Blood on the Ice bug? (Spoilers)

So I've been running through the Blood on the Ice quest but after chasing the perpetrator back to (my own legally purchased home) Hjerim I can't defeat him. When I first attack I see a health bar, but after he drops to his knees I can't seem to hurt him anymore. To make matters worse, after a few moments of this city guards rush in to defend the killer!

That quest has got to be THE MOST glitched quest in skyrim, im sorry to say my friend but your SOL im sorry to hear that happen my quest did something similar i was going to question the curious curiousities owner, and he locked himself in his house and never came out. and when i went in via lockpicking he would NOT engage in conversation telling me to piss off. bethesda never ceases to amaze me with they're notorious glitchs.

So there's no console command that will remove the "essential" flag so I can kill this piece of sh**? I really don't want to have to load a save from hours ago.

UPDATE: I tried using the command "setessential 1414A" as per this youtube video but to no avail.

Sorry bro not a PC user. /:

Why don't you advance the quest to the specific value to which you completed this part of the quest? Use the "setstage" command and look up your quest ID and the value to which it will complete the specific part you are on. I've had to use this once before as well and it works fine and doesn't usually break anything.

Thanks for the tip, but this still leaves me with an immortal serial killer in my house.

Hmm, just wondering but if you advanced the quest past the part where he is supposed to die at, then isn't he considered dead at that point? If so you can try using the console command to kill him then.

Trust me, I tried. "setstage" finished the quest, but left him alive and unkillable. And "setessential" still has no effect.

I guess you're stuck with some annoying NPC in your house then. Thems the straits of playing a buggy game.

It looks like I'm going to have to give up most of yesterdays play and try redoing the quest from the beginning. I'll update this thread if I can find an alternate way to complete the quest.

For the curious, I started the quest after almost completing the civil war (the only city I've yet to conquer for the stormcloaks is Solitude), and I did not bring the amulet to Calixto as his museum was locked at 3 pm. After talking to Viola about the journals I went straight to Jorleif with the evidence. I watched as he escorted Wuunferth to the Bloodworks and I closed the cell door on him myself. I did not witness Calixto attempting to murder anyone but as soon as I spied him on the street he ran for Hjerim. I had purchased (and fully furnished) the house after sending Wuunferth to jail but before discovering the next body.

The civil war in general is just a buggy mess. If anyone wants to do any sort of side quests in or related to the towns in the civil war, then I suggest doing them before starting the quest line.

Honestly, the level of bugs in this game is just shameful. I could forgive this one if it were easily fixed by console commands (like several other bugged quests - see "Waters of Oblivion") But the fact that the console commands have no effect is just bizarre and hateful. What's the point of the debug console if the worst bug I've encountered doesn't respond at all?

When did you purchase Hjerim? If you purchased it during the quest it can trigger a bug where, after Jorleif tells you to patrol the streets, Calixto will run into Hjerim and will attack you whenever you enter. You will not be able to kill him, but he will stop attacking you if you do enough damage to kill him. Attacking him a second time will cause a bounty. Try going to a saved game from before he attacks you and then using the console command "setstage ms11 150" and see if that allows you to complete the step "catch the killer".

If you purchased Hjerim before the quest this can still supposedly happen if you do not pick up the Strange Amulet and speak with Calixto about it before accusing or confronting Wuunferth.