Scene Investigators – Logic & Reasoning – Solutions

Unmarked spoilers for the game in here, but this guide attempts to explain the logic I see for each set of questions provided.

There is a section that points to the evidence I used before I explain the logic I came up with for each.

Preliminary Trial

Сrеdit gоеs to Noka !

Evidence Gathering

What do you mean? It’s all in front of you!

I kid. Here are the important parts, left to right:

• Documents: Synopsis
• Manila Folder: Masterplan (hint: only the start time really matters)
• Manila Folder: Money Split
• Manila Folder: Newspaper (hint: press R)
• Evidence Tray: Basically all of it, but especially Cash and Phone.
• Investigation File: Report of Stolen Items (hint: time taken, items taken, and their values matter)
• Investigation File: All Criminal Records (hint: only name, age, arrest & sentencing info, & other info matter)
• Investigation File: Written Statement (hint: you only need to read the Statement portion)

If you’re ready, let’s state the questions.

1. Who was the getaway driver?
2. Who participated in the robbery?

Logic

This case is relatively simple once you break it down. Let’s first reference the Money Split page to determine the roles. We have:

• The man with the plan (let’s just call him the mastermind)
• Helper
• Getaway driver

With that determined, we can reference the Phone for more details. This establishes a few facts:

• Of those 3, there is the mastermind, his friend, and the newbie.
• The friend is older than the mastermind.
• The person who owns the phone is the friend.

There’s some more facts we can get here, but we’ll come back for them in question 2. Let’s think about the Synopsis again. It established that they found this guy next to the van, arrested him, and this was what was inside the van. This happened between the period that Helen was robbed and the heist.

If you’re paying attention, that would mean that the heist didn’t happen, but Helen had to have been robbed. Check out the time on that report: 3:10pm. If you skimmed the Masterplan, you might remember the heist was set to start at 3:15pm, and they needed to be there at 3:15 sharp. Basically, if the heist didn’t happen yet, we can assume if he was found alone next to the van, he is the getaway driver.

So the friend is the getaway driver. But who IS the friend?

Review the Criminal Records. Both Frank and Chad share a stay at the Willow Bay Correctional Facility around the same time. This is the only same place/time connection of the 3, so we can reasonably assume these are the mastermind and friend.

Chad is the younger (note that he was arrested for identity theft at age 18 – wild), making him the mastermind. Thus, Frank is the friend, and the getaway driver. That’s our answer – the driver is Frank Carter.

Now. Question 2! We can determine the people involved in stealing Helen’s purse based on the details present in the evidence tray. We don’t really need anything else now that we know who everyone is, but I’ll go with the logic for a moment.

From previous logic, the final member of the band, the new guy, is Anthony. Anthony was the one who was able to identify that Helen had a $600 item to steal. How did he determine that?

Helen’s Written Statement suggests she talked with a friend in the cafe about winning some money from the lottery around 2pm. The phone conversation where Anthony asked Frank to assist him was around 2:20pm, establishing that was probably what he overheard. But how did he decide $600?

Helen does not explicitly state it in her statement, but one of the lotto prizes from the newspaper (the only part transcribed) is a $600 prize for 4 numbers. So we can take a guess: she probably got the 4 number prize. That’s how Anthony determined the value of Helen’s purse.

So that means Anthony Young definitely participated in the robbery. We can mark him down. But we don’t actually have confirmation that Frank participated in the robbery.

Or do we? Review the Items Taken again. Helen had $40 in assorted bills, and a $600 lottery ticket.

The cash is now incredibly suspicious. Did you notice that it has 6 crisp $100 bills, as well as exactly $30 visible in ragged, wrinkled change? It’s not unreasonable to decide that the beer and cigarettes COULD have cost $10, but the crisp money…

Or you might notice that there’s a bill hidden under the $100s – flip to the back, and that’s a $10! Regardless of if you’re blind like me or not, that’s definitely all the money.

If Frank didn’t assist and someone else assisted Anthony in getting from the robbery to the bank, this would not have wound up in his car. In other words: Frank definitely helped out. Mark down Frank Carter again.

And there it is! That’s the logic for the preliminary test. When we break it down, both questions are very simple:

• The guy who we arrested is the getaway driver.
• The guy we arrested is not the mastermind or the new guy.
• The mastermind is younger than the friend.
• Only Frank and Chad could be the mastermind and friend.
• Frank is older, and thus the friend, and thus the getaway driver.

