush which ends with Kim and his Padawan dead and the idea lost.
- In Sub-Mariner: The Depths, Namor wants to keep Atlantis secret and secluded from the world... and he doesn't care how many foolish trespassing explorers he has to kill to do it.
- Supergirl:
- In Who is Superwoman?, the titular villain murders Reactron's ex-girlfriend so that she can't tell anybody Superwoman and Reactron are working together.
- Later in The Hunt for Reactron, the titular villain murders a whole Metropolis Science Squad when they discover it was Sam Lane who blew the water reservoir up and Supergirl, Nightwing and Flamebird are being framed.
- In The Unknown Supergirl, Lesla-Lar plans to help Lex Luthor kill Superman and then "accidentally" kill Lex while capturing him so he can't tell that the "hero" who avenged Superman was in fact Luthor's ally.
- Crypt of the Frozen Graves: The Big Boss of the Frisco Syndicate is warned that his former "employee" Bruce Ryan is the one who has been snitching on them, so he decides to get Bruce eliminated.
- In The Killers of Krypton, Empress Gandelo orders her minions to find and kill Supergirl before her investigation uncovers she is responsible for Krypton's destruction.
- In Starfire's Revenge, the titular crime queenpin gets her conman Derek Ames assassinated because she cannot trust him to keep his mouth shut about her secret plans, which he is aware of.
- Superman:
- The Team of Luthor and Brainiac!: Brainiac was built by planet Colu's Computer Tyrants to spy on human-ruled worlds, and he is less than thrilled when Luthor gloats that he has discovered his secret. Luthor talks Brainiac out of killing him, though.
Lex Luthor: You didn't think of it because you don't know human psychology, Brainiac...You, yourself, being a computer! Do you deny that this is a sketch of the inside of your head?
Brainiac: Then you know my secret? You freed me, Luthor, but nobody must know that secret and live! - The Omega Saga starts with Chameleon Boy getting shot by a traitor to the Legion, right after he has figured their identity and mad plans out. Unfortunately for said traitor, shape-shifting Durlans aren't easy to kill, and although Chameleon Boy was reckless enough to investigate the matter alone, he was also clever enough to put a coded duplicate tape in his Flight Ring.
- Superman: Exile: Morgan Edge has Intergang put out a hit on Clark Kent after information about the group gets out before he left. They end up murdering some poor schmoe breaking in the same time the hitmen did and it's Matrix's appearance as Clark does everyone calm down. At least until Edge's boss, Darkseid, takes matters into his own hands.
- Reign of Doomsday: Doomslayer is a clone of Doomsday that has gained sapience and becoming a Hunter of His Own Kind. His ultimate goal is to remove every trace of Doomsday from the universe, so the monster can never come back, including every living creature with any knowledge of Doomsday, so more clones like himself cannot be created. He plans to kill himself once he is sure all physical traces and memories of Doomsday are gone.
- The Team of Luthor and Brainiac!: Brainiac was built by planet Colu's Computer Tyrants to spy on human-ruled worlds, and he is less than thrilled when Luthor gloats that he has discovered his secret. Luthor talks Brainiac out of killing him, though.
- Tales to Astonish: When Vernon van Dyne accidentally summons the Creature from Kosmos, it exposits who it is and what it's going to do, then tells him he knows too much, and kills him.
- In Top 10, pop star and former science-hero sidekick Glenn Garland is killed because he was going to tell the media about the illegal and repulsive actions of a group which he used to be a part of. The Vigilante from Venus also expressed concern that they were going to try to kill her before she went to trial, for fear that she would incriminate them in her testimony.
- Vader's Quest: When Vader learns that the Death Star's destroyer is named Skywalker, several Bounty Hunters are in the vicinity, and he decides that Murder Is the Best Solution to silence them. One gets away and tells Palpatine, when they probably could have been kept silent if Vader had bribed them or just downplayed the importance of the information.
Ban Papeega: Please, Lord Vader! I'll forget everything I've heard! I'll forget the name! Here, I've already forgotten all about Skywalker! I haven't even mentioned Skywalker just now! NO! [cue Gory Discretion Shot]
- The conspirators in the Warlord of Mars volume Savage of Mars took extreme measures to silence Salensus Oll's concubines after one of them blew the whistle about who was behind the Green People's violent bursts. In fact, had her not warned the heroes about it, they would likely never had figured it out.
