“Clouds Darkening the Blue Marital Sky”

This chapter examines language and textual practices of police investigation files on homicides in intimate relationships. The analyses draw on so called final police reports, which, in the criminal justice system of several Swiss Cantons, constitute the key document in the crime investigation process and serve as a crucial basis for prosecution, judgment, and sentencing.1 In these final reports, police investigators summarize all facts and facets of the homicide that they consider relevant and thus give an account of what happened during the homicide and what led up to it. Their task, as stated in the code of criminal procedure, is to “investigate material truth.”2 It is in the document of the final police report that a homicide is institutionally defined for the first time and becomes substantially shaped as a specific case. Although there is an extensive literature on homicide research— mainly originating in North America, less so in Europe— studies with an institutional focus, especially on the interpretative performances of police investigators, are rare.3