Deuteronomy 21:1-9 - Unsolved Murders

¹ If a homicide victim should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, and no one knows who killed him, ² your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse. ³ Then the elders of the city nearest to the corpse must take from the herd a heifer that has not been worked -- that has never pulled with the yoke -- ⁴ and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water, to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. There at the wadi they are to break the heifer's neck. ⁵ Then the Levitical priests will approach (for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in his name, and to decide every judicial verdict) ⁶ and all the elders of that city nearest the corpse must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. ⁷ Then they must proclaim, "Our hands have not spilled this blood, nor have we witnessed the crime. ⁸ Do not blame your people Israel whom you redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold them accountable for the bloodshed of an innocent person." Then atonement will be made for the bloodshed. ⁹ In this manner you will purge out the guilt of innocent blood from among you, for you must do what is right before the Lord.