I have taken a break from Skyrim and returned today after three months away. Last time I played I was trying to activate the butcher quest but while exploring Windhelm, I resurrected the body of the last murder victim (for giggles). Starting to think I have messed the quest up.

I am supposed to talk to a guard I believe then go to the castle and speak to someone but no guards are giving me information.

You're supposed to speak with the guard present where you find Susanna's body, then he's all "Blah blah interview the people here." Then he sends you to Jorleif eventually. The quest is already really problematic, resurrecting Susanna via console sounds like pulling the wrench out of the works and shoving your arm in instead.

Sorry I explained it wrong. I did not resurrect her per se. More I brought her back as a zombie with a spell and she went splat afterwards. There are still people around the empty grave like shes still there.

Are you picking up on a save file from your previous play? If you've got a glitched quest the patches fixes are probably not going to help. A fresh character would be your best bet.

That being said, there are several ways to go about this quest, so all is not necessarily lost.

Do you own Hjerim for instance?

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1366181-introducing-kinect-support-for-360/page__st__90__p__20619471#entry20619471

I have been using the same character since September. Havent had anything I know off being glitched yet. Not to say it hasn't happened though.

Ohhh, that makes more sense. There's a point in the quest where Susanna's body is moved from the graveyard to the Hall of the Dead so that the Priestess of Arkay may examine her. Not sure if the ashes or wherever you left the body would move properly. But yeah, is the quest active in your inventory at all even after talking to the guard? Not even a Misc. objective?

I never seen a guard who initiated the quest for me.

The quest is meant to trigger when you first approach the scene where the body is found, then a guard there approaches you and explains the recent string of murders. If that hasn't triggered for you and you're sure of that, then yeah, quest broken

Do you own Hjerim? I was able to buy it after completing the Civil War and used that to trigger the quest.

For me, Susana the Wicked glitched out and is still laying in the graveyard (after the quest is done), so she was never moved to the Hall of the Dead. There is still hope!

I don't own it yet. Was looking to save up all my money but I will save my game before I buy the house to see if it activates the quest.

Yeah man, give that a try. There are some more hoops to carefully jump through after that, keep reading that wiki page and try to do the things in order. Post back with your status!

Hey I entered my house and it began the quest for me.

Booyah! Excellent! Now, don't go willy-nilly through the rest of the quest... keep that wiki open and follow the steps carefully as there are still opportunities to bug it out.

Good luck, let us know how you make out.

On my first playthough I talked to the priestess about it, and all she would every say to me even after finishing the quest was something about the wounds on the corpse... kind of disturbing lol.

She does the EXACT same thing to me on all my characters.

"Large diagonal cut from LEFT shoulder...."

This is Blood on the Ice, right?

Yes it is.

Well, I'm having this issue for 5 months now and basically, it made me stop playing. I too was going for all the hoses and after reading a bit I concluded that the Windhelm house would best fit to my needs utility wise. At thistime I was lvl 50-52, had completed: dragonborn main quest, civilwar and went on imperial side, all words of power, had all houses available besides the one in WH, finished thieves guild and started nightingale quest chain as a nightingale but stopped before killing Nilsine or who the assassin optional contract target was due to a friend telling me that he did murder her and thus had read that you couldn't get tge house if doing so (witch by itself seemed to svck to me ...little did i know).

Also, before getting into detailed descriptions, I must say that Ive had this issue thru more versions of the game (i play on pc),updated from 1.something to 1.5+ or what the current version is atm. I have been in and out WH many times before attempting to trigger this quest, very late in the game as previously stated. The thing for me is thatI have the amulet, I pickpocketed the key, I broke into the house from pure curiosity and that led me to the internet ..as no quest triggered even on trying "investigate" inside. The new yarl made me thane but I cannot buy the house due to the standard "there have been some things happenin around that house and it's curently unavailable" text. All NPCs listed are up, even tho i cannot confirm the guard mentioned in the threads here. I have traveled my ass off in and out, spoke to everyone and everything, stalked ppl worse than the damn butcher himself. I thought maybe dropping the pending assassination quest might unblock whatever is blocked but I dunno how to do that, too bad there isnt such an option in the ui and be able to pick it up again later from the specific npc...

What I observed: sussana or what's her name ( npc that is supposed to die as 1st victim) doesnt leave candlehearth. (stalked her inside too, tried to attack her, thing that triggers another npc jumping in and bashing...her even more as she cannot die...immguessing thats good tho given my specific bug). She wont leave the inn damn it!

Another thing, I have seen Calixo stalk near the inn some times, but she just wouldnt go out. I repeat, I cannot start the quest, tried everything except console commands. What do you guise think? How can i make her leave the inn? This last house to buy so i can continue the assassin's guild chain but cant cuz im stuck thing simply made me quit and wait for a fix...a fix that never came . And no, id like to do it on my "main" char that ive cared for and loved from since he was a lvl 1 nobody (very much in love with this char ), any workaround will do!

Cheers, ty for the read and possible replies and gl.