ORGANIZATION OF INITIAL INVESTIGATIVE ACTIONS WHEN SOLVING MURDERS IN CASES WHERE THE VICTIM’S BODY HAS NOT YET BEEN FOUND
Investigative practice shows that in cases where the disclosure of murders occurs before the discovery of the victim’s corpse, investigators have a number of difficulties in the correct organization and sequence of initial investigative actions aimed at consolidating existing evidence and obtaining new ones. The corpse is known to be the carrier of information about the crime committed. In its absence, it is not clear whether there are signs of a crime, whether the disappeared person is alive or dead. In any case, it is necessary to check the received message, which identifies signs of possible murder and searches for the missing person. In the absence of a corpse, the fact of murder and the guilt of the person who committed it is proved mainly by a combination of indirect evidence. In cases of this category, the main tasks in the investigation process are to identify the circumstances of the victim’s unknown disappearance and signs indicating his possible murder; simultaneously establishing the location of the disappeared person or his corpse; exposing a suspected person in the murder. To solve these problems and in connection with the essential features of the process of proving criminal cases of murder «without a corpse», it is necessary to pay special attention to the correct arrangement of investigative actions, in which the procedural requirements will be fully met and the maximum result obtained. Promising directions for conducting initial investigative actions when solving murders, when the victim’s corpse is not found, have been identified. The possibilities of using the evidence obtained with their help are analyzed. The evidence collected in the system allows you to form an evidence base, despite the absence of a corpse of the victim, to solve the crime and bring the guilty person to criminal responsibility.