- In Watchmen, two people knew the same thing:
- One (the Comedian) is killed because he knows the details of a plan, even though he had no intention of revealing it; he had told Moloch, who simply didn't understand what he heard and would be no threat to its success even if he did understand it.
- The other (not Moloch) is killed because he knows the plan and is going to reveal it. His murder may have been pointless, though, because he'd mailed his journal to the "New Frontiersman". Whether anyone of importance would believe what that Conspiracy Theorist tabloid reports is unclear, though.
- Wonder Woman:
- Sensation Comics: Joel Heyday's mobster affiliates can't tell his triplet nieces apart, so kidnap two of them while trying to nab Tillie, who Joel intends to have write up a will bequeathing him the majority of what his mother is leaving to her in his will before murdering Tillie and his mother. As the other two have seen his accomplices he decides they have to kill the whole lot.
- Wonder Woman (1987): When the mobster Danzik learned the officer set to testify against him was laid up in the hospital he sent one of his men to kill her before she could act as a witness against him in court. The addict who put her in the hospital in the first place happens to be trying to apologize when the assassin shows up and takes the bullets for her.
- The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): Alcippe is taken out by Antiope when Antiope realizes Alcippe has figured out too much of her traitorous plan.
- As the lead geneticist in the Facility's attempts to clone Wolverine in X-23: Innocence Lost, Dr. Sarah Kinney knows everything about the X-23 project, particularly after Rice reveals that additional clones are currently in production, with the plan being to sell them to the highest bidders. After firing her, Rice decides to ensure her silence about the project by arranging to have X-23 kill her by contaminating Sarah with the trigger scent (that, and because he's a tremendous dick). Unfortunately for him, Sarah's final act is to turn X-23 loose against the Facility itself...
- Unnatural (2016): While digging up info on Leslie's dream, Trish learns of the existence of Tijoux, a society that encourages Interspecies Romance, and she's killed by the cult to keep it a secret.
- Void Rivals: The very instant that Zalilak and Dulin realize that Darak and Solila know the big secret about the Forever War between their worlds, they begin taking steps to kill them both and keep the secret.
- Yoko Tsuno:
- Karl assassinated Ingrid's father because the latter has discovered the former's evil plans. Karl planned to drive his rich uncle insane with the Devil's organ, so he can inherit his wealth.
- Leyton discovered that an alien creature was responsible for the discovery of antimatter and it controlled the base with its tentacles (which actually were its nerves). It killed him by crushing him to death.
Comic Strips
- Parodied in one-shot comic strip "Oppgulp" by Frode Øverli in one where a bespectacled nerd carrying a pile of books is about to get pushed down a staircase by a man thinking "He knows too much".
Films — Animation
- Aladdin and the King of Thieves: Regardless of the fact that Aladdin is Cassim's son, Sa'luk quickly declares that Al is still an intruder
Sa'luk: Blood or mud, the boy is an intruder, and we have rules about intruders. He has found our secret lair. He has seen too much. He must die. [turns to Abu and Iago] They must ALL die!
Iago: DIE?! He's your son! I'm his friend! CAST A VOTE FOR MERCY HERE!!
Sa'luk: Yes, Cassim, mercy would be so like you. Soft...and weak! - In Big Hero 6, Fred cites this trope as the reason why Yokai is trying to kill them after the heroes see him and his nanobots.👁 Image
Wasabi: Why's he trying to kill us?! [rolls down his window to talk to Yokai] Uuuh, why're you trying to kill us?
Fred: It's classic villain! We've seen too much!
Honey Lemon: Let's not jump to conclusions. We don't KNOW he's trying to kill us.
[As she says this, a car is launched at them]
Fred: CAR!
Honey Lemon: HE'S TRYING TO KILL US! - Spoofed in "Bugs and Thugs": gangster Rocky decides that Bugs "knows too much" when he, among other things, correctly identifies Carson City as the capital of the state of Nevada.
- Coco: After Miguel finds out that Ernesto de la Cruz killed his best friend in cold blood in order to achieve his fame as a singer, Ernesto refuses to send Miguel back to the land of the living on the chance Miguel could reveal this to the rest of the world and ruin his legacy.
- Monsters, Inc. 1:
- Mr. Waternoose's reason for banishing Mike and Sulley, as they have just revealed to him they're aware of Randall's plot to kidnap and torture children for energy; unfortunately for them, it turns out he was in on it.
