[Possible Spoilers]

Hello,

I cannot start the quest, "Blood on Ice", because the scene with the dead body never occurs, although townsfolk do occasionally mention the killer. I know its a heavily bugged quest and have already searched the internet for answers and cannot find one for my situation. Here is what I've tried, or potential causes of the bug that don't apply to me:

- I have already entered Windhelm dozens of times (console commands confirm this)
- I have fast traveled to Windhelm from other holds the majority of time (I've already hit the minimum number of entries from other holds).
- I have entered Windhelm, through the front gate, at night, during all hours of the night (before 2:00am, after 2:00am, and exactly at 2:00am)
- I have waited in the graveyard in real time, near the graveyard in real time, and used the wait command, to be there exactly at 2:00am, as well as waited there after 2:00am, as others sites suggest.
- No NPC's have dialog options concerning the killer.
- I have not become a member of the Dark Brotherhood yet (only progressed to have been offered to join).
- None of quest NPC's have been killed.
- I have not stolen the key to hjerim, and have not entered the house.
- I have less than 245 in-game days played
- This quest has never entered my quest journal, I have not made quest progress by accident (console commands confirm this)
- I have tried to use console commands to attempt to force the quest to start, they have not worked. I deleted these saves after using the console commands so they do not corrupt any other aspect of the game.
- I have not used console commands to modify any other quests or aspects of the game (only to confirm status of objectives).
- My character has no bounties on his head, in any holds.
- I'm not running any mods, and have never run any mods for Skyrim
- I have rebooted saves, the game, and my PC, and have tried multiple saves.

I'm aware that sometimes moving forward in the storm cloak quest chain will resolve the issue, but I joined the Empire, so that won't work for me. My character is level 42 and I have over 120 hours invested in him and I'm not willing to start over either, so I need a way to fix the problem on my current character.

If anyone knows of a way to fix this issue given my particular circumstances, I'd appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the club,this is one of the most bugged quests in the game.Unfortunately if the graveyard scene doesn't trigger you can't even start the quest with console commands.

yeah my first character actually completed the stormcloaks line and still hasnt gotten that quest. kind of svcks that he can't get a house in his home city... so he just keeps watch in Solitude instead to make sure Elisef doesn't try anything stupid.

My imperial thief, on the other hand, got the quest as soon as she entered the graveyard for the first time. Completed the quest, but still no options to get the house...

had a thought that might help though... try spending an entire night sleeping inside the candlehearth hall rented bed. I think that's what my thief did before going to the graveyard.