• Helen talked about her lottery ticket in public.
• We know the new guy overheard her, and his valuation ($600) matches a specific lotto win.
• There is a suspiciously crisp $600 in the car, alongside some spare change that aligns with the contents of the purse minus things clearly recently bought.
• The timing is too tight for the money to have gotten into the getaway van unless the getaway driver helped with the escape.
• Therefore, the getaway driver and the new guy collaborated.
• We know the getaway driver is Frank, and the new guy is Anthony, and they both were involved in the robbery.

It’s only more twisty-turny from here, though. Buckle up!

Missing – Scenario #1

Missing is our first multi-scenario questionnaire, but the game is merciful and only requires the most barebones of inter-scenario associations. Even so, I highly recommend you write down every name you come across.

Since each scenario in this one only unlocks after you clear the one before it, we’ll be approaching it that way in the guide as well.

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #1

There is a lot here. A lot of it is really sad and paints a great picture of this scenario. But almost all of it is irrelevant to the questions at hand. Here’s your important data synopsis:

• Kitchen – Wallet (hint: There’s a few different receipts; only one suggests the right date & approximate time.)
• Living Room – Planner
• Living Room – Child’s Art Sheet (hint: Kids will draw on anything these days, huh?)
• Living Room – Home Phone (hint: Almost of it all matters. Who’s been ringing?)
• Kids’ Bedroom – Hazel’s Diary (hint: All that really matters is someone’s first name.)
• Master Bedroom – LAPD Report (hint: check her desk)
• Master Bedroom – Check (u) (hint: Who paid it, from where?)
• Master Bedroom – Trashed ATM Receipt (hint: Tommy, you really could have just left it in your car…)
• Master Bedroom – Truckers United Health Insurance (hint: If you know the questions, you know why this matters. Thomas seems to have had it fall off his desk.)

Let’s get into it. Our questions are…

1. Where was everyone at 2pm on the 6th of September?
2. Would the insurance cover the hospital bill?
3. Who picked up the kids on September 18th?

Logic – Scenario #1

The first question has a curveball here, but it’s not too hard. Everyone but Katherine only needs one piece of evidence to solve, so let’s do them first.

Thomas is definitely SUPPOSED to be taking care of the kids on the 6th. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that. But if you found that Trashed ATM Receipt in Thomas’s trash bin next to his desk, you probably noticed he was withdrawing $500 from an ATM in Las Vegas rather than at home taking care of the kids. The time on the withdraw is 15:09, but despite suspecting there was a dev error.

Head to Thomas’s wallet in the Kitchen and look for the Cashout Voucher. It’s the same address, establishing it’s a casino, and the cashout voucher is for 1:30pm or so. So we’ve now established he was most likely there at 2pm… C’mon, Thomas.

So Thomas was at 4830 Sunrise Road, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Okay. So Hazel and Nicholas next, and they’re just as simple. If you saw the LAPD Report, you probably know where they were. If you didn’t, reread it now.

They were both at 2839 Garners Ferry Rd, Los Angeles, CA. As for why they were there, you can logic it out if you take a deeper look at Hazel’s room and diary… But Thomas definitely wasn’t doing his job.

Back to Katherine, now. Only two pieces of evidence are needed: the Planner, and the Check (u). Katherine’s planner for the 6th places her at Wilsons, but we can’t just write that in – we need an address.

Even if you get a big idea from the Star Diner flyer on the floor and search the house, there isn’t a matching Wilsons flyer. Instead, reference Check (u)’s upper corner. It’s a payment check from the Wilsons, with their payment address. Since it’s a family restaurant, they probably aren’t franchised, so that’s most likely their actual establishment’s address.

Thus, Katherine was at 4572 Charter St, Santa Clarita, CA. That’s question 1 down.

Question 2 is a double bind. It’ll trip you up if you aren’t paying attention. But it’s still solvable using only the one piece of evidence – the Truckers United Health Insurance document on the floor by Thomas’s desk. You just need to pay attention.

Normally, “Non-Surgical Procedures” should cover what Hazel’s costs are. (There’s a list of her costs in the Living Room, hidden on the end table on the right side of the sofa, if you’re curious.) Even if it doesn’t due to it being an overnight stay expense, that might still be covered in Section C (which we did not receive). However…

Check out the names of the insured and dependents. Thomas Harrington… and Katherine Patton. These two aren’t married. (Which makes sense, if you reviewed their relationship timetable from Katherine’s love letter box – Hazel and Nicholas are too old to be children from Tom and Katherine’s relationship.) Now, review Coverage – Section A(f).

Tom is not legally Hazel’s family.