- He later tries to outright kill Boo and Sulley in the climax with this reasoning. To his dismay, Mike gets it on tape.
- The sequel series Monsters at Work reveals this is why the Abominable (Adorable) Snowman was banished. While Monsters University implies it was due to tampering with mail, it’s expanded upon that he apparently found a letter for Mr. Waternoose detailing the Scream Extractor, which lead to the latter banishing him for life.
- NIMONA (2023): The Director tries to pull this on who she thinks is Ambrosius after revealing to him that she was the one who killed the queen. Unfortunately for her, "Ambrosius" was actually Nimona in disguise, with the whole thing being a setup for the Director's Engineered Public Confession.
- Nicodemus inverts this in a discussion with Mrs. Frisby in The Secret of NIMH; instead of using it as an excuse to die, he utilizes this fact as a reason to survive by leaving their colony. "My child, we can no longer live as rats... we know too much." In this case, the rats have become so intelligent that they've developed morals against stealing from the local farmer to survive and must form their own civilization away from humans.
- Treasure Planet: After Captain Flint rigged Treasure Planet to explode if anyone reached the planet's core, where he kept all of his treasure, he removed B.E.N.'s memory unit then held on to it after he died, preventing B.E.N. from telling anyone else until it was too late.
- In Wendell & Wild, after Father Bests brings up the fact that he was the one who vouched for the Klaxons after the brewery burned down in exchange for them continuing to fund his school, Irmgard Klaxon kills him so he won't get any ideas about possibly going to the police about what they did.
- Zootopia (2016): Emmitt Otterton was on his way to talk to Mr. Big and was "silenced" when Doug shot him with a serum pellet while he was on route. According to Manchas, Otterton wailed about "Night Howlers" before fully succumbing to savage madness.
Jokes
- A KGB agent is questioned by his superior: "How much is 2 plus 2?" — "Four." — "And how much is 3 times 5?" — "Fifteen." — "And how much is the square root of 9?" — "Three." At the moment, the superior draws his gun and shoots the agent. "Comrades, I had to neutralize him, he knew too much!"
Manhua
- In Goddess Creation System the king passes away officially from wounds sustained in a tiger attack some months before but probably really from poison. To cover this up temporarily so they can keep things stable, the queen and her brother have the imperial doctor poisoned so he can't tell anyone.
Music
- "Jane Doe" by Within Temptation. The titular character is killed for knowing some secret of the person the song is being addressed to:
She had to go or they would know,
all you tried to hide.
Podcasts
- Bleeker Trails: In Episode 11, Salvatore Barbosa is headshot by a glamoured deep one because he'd been caught spying on them coming out of the ocean.
Radio
- John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme: Spoofed in one storyteller sketch where he's a hard-boiled noir detective, where he's abducted by the sinister foreigner with the chloroform and brought to the guy's boss to be told he's been sniffing around the wrong bar too often. Except they hired him to investigate the bar. Which doesn't exist. And the crooks haven't actually committed any crimes for him to investigate.
Roleplay
- JoJo's OC Tournament: Blue Monday, a member of Jaded Justice from The Grand Tour, spends his time alternating between assisting the rest of his team with the hunt for the Artifacts and investigating their story. He eventually stumbles into something extremely worrying, which leads to Lilah Dawn to assassinate him even as he lays dying following a battle because of his last-ditch attempt at relaying the information back to his teammates. It's eventually revealed Blue discovered the involvement of the Hall of Heads, the bloody history of what the surviving Stand users would learn are actually called the Patches of Heaven, Senator Randall Elliott's involvement with both, and his private mercenary unit — all information that had the other members of Jaded Justice learned would've avoided a ton of bloodshed.
Tabletop Games
- Forgotten Realms: The emerald dragon Raulothym's greatest fear is that, one day, a power from another plane will decide that he knows too much about its goals will send its agents forth to slay him.
- Massacards: The Killer’s motivation to find out The Witness’s identity is because they know who the former is.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- This is a possible outcome for planets assaulted by the forces of Chaos. Even if they manage to defeat Chaos, The Holy Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition may decide that it would be best if they couldn't tell anyone about it, since the true nature of Chaos is supposed to be kept secret from the general public.
