Hold your horses !

[RussNutter]

I was doing the quest where Roy got murdered, I went to one of the stall holders, the cusrsor moved, and I inadvertently stole an apple, I had no money as I'd just bought some armour, the guards killed me, I started again from the well point, only to be killed again by the guards because, guess ,what? I still had no money, and, the bounty was double ! this happened several more times until I decided to start afresh . How do you get out of a situation like this ?

 

[ShirleyShine]

ouch!
You will of course have got your way out of that now, ------ for anyone else getting into the same situation --
The bounty and heat do go down after time, avoid the guards until it clears on its own.
What I don't understand about that is that supposedly if the guards kill you, that removes any stolen items and clears the bounty.

That is for theft only.
If you attack to defend yourself, or attack anyone else, that is assault and only time removes that bounty and 'heat'.
A way to avoid 'mistakenly' attacking anyone is to view your Settings - Game play, and set Avoid killing Innocents --- ON
You can get bounty from 'helping' a law breaker.
Healing, or using a soul gem to res them will bring you bounty too.

 

[RussNutter]

ouch!
You will of course have got your way out of that now, ------ for anyone else getting into the same situation --
The bounty and heat do go down after time, avoid the guards until it clears on its own.
What I don't understand about that is that supposedly if the guards kill you, that removes any stolen items and clears the bounty.

That is for theft only.
If you attack to defend yourself, or attack anyone else, that is assault and only time removes that bounty and 'heat'.
A way to avoid 'mistakenly' attacking anyone is to view your Settings - Game play, and set Avoid killing Innocents --- ON
You can get bounty from 'helping' a law breaker.
Healing, or using a soul gem to res them will bring you bounty too.

Oh I soon turned 'killing innocents' off when I was fighting a bandit that was attacking someone, and another player ran in front of my sword blow