In short… the answer is No.

Question 3 is the most sensical and yet also kind of wild? For this one, you’ll need the clues we haven’t referenced yet from the list. That’s the Home Phone and Hazel’s Diary, as well as a revisiting of the Planner.

On the 8th, Hazel was introduced to someone concerned about her Mommy by the name of Hannah. This is the next day after Hazel was taken out of the hospital she wound up at. If you’re following the story, what makes the most sense is that Hannah is a CPS worker, here due to the LAPD report and hospital stay, to check in on Hazel.

There is some supporting evidence here in the little art piece on the coffee table. Pick it up and flip it over – it’s dated September 10th, and it states “the district’s CPS supervisor has already met with both students to understand the situation”. Hannah is the only one who circumstantially makes sense here as the CPS worker Hazel met. If you haven’t already made the jump that Hannah is a CPS worker, this is where you should be making it.

Following that, we need to logically notice that “Ms. Olson” is mentioned in the Planner as calling constantly. However, as we can see from the planner, Katherine is so overworked that she works a consistent 6-8 hours at two jobs every day – understandably, she’s not really available for ‘Ms. Olsen’ to talk to.

Now, Home Phone. Review the call log – a number ending in 9753 called 3 times on the 7th, twice on the 8th, twice on the 11th (and was finally received), twice on the 13th (and was picked up again), called twice on the 15th (no response), again on the 17th, and then one more time on the 18th. The VM from the same number on 9/18/1998, that just says “Now I will be taking things into my own hands.”

Hannah Olson is a CPS worker assigned to their case after Hazel collapsed outside a toy store without any adult presence on 9/6, and after two weeks of attempting to check in on the family, was unable to contact Katherine consistently and took away their kids.

So the person who picked up the kids is Hannah Olson. Bummer.

That resolves Scenario #1. Please remember: this information WILL be useful later, so I recommend keeping all of the names in your hat. They help.

Let’s get onto…

Missing – Scenario #2

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #2

This is the first scenario where there are explicit details that will help a lot with future inferences. I will mark ‘future inference’ data in bold. Tip: You can take pictures with C, and review relevant pictures with I.

Anyway, welcome to the drug den. Let’s get investigating. Just so you know, there are 3 doors that can be opened in this section. Also, hot tip: If you are looking at something in this section, be careful about hitting ESC instead of Q. This can cause you to drop through the floor. Hit ESC and “Quit”. Don’t save or you have to restart the game to fix the clipping issue.

• Master Bedroom – Glennon Footwear Boots (hint: Why can you close the safe door? Take a picture of the soles.)
• Kitchen – Westwood Apartments Key
• Kitchen – Calendar
• Kitchen – Child’s Diary (hint: I swear she hides things better than anyone else. Purse on the chair.)
• Kid’s Room – Math Homework
• Kid’s Room – Scavenger Hunt Page
• Kid’s Room – Phone (hint: almost TOO easy to miss. check her pillow.)
• Girls’ Room – Phone
• Girls’ Room – Journal
• Girls’ Room – Note (bed)
• Girls’ Room – Note (under pillow)
• Girls’ Room – Note (desk)
• Girls’ Room – Luggage (both)
• Master Bedroom – Broken Lock
• Master Bedroom – Journal (hint: behind the pillows)
• Master Bedroom – Bookmark Note
• Master Bedroom – Phone (ruby case)
• Master Bedroom – Burner Phones
• Master Bedroom – Ledger

This is the first scenario to really sit down, look you in the eye, and ask questions where it is demanding a lot of you. Probably the most challenging of the Missing case files. Not helped by a special question.

We have a grand total of 6 questions this time. Buckle up!

1. Who stole Emma’s money?
2. When was Marley hospitalized?
3. Did Janine move to another state?
4. How many times did Phillip physically assault someone in the house between Nov. 7 and Nov. 15?
5. Who has an appointment with the tattoo artist on the 17th?
6. Who is the intruder?

If you’re trying to solve all questions before reading the Logic portion… here’s my best tip for you: disregard anything you think I’ve implied and go with your gut. A double hint: Technically, saying that this is the first scenario where you can get information you would use in the next scenario is lying.

Now, let’s logic!

Logic – Scenario #2

Question 1 is easy. We’re referencing Emma and Marley’s conversation (found on Marley’s phone, in the Girls’ Room) and the burner phones for this one.