- The reason for this is actually quite understandable. Even the simple knowledge of Chaos' existence can be a corrupting influence on a person's mind and ultimately drive them into service to the Chaos Gods, so anyone who does not have the mental fortitude or utter contempt for Chaos required to resist its effects becomes a danger to themselves and everyone around them if they learn about Chaos.
- Anybody who fights alongside the Grey Knights falls into this, one way or the other. Not only are the Knights the premier anti-Chaos force the Ordo Malleus (the Inquisitorial arm that deals with the Daemonic forces of Chaos) fields and thus subject to the Imperium's cover up of Chaos' true nature, the Grey Knights themselves aren't supposed to be a public Marine Chapter and operate under utmost secrecy in and of themselves. Space Marines who fight alongside them are generally mind-wiped, while Imperial Guard regiments are less lucky and tend to get executed instead.
- The Dark Angels' obsessive need to conceal the existence of The Fallen can result in them doing this to any nosy Inquisitors or non-Dark Angel Imperial forces who've gotten a bit too close to one of The Fallen for the Angels' (or their successors') liking. Once when the Black Templars captured "The Voice Of The Emperor", a name used by the most notorious active Fallen Cipher, the Dark Angels fleet that went to investigate had no qualms firing on the Templar Strike Cruiser.
- This is a possible outcome for planets assaulted by the forces of Chaos. Even if they manage to defeat Chaos, The Holy Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition may decide that it would be best if they couldn't tell anyone about it, since the true nature of Chaos is supposed to be kept secret from the general public.
Theatre
- In Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto, Draghignazzo proclaims that he's shocked that there was a traitor in their midst, and kills Roberto before the latter can reveal that the former was in it, too.
- The Duchess of Malfi: The play's "Everybody Dies" Ending disposes of ancillary character Julia this way. The evil Cardinal tries to relieve his conscience by confessing his crimes to her, then immediately poisons her to stop her from talking.
- Little Shop of Horrors: "He knows your life of crime! I think it's suppertime!"
- Older Than Steam: In Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the king has a riddle that anyone seeking his daughter's hand in marriage must answer or it's Off with His Head! The thing is, the answer to the riddle is "The king is screwing his daughter", and the king understandably wants this kept quiet.
- Wicked: After Elphaba learns that the Wizard of Oz is really a fraud with no power and behind the oppression of Oz's Animal population, she runs off with the Grimmerie, the ancient book of magic that the Wizard pretends to be able to use but Ephaba really can. The Wizard's response? "We must get her back. She knows too much." His forces fail to catch her, however, so they launch a smear campaign painting her as "the Wicked Witch of the West" to discredit her and protect the Wizard's reputation.
Urban Legends
- The Home Guard Auxilary Units were stay-behind units trained in the event of a German invasion of Britain during World War II. Each patrol consisted of local men recommended by their Chief Constable. They had secret orders only to be opened in the event of an invasion. One man opened his anyway and found to his shock that his first mission was to assassinate the Chief Constable, as he was the only man who knew the identity of the unit members.
Visual Novels
- This happens a lot in the Ace Attorney series.
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Mia was murdered because she had pieced together Redd White's blackmailing schemes.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All:
- The first case reveals that Dustin Prince was murdered because the killer thought he learned about his dark secrets and freaked out at the thought that a cop might be after him. Tragically, Prince didn't know anything. He and Maggey Byrde just happened to be on a date when they found the guy's cell phone and, had the murder not happened, they would have just handed the thing over and gone on their way.
- In Case 4, there's an interesting variation at play. Matt wants to protect himself from being potentially implicated by the assassin he hired, who would have been the only remaining person to know about his involvement in the crime, so he kept blackmail material to get that assassin arrested if need be. This proves to be his undoing, as the assassin is so insulted at Matt's lack of trust in him, that he drops their contract and informs the court that he has a new target, i.e. Matt.
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations, this is a favorite reason of Dahlia Hawthorne's for committing murder. She kills Doug Swallow because he figured out that she stole poison from the pharmaceutical labs and was trying to tell Phoenix, and it was also revealed that she'd been on her way to poison Phoenix because he unwittingly had the only piece of evidence that could implicate her in another crime. Earlier, she arranged for the death of her half-sister to prevent said sister from confessing to a crime they committed and also talks her boyfriend into a suicide pact so he'd kill himself before Mia Fey could get him to implicate Dahlia. Finally, she poisoned Diego Armando when he got too close to proving her guilt over the death of her half-sister.
