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A prime suspect or key suspect is a person who is considered by the law enforcement agency investigating a crime to be the most likely suspect.[1][2] The idiom "prime suspect" is believed to have originated in 1931.[1] "Key suspect" is seen as early as 1948.[3]

Reasons

There are various reasons a person may be considered a prime suspect.[citation needed] These include:

References

  1. ^ a b "Prime suspect"Archived 2015-09-11 at the Wayback Machine. Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon. Dictionary.com, LLC. 06 Aug. 2014.
  2. ^ "prime suspect". USLegal.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2014. Retrieved August 6, 2014.
  3. ^ Congressional Record Volume 94, Part 9. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1948. p. A-695. Retrieved August 24, 2014.
  4. ^ "Racial Profiling". American Civil Liberties Union. Archived from the original on 2020-12-07. Retrieved 2021-01-31.
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