Emma had her bag stolen by a client 11/11 at 2am. She isn’t on the calendar for that day, so it was a burner scheduled client. And we know the only client-facing call around that time was Frank, 11/10 at 11:12pm, saying he didn’t want a bruised girl, requesting a new girl. So accounting for travel time, Frank is most likely her client. Thus, Frank stole her bag.

Question 2 is a little harder. But only a little. In fact, I personally just got it off the burner phones.
Phillip texts the doctor to check in on Marley on the 13th, so I just figured he’d brought her in the day before. However, it’s explicitly stated that Marley didn’t come back after the 12th in the Master Bedroom Diary. So… yup. Marley was hospitalized 11/12/2018.

Question 3 – if you’re like me – is dead easy for all the wrong reasons. The question it asks is something I personally just went “who?” to, but considering how literally everyone in this house is coming up with a plan to escape Phillip, and Emma talks about losing someone because Phillip is a psychopath, I picked “no”.

Janine’s name can be found in the Child’s Diary in the kitchen, where Irene mentions that she missed her. … As previously mentioned, Emma talks about losing someone to Phillip right around when Irene says Janine moved away. Yeah, the answer here is No.

Question 4 is where they just spike the difficulty for fun. You now need to track every single beating Phillip laid out between the 7th and the 15th. Thankfully, there are some very helpful little notes here and there. The Master Bedroom Diary keeps coming in clutch. It mentions that Stephanie was beaten 11/10. We know Philip came home angry after Marley was hospitalized. And – previously unmentioned, but review the Kid’s Room Phone. “Mommy is going to die.” There aren’t any other specific mentions of beatings that happen over this timeframe, so… 3!

Question 5 is very easy, as long as you turn off any assumptions that Phillip is a human being. The Master Bedroom Phone (ruby case), the Note (bed) in the Girls’ Room, and Anton’s conversation from the Burner Phones is all you need to understand what is happening. For the name, you just need the Math Homework from the Kid’s Room.

Yeah. The logic here is that Anton is the tattooist (seen in the Note (bed)), and Phillip schedules an appointment with him for the 17th (the Saturday after the 13th) for ‘a bit young’ of a girl. Follow that up with Rose and Phillip’s phone conversation about how ‘she is our daughter’ followed by Phillip saying ‘she is MINE’ and. Yeah, Phillip intends to pimp his own daughter. In case you’re curious: Her homework is long division. In the United States, long division is usually introduced in the 4th or 5th grade.

Yeah. Irene is 11 years old. Maybe 12 TOPS.

Even so. The answer is Irene Haynes.

Question 6 is where you look at me, horrified, realizing I cited like 20 different resources, but didn’t use more than like, half of them?

So first, we need to establish who “Mommy” is, because that’s fundamental. There’s a lot of incidental evidence pointing to this among all the different evidence I cited, but I will just upfront say it’s most obvious when you consider the Phone (ruby case) in the Master Bedroom. The conversation between Rose and Emma (which you know is with Rose due to Marley’s phone in the Girls’ Room) is a mother concerned over her daughter.

So “Mommy” is Rose. Rose, for the record (if you review other evidence) is the only person who does not appear to have a bed (as Marley’s things are in the Girls’ Room, but she doesn’t have luggage – she’s the top bunk on the right side.) That’s because she sleeps with Phillip (and thus, it’s her diary that we’ve been relying on for most of these questions). Rose’s diary has clearly been planning an escape, and additionally, if you reference the Note (desk) in the Girls’ Room, you’ll notice that Rose identifies as using that stationery with that handwriting. If you check the Bookmark Note in the Master Bedroom, you’ll find some suspicious codes punched into it. And if you close the safe’s door… There’s bloodstained fingerprints on the next code that hasn’t been crossed out (45092).

Plenty of reasons for Phillip to beat her. Rose is also under an overt time crunch, because she obviously is trying to protect Irene and have a backup plan to escape if Phillip can’t be convinced to not force her into prostitution. So that’s the setup: Rose is in a position where she is being assaulted. Irene texts… someone. And then there is an intruder.

Let’s look at Irene’s part of this outcome. This is where we need to reference the Scavenger Hunt, Child’s Diary, and Phone from the Kid’s Room. The number Irene texted for help is the same number from the Scavenger Hunt’s “call if you ever need help” note. And the Child’s Diary says “we found everything on the list” – in other words, Irene and the man from the park played together and completed the scavenger hunt. So we have to assume this is the man from the park from the diary and Rose’s texts with Emma.

But we can’t just write “Kind Park Guy” and be done. The game wants a name. Only question is, do we have one?