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney:
- You don't learn it until the final case, but this is one reason the first case's victim was killed. He's really Zak Gramarye, the defendant in the trial where Phoenix lost his badge. He was the only person to know that he'd hired Phoenix at the last minute after firing his original lawyer Kristoph Gavin- which would implicate Kristoph as the true commissioner of the forgery that Phoenix was disbarred for presenting. The other reason was that his killer was mad at the guy for snubbing him.
- This almost happened in the backstory to the second case, but the intended victim escaped and turned the tables. Pal Meraktis and Alita Tiala were the only people who knew that Wocky Kitalki had a bullet near his heart and probably not long to live- Pal because he was the doctor who failed to take it out, and Alita because she was the attending nurse. They both kept quiet about it; Pal Meraktis didn't want to lose the Kitakis' business or face the consequences and Alita decided to marry Wocky so she could inherit his money when he died. Due to circumstances, Meraktis thought that Alita would tell Wocky about his condition, and tried to kill her so she couldn't. However, he failed to kill her by suffocation and she instead woke up and shot him.
- The reason Drew Misham was murdered (and his daughter nearly killed) was because he was a forger who might have revealed the identity of his client Kristoph Gavin, who was so paranoid he tried to kill everyone connected to that case.
- In Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, Buddy Faith, Akbey Hicks, Deid Mann, and Cece Yew are all murdered for knowing too much about the smuggling ring and trying to reveal it to the authorities. To elaborate:
- Buddy Faith stumbles upon Jacques Portsman trying to retrieve files that Ernest Amano, a member of the smuggling ring, can use against Quercus Alba, the mastermind.
- Akbey Hicks finds evidence of smuggled goods in the cargo hold. Cammy Meele, a stewardess and the smuggler, quickly kills him to prevent him from bringing the information back to Interpol and blowing her cover.
- Mack Rell and Manny Coachen murdered Deid Mann and Cece Yew, respectively, to keep them from testifying to the authorities. The former case is the one that is being tried during Case 4 of Investigations, ultimately leading up to Rell and Byrne Faraday's murders, while the latter is mentioned during that case.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies:
- In case 1, Ted Tonate murders Detective Candice Arme because she sees him trying to steal a bomb to sell on the black market.
- The third case has Professor Means murder Professor Courte because she learned he was accepting bribes from the parents of students, in exchange for giving them good grades.
- This is the reason the phantom murdered Metis Cykes prior to the events of the game. She had a psychological evaluation that may have helped the police identify him, and he had to prevent that at all costs.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice:
- The culprit in the first case murders Paht Rohl because he knew that the Founder's Orb had been stolen. That would throw suspicion on the culprit, the person who would have the easiest time stealing the thing (a proper suspicion, because the culprit did steal it).
- This is implied to have been the motive behind Jove Justice's murder in case 5. He mistakenly became a witness to the staged attempt on Amara's life, and was killed by Ga'ran (and Apollo left to die with him) to hide the fact that her sister had survived.
- Danganronpa:
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: The Mastermind attempts (but fails) to frame and execute Kyoko Kirigiri with a made-up murder scene because she stole Monokuma's special tool, which allowed her to explore locked areas of the school, which led the risk of her figuring out the Mastermind's identity and ending the Killing Game early.
- It's a Recurring Element that there will be two victims in the third chapter- the intended one and one killed so they couldn't blow the killer's scheme.
- In Trigger Happy Havoc, Celeste has Hifumi Yamada killed after tricking him into helping her with her murder plan, which involved Hifumi faking his own kidnapping, killing Kiyotaka, playing dead, moving Taka's body to another room at the school, and then meeting up with Celeste. Her plan had always involved betraying and killing Hifumi once his part was done.
- In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair's third case Hiyoko Saionji is killed on the spur of the moment, simply because she walked in on Mikan while she was killing Ibuki.
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: During the third case, Angie Yonaga is murdered because she walked in on Korekiyo setting up the trap that would later be used to kill Tenko.
- In Double Homework, Dennis pries too far into Dr. Mosely’s professional life.
Dr. Mosely/Zeta: He has has dipped his toe into a deeper pool than he can imagine. He will drown.
- In The Eden of Grisaia, the designer of the Thanatos system had a little accident after he tried selling the system to the terrorist Heath Oslo. Most of the people who are left don't really know the limits of the system as a result, which allowed Kazuki freedom to use the system in highly unintended ways until she blew her cover.
