So.. I am on the road and run into an Imperial Solder escorting a Noble on a horse.

He boasts about killing stormcloaks. So I kill him. 1000 bounty added. I kill the Noble.. 1000 Bounty added.

I do not gain my last witness eliminated message. Good old buttercup (the horse) is staring at me eating its fingernails.

"I know what you did just now"..

Ok horsey. I usually like to setownership as a prize on you but apparently... I kill the horse and lose my bounty to last witness eliminated.

I go into town Falkreath, right near where this happened. I hold an 80 gold bounty still.

So..

1. horses act as witness

2. some weird registry of murder charges are cleared assault charges are there.

3. Stormcloak or Imperial enlisted in the faction as NPC or PC should have some form of specified allowance of engagement.

(I am not sure entirely, but I can imagine if falkreath was held by Stormcloaks at the time, I would have still gotten a bounty for killing the Imperials in their vicinity)

But practically speaking... If I rescue a 'faction prisoner' from a prisoner caravan. I shouldn't have to worry about the prisoner being a witness to the murder. I mean sure you want to write in a praise to me and give me +1 renown. that makes more sense.

I just dont think we should have to worry about eliminating horses as witnesses. the only play I can see to it which is so far fetched is.. that horse is marked... that horse would never be without its owner... unless... you killed him.

MURDERER 1000 bounty. 5 years later from incident.

Everyone and everything knows. You cannot hide it.

I think It could also depend which hold you're in. Holds loyal to the stormcloaks, I think, won't care if you kill an imperial party.

Yeah, in principle it was good to introduce "last witness killed", but it often works poorly---it has seemed to me like you can get a bounty because of some distant enemy NPCs in an outdoor fort in the same loading cell.

i had something simular in riverwood with my current character i started killing a few chickens and had an about 1000 gold bounty on me so after i exited one of the houses (i forget who's) to accept a quest and before i killed the home owner's chicken i attacked his cow and it ran away then i killed the chicken and lost my bounty with the same message as you got.

It CAN be clunky, but it can also work wonders. I turned into a werewolf right outside the gates of Whiterun (was attacked by hired thugs). Everyone went hostile, but after slaughtering all the guards, and an accidental farmer, I ran away as far as I could. When I changed back, I checked my Crime stats and it said I had zero bounty. I really must have killed everyone in sight, hahah.

Bounties really need to be looked at. I once killed a Visiting Advisor in Morthal and got a bounty in Whiterun.

There has always been issues with bounties. In Oblivion, if a person stole in an inn and got caught, someone yelled, "Stop, thief." Then a guard would come in and stare at them for two seconds and leave. The person would then continue to eat his purloined food. If my character swiped a lousy stick of bread, the owner and six patrons would commence to attack me. If I try to fight back, that's more bounty on my head. Then the guard would arrive and yell, "Stop right there, criminal scum." And off I would go to jail where I would be subjected to (I assume, interrogation and body cavity search). All of my stolen goods would be confiscated, and I would be deprived of one skill point. Elder Scrolls is prejudiced, but no where more than against my player character.

And in Morrowind if you steal one instance of an object all instances of that object are flagged stolen for the rest of the game. As you say, there has always been an issue in these games. I really hope Bethesda puts a bit more effort into their crime system in TES VI than they have in previous games.

Actually I think ithis is the best crime system so far. No more physic guards and hold bounties wrok fine. If they fixed up a few things such as the horse witness glitch, and NPC's jumping in your way when you're trying to fight something it would work fine.

I have sort of gotten used to my own horse turning State's evidence against me. But it has gotten to the point that before I do something, I look up to see if there is an errant squirrel up there with a camcorder.

The crime system does need some tweaking when the next TES game comes out. My pet peeve is more of hunting deer and other wildlife counts as assault and some special cases killing someone is considered murder should not count (i.e, DG Masqarade, killing the Blackblood Marauder mage inside the Icerunner stealthfully [meaning that is your first kill on the ship as he is considered "friendly"], and some of the killings you do for SCs in the CW quests against the Imperials come to mind).