POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW - Leave now if you want to avoid windhelm murders spoilers

sorry if i posted this in the wrong forum but here goes:

i have finished the war quest line for the imperials, all is peachy, and i have no proceeded on doing all the quests in the game starting clockwise from solitude. i am now in windhelm, did about everything npc there want me to, except for the murder quest. having done it on other characters, i know what and how, but i have one problem: usually its triggered by the dead girl at the cemetery. the place is clean now, and even though people reference the murders, i cant seem to trigger it some other way. Did you guys had that happen? id like some help as this is a nice quest and i'd love the house discount as well. thanks!

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Blood_on_the_Ice#Bugs

Look at the bugs and see if any of those could be the culprit.

Well your not exactly new so you should know there is a spoiler section. Even if you didn't know there was an entire section for spoilers, you should know to put spoiler in you thread title.. If you going to post a spoiler.

"Enter into Windhelm 4 times. Upon the 4th, head to the Graveyard around 2 AM. If you are in the middle of or have finished The Dark Brotherhood questline, this could hinder your possibilities of getting this Quest."

Source: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Blood_on_the_Ice

Same thing happen to me I'm done with the war quest line for the imperials but didn't do Blood on the Ice now it wont trigger Good news Patch 1.4 say they fix the blood on the Ice not triggering I hope the patch does fix it because I really wanted the windhelm house.

Entering Hjerim should trigger the quest. Pickpocket Tova Shattershield for the key, if you can't lockpick it.

well i re-read my post ind it seems the only thing i disclose is that there is a murder quest in windhelm. i guess we`ll have to wait for a mod to see who's right
for the other answers, thanks guys, im gonna see if i can trigger it

"A recent string of murders have Winhelm's inhabitants fearing from their lives" - quote from the loading ui tips - you sir, are trolling, here`s a sweetroll

I did that seeing if it would work because I know it works on the 360 ver I read in some where but see I have a PS3 ver it didn't work for me and I did it twice I reset the game Pickpocket Tova Shattershield for the key want in side Hjerim but nothing happen.

I only read the first two sentences. If there were no spoilers my bad. It just happens alot around here.

Have you tried grabing the Pamflet made by Viola in Hjerim and reading it?

the re-entering and 2 am bit didnt work, where can i get a pamphlet, Ji soo?

You can find one in the house.

By the way this thread is quickly being filled with spoilers. So if you can edit your post it might be a good idea to say so at the top.

It should be all over the floor near the chair with blood stains. If these objects don't spawn, then it won't trigger the quest. There is also a shelf at the end of the hall next to the cupboard that is a secret entrance to a ritual chamber.

Yep and the two Journals still nothing happened.

Okay, try talking to Captain Lonely-Gale about the murder as he is the only one with extensive knowledge of the murders. I did this first, hoping he might trigger the quest, before I went in to Hjerim and it triggered the quest as I entered the door, but I'm on PC.

Can you reload to a save before you tried any of this, go out of Windhelm wait three days go back in in the night and then see if you can find the murder scene? If not go outside wait another three days and try again?

i am trying to do this according to my game style, this character couldn't pickpocket even if he wanted to, level 15 pick pocketing and id really like to avoid it if possible, he`s an honest dude as far as skyrim will allow him.
waited 3 days, went back, no murder scene. I distinctively remember there was a murder scene prior to the windhelm battle, i remember avoiding it so i can pick it up when im good and ready (the irony), my guess is that windhelm cleared and that body will never come back.
Did i mention i'm on a pc? maybe some code can help me get back on track, even though id rather not cheat, but it seems to me that correcting bad(or hey insufficient if you like it better) scripting isn't really cheating

Well, you can always buy the house first, but it means doing all or parts of the civil war quest.

I've tried initiating the quest using the console command 'setstage', but there are no dialogues regarding the quest on the npcs that stand infront of the spawned dead boby, so I wouldn't recommened it.

I tried that too I telling you guys what I already tried and yes I never saved after doing all of that I read some where if you get the civil war questsline done befor triggering Blood on the ice the quest will never trigger but Blood on the ice is the most bugged quest and it going to get fixed in the patch1.4 so I waited this long whats a little longer

BTW thanks for trying to help guys.

yeah i guess i can fork out 4k more, i just lost my horse to a dragon, so it rounds up to a cool 5k anyway

You can try the following commands (in order)

setstage MS11 1
setstage MS11 10
setstage MS11 20
setstage MS11 30


Theoratically this should bring you far enough along in the quest to actually ignore the parts you've missed so far. You will start by having to talk to the steward, if that doesn't work either try using stage 40 as well...

By the way, you can find all the stages http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Blood_on_the_Ice be careful if you want to avoid spoilers...

I've done this quest 3 times now, on 3 characters. And I most certainly didn't have to enter Windhelm 4 times to trigger it, unless walking in and out of the palace of Windhelm counts as "entering Windhelm". The only thing I can think of that might be related to this quest: did you ask Calixo to give you a tour? I always did that, and not much later, the quest began.