- Extra Case: My Girlfriend's Secrets: The majority of Marty's deaths are caused by Sally going to extreme lengths to conceal her secrets. However, she doesn't start killing him until he discovers a truly incriminating secret, such as the existence of her basement.
- Fate/stay night. Subverted. Shirou stumbles upon two Servants fighting, and one of them races to kill him due to the Holy Grail War's "no witnesses" rule. He's mostly dead when someone saves his life.
- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: Ace's motivation for killing Clover, Snake, Musashidou, Nijisaki, and the Ninth Man are them knowing about his own past. Though, it was also to obtain his '9' bracelet which would put him at an advantage.
- In Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair, this is the reason why Kotoba was killed. The mastermind behind the murder plan hadn't necessarily wanted to kill the victim but needed an additional accomplice, and Kotoba fit the bill, being someone who was easy to manipulate and someone the mastermind didn't mind killing. Once the mastermind is almost done with the plan, Momoko knocks Kotoba out, ties him up and sets the breaker room on fire to create a distraction while she hangs herself. It's possible to save Kotoba, but since he's in no condition to talk, it's up to Raiko to explain what happened.
Webcomics
- Cashmere Sky: Abram is killed by Titus after he finds out that Lockridge's administration is manufacturing the poisonous fog that's taken over most of the world in order to keep control of the region and makes it clear to Lockridge that he intends to expose them. He anticipated this happening to him and wrote a letter to Archer before the murder can take place.
- In Freefall, Mr. Kornada concludes this👁 Image
about Florence after she stumbles across Gardener in the Dark, even though she didn't know about his plan to use the program to effectively lobotomize the sapient robots on Jean in order to take all their money for himself yet. - Girl Genius:
- The entire Wulfenbach Vespiary Squad is targeted by the rest of the Wulfenbach forces after Herr Baron himself is infected by a slaver wasp and is compelled to destroy them. Thankfully, Tarvek and the Jägers salvage enough of the unit and their materials for them to continue their mission under a lower profile.
- According to Tarvek, the Master of Paris encourages clubs to look over the code he uses to control the city in order to look for weaknesses that he can fix. Between Gil and Tarvek, they belonged to over twenty such clubs. The problem is if they learned too much about the code, the Master would drop their entire headquarters into a bottomless pit.
Tarvek: The trick was to always make it out the door just as they started celebrating.
- In the prose novel Agatha H. and the Siege of Mechanicsburg, some doctors praise the modifications made to a machine, unaware that Lucrezia was the one who did so. She notes to herself that she'd like to tell them she did it so that she could receive even more praise, but then she'd have to kill them to keep the secret of her true capabilities. She tells them anyway.
- In Guilded Age, when one of his employees finds out about the players hidden in the basement who can't be removed from their Deep-Immersion Gaming, HR kills him.
- The Last Days of FOXHOUND: Late in the comic, Scratch winds up translating a message that is just a giant bundle of information that would be very inconvenient for Liquid to have get out, so he snaps Scratch's neck. Scratch's partner Eddie, who doesn't know the information but is likely to react poorly to the sudden death of his friend, is dealt with offscreen by Mantis.
- In Midnight's War, after Lord Dante Fitzalan receives a tour of a facility for the creation and weaponization of undead ghouls, he snaps the lead scientist's neck and feeds him to his own creations. He feels guilty about it, but is adamant that there are some things no man should know, or even imagine.
- The Order of the Stick:
- Redcloak in #827👁 Image
can't risk certain facts about a battle getting back to Xykon. Most of his soldiers in that battle were summoned and could be simply dismissed, but there was one goblin who needed to be dead. Luckily for Redcloak, the goblin in question was killed in that same battle, so he was able to merely refrain from resurrecting him. And a few strips later he has Tsukiko killed by her own wights after she tells him she plans to blackmail him. Once he tells his real plan is not what she thought it was, she's too much of a liability to be allowed to live. - The Reptilian Ambassador tries to reveal evidence of General Tarquin's conspiracy to the Empress of Blood, and is Killed Mid-Sentence by one of Tarquin's allies.
- Redcloak in #827👁 Image
- Schlock Mercenary: A lot of dirty secrets are about, and a lot of people get killed over it. Project Laz-R'-Us was a recurring element for this during the early years, and several characters were killed simply by knowing it existed.
