Whose murder is it?

Suppose A murders B.Which are the correct ways (if any) to refer to this event?

1. A's murder
2. B's murder
3. A's murder of B
4. B's murder by A

I'm not a native speaker. I always think that (3) and (4) are both clear and I use them interchangeably. But sometimes I don't want to mention both the killer and the victim so I resort to (1) or (2). But I'm not sure if either of them is correct.

Solution 1:

"X's murder" is an informal or colloquial construction: it may stand for either the murder of X or the murder committed by X, so it is up to the user to make sure the ambiguity is unimportant in your particular context. Agatha Christie's book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd does refer to him as victim, but a whodunit reader might consider the possibility that he was actually the killer...

Note that in a very formal context such as a court case, 'the murder of X' is correct (assuming that there is no question of accident or suicide) but 'the murder by X' assumes not only that X is guilty but that he has committed no other murders.

Solution 2:

Both A and B are correct and therefore ambiguous on their own. Murder means the act of killing someone, but it can be used to describe the action of the perpetrator committing the murder or the victim's experiencing it.

If the context does not make it clear, it is better to spell it out, which is less efficient with word count but more efficient communication