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Last night, I just walked out of Belethor's store (weapons sheathed) and a guard stopped me to ask:

You there, what do you know about this?

I had two options: "I don't know anything about it" or "I'm not telling you anything"

I selected the first option as I legitimately had no idea what I did and the guard said something along the lines of:

Okay, but I have my eye on you.

Immediately after he said this, he stopped me again and asked the same question

You there, what do you know about this?

and I replied with the other option:

I'm not telling you anything.

Well, he promptly threw me in jail. What did I do that would have caused this? I ended up reloading to the autosave from me walking out of Belethor's store and I was not stopped by any guard. I now had the chance to look around and there was only a vampire's body on the ground near the warmaiden's shop (a block or two away). This body has been there for at least 5 in-game days.

Was this a glitch or what would have triggered this guard from stopping me?

I did not have any bounty in Whiterun and I did not have any companion with me.

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  • 11
    "Well, you're making people... nervous, with all that shouting."
    – nightsurfer
    Commented Nov 18, 2016 at 16:59
  • "What did I do?" is a common question if you are playing skyrim without any mods.
    – Mukul Kumar
    Commented Nov 20, 2016 at 15:05

2 Answers 2

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Based on my own experiences, this happens if you are nearby a corpse (regardless of how long it's been there, apparently). In this case, it was the vampire a block away. It doesn't matter who or what killed them, you're pretty much just guilty by being there.

Here is a thread where people discuss similar experiences, sometimes even when the guard themselves killed the person to begin with.

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  • 14
    Skyrim guards. They took arrows to the knee and it affected their brain.
    – Karlyr
    Commented Nov 18, 2016 at 17:02
  • 5
    AI in the Elder Scrolls series have always been a bit... dim.
    – Banh Mi Dac Biet
    Commented Nov 18, 2016 at 17:09
  • 11
    I love that the bug exists in such a way that if the guard did the killing, they'll still interrogate you about it...
    – nightsurfer
    Commented Nov 18, 2016 at 17:29
  • 8
    @Kaizerwolf they're trying to avoid a police brutality complaint
    – Vemonus
    Commented Nov 18, 2016 at 17:30
  • 6
    @Vemonus Quite realistic, trying to find someone to pin the murder on.
    – Yakk
    Commented Nov 18, 2016 at 20:05
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This is generic guard dialog triggered by them "discovering" a body. The full dialog tree can be found here. The tree can help you make the right choices and avoid going to jail; it helps not having your weapons up.

It is, notably, a little buggy with respect to the precise meaning of "discovered," as they can apparently comment on bodies they just killed, they just technically watched or help you kill, or bodies of clear enemies like vampires who were just massacring the town. It's yet another of Skyrim's fun, emergent quirks.

It's fairly rare, I think I've only encountered the event personally once in all my hours of playing. Since it's random, reloading the save or otherwise reloading the cell is another way to effectively try avoiding the entire scenario.

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