- In an early strip👁 Image
, a UNS intelligence officer is killed by his superiors during an intelligence briefing when he unwittingly lets slip that he might have learned details above his security clearance. - The Toughs fall afoul of this in a later arc👁 Image
, when they end up learning about the same thing. Ironically, by the same officer who did the killing in the above strip.
- In an early strip👁 Image
- In Terra fighter pilot Alexis Hawke's CO has serious misgivings about their fighter squadron's mission to destroy a Resistance base. After two fighters and four crew don't come back (two Red Shirts were killed, Alex and Rick were shot down and rescued by the Resistance) he voices his concerns openly to the general, who shoots him.
- Vampire Cheerleaders: In vol.1, Leonard becomes suspicious of Lori and her cheerleading squad and spends weeks secretly observing them. Once he had sufficient evidence, he confronted them and threatened to expose them as vampires.👁 Image
Lori's immediate response was to try to kill him👁 Image
, but he'd taken the precaution of eating plenty of garlic and drinking Listerine, which made his blood toxic to her👁 Image
. So she resorted to the next best thing: buy his silence by having the cheerleading squad screw him.
Web Originals
- Atop the Fourth Wall: Harvey Finevoice is able to figure out the clues in the book about the Entity at once. As such, he jumps to the top of its priority list to consume. The Ninja Style Dancer was grabbed earlier than the rest of Linkara's household for similar reasons.
- Poor Desmond from Critical Role is privy to a lot of information about the Briarwoods, the couple that killed Percy's family. This knowledge almost gets him killed by invisible stalkers, but Vox Machina manages to save him in time.
- Defied in Season 3 of the Dream SMP. Quackity considers killing Slimecicle for overhearing a conversation between him and Purpled because of this trope, but decides against it, instead choosing to utilize Slimecicle's Hidden in Plain Sight abilities for his own purposes, and recruits him as a spy for Las Nevadas.
- Two Dark Angels in If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device are messily killed after their leaders blab out the existence of Fallen within their earshot. And then one of said leaders reminds the others those two were inducted into the Inner Circle last week and thus were qualified to know all about the Fallen without killing them. It's just that the others are trigger-happy paranoiacs.
- Hunter: The Parenting: Big D is quite worried about this happening, which is why he doesn't tell his family most of what he knows about vampires- vampires have agents everywhere and are extremely touchy about Masquerade breaches. So if he tells his kids what he knows and they accidentally let slip even such innocuous info as the names of vampire clans and factions, they might be abducted and killed- and as an experienced hunter, D knows very well that even a single moment of dropping one's guard can lead to death.
- Played for laughs in the ad break of In the Field's episode on weapons. Nordman possessed loads of knowledge based from information stolen online from users that don't have a VPN, and goes around crashing through windows and revealing said information. Just when he literally crashes a funeral to let them know they can save hundreds through regional pricing, he got shot in the chest. It turned out to be Shadowman, who was out to kill Nordman to keep the fact that he preferred playing Field of Tanks Mobile over Raid: Shadow Legends from being revealed.
- In The Nostalgia Chick's review of Disney Princesses, she guesses that The Princess and the Frog was only created because Disney needed to expand their Princess line. A ninja is sent to silence her.
- The Nostalgia Critic: In his review of Full House, the Olsen Twins try and kill the Critic when he attempts to tell the world his new knowledge that they're evil.
- In Red vs. Blue, Tucker finds out by accident that Vic is the Mission Control liaison for both sides, and correctly concludes that the Reds and Blues are being played against each other by a third party. Vic hires Agent Wyoming to assassinate Tucker before he can tell anybody. Fortunately, Wyoming fails.
- This is theorized to be one reason why the Slender Man goes after people. Of course, he's also been known to go after people for seemingly no reason whatsoever.
- SCP Foundation: Those who access or attempt to access files that are higher than their clearance level authorize may face anywhere from having their employment terminated to having themselves terminated. Or an amnestic, if they're lucky when it comes to top secret info.
- In Season 3 of Sonic for Hire, just as Sonic and the gang are about to head towards Casino Zone, Eggman decides The Noid's skills won't be required since he remembered that he never installed a security laser. After Tails pointed out that The Noid was already debriefed on the heist, Sonic immediately shoots him in the face.