At this stage, I want you to know: I am 100% confident the game wants you to fail this. So give it your best guess. We’ll be back.

Missing – Scenario #3

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #3

This one is far easier than Scenario #2, but it makes no sense without context from both other Scenarios. So we’ll hit it as we go.

Frankly, almost no evidence here is relevant. But there’s just a little bit.

• Doorway – Muddy Footprints
• Bedroom – Missing Persons Report (Corkboard)
• Bedroom – Shoebox (everything inside)
• Bedroom – Phone (hint: Look at Hazel, then look down.)
• Desk – Late Rent Notice

That’s all you need. So now… Questions.

1. Who entered through the window?
2. Who died here?
3. Who is the killer?

Logic – Scenario #3

Question 1 cannot be solved by this scenario. In fact, the only reason you can solve this is because of the Late Rent Notice. The document mentions it is for a “Westwood Apartments”. Do you remember the Westwood Apartments Key, next to the dog’s outline, in Scenario #2?

Let’s flash back a bit. We established there was an intruder, but we had trouble establishing who it was. It was the guy from the park, but we don’t know who that actually is. But what did the stranger do?

From the layout of Scenario #2’s bloodspatter and effects, the timeline looks something like this:

• Rose is viciously beaten in her bed by Phillip with his brass knuckles.
• Phillip locks a still-bleeding Rose inside their bedroom with a portable lock.
• He leaves.
• The stranger got into the house (Irene likely opened the door for him while on the phone with her.)
• The stranger was attacked by Spike in the kitchen.
• The stranger grabs a kitchen knife from the nearby knife block and stabs Spike, killing him.
• Injured, the stranger heads to the main bedroom and breaks the door down.
• The stranger assists Rose (presumably bloody in her spot on her bed) with her wounds.
• Rose opens the safe (thus the bloody fingerprints), takes Irene, and leaves ASAP with a backpack full of money and whatever she felt she needed. The stranger presumably assists.

A lot of this timeline can be determined by examining the Scenario #2 Master Bedroom, as well as noticing that the door has been destroyed on the side facing out toward the hallway. If it was destroyed due to having the lock kicked down, it would follow it would tear off the highest point of tension, which is the location the lock has been installed.

There’s a first aid kit on the bed, and an examinable bloody rag. The bloodspatter from the stranger’s dog-inflicted wound has also stopped bleeding substantially by the time they head out to the door. (You can see two different spatter patterns – one from the dog to the master bedroom, then smaller, more sporadic bloodspatter from the master bedroom to the front door.)

Setting all of that aside, I actually left one thing out. When Spike attacked the stranger, we can safely assume that the stranger lost the key at that time.

So the stranger lost their key to their Westwood Apartments apartment. And we know this is the same key, as if we take a picture, we can find the same key left in the lock in the front door of Scenario #3. So… what does that mean?

Question 1 only makes sense if the person who came in through the window knew they didn’t have the key to the door, and knew they wouldn’t have any trouble getting in. The lamp is knocked over in the main bedroom, and there’s a very bloody green jacket hung in the right place for if someone was coming in from the outside.

The stranger from Scenario #2 is clearly the answer to Question 1, then. But who is he? He clearly lives here (or else he wouldn’t have known to use the window), and he lives here alone.

See the Late Rent Notice. Who is it TO? (Oh, hi Thomas!)

Thomas is back. Yeah, Thomas Harrington is both the answer to Section 2 Question 6 and the person who lives here, the person who came in through the window. (You can choose to edit your Scenario 2 answers here without switching scenarios – in the Edit Answers, look in the upper right, there’s a number for each scenario you can pick.)

So Thomas Harrington is the answer to Question 1. Now, who died?

That one’s pretty easy. There was nobody else in the house, and if you review the local evidence, it seems pretty self-evident that Thomas did not intend to live much longer. He has 0 reason to put up a fight.

Thomas Harrington is thus the answer to Question 2.

Who killed him? Even easier. Only one person could both have gotten the key and would have been brazen enough to kill a man in his home and go through all of his belongings (likely assuming he had the money that was stolen, unaware Thomas and Rose had already parted ways).

The final nail in the coffin? The shoes you took a picture of in Scenario #2. Compare their shape to the muddy footprints. It’s a perfect match.

You have to figure out his name, but once you remember that the devs so far have always assigned children their father’s name, it’s not hard.

Phillip Haynes is the murderer.

And that’s it! That’s the entire logical deduction for these questions.

The 4th Floor – Room 401

These aren’t like Missing – they’re not interconnected, but they are all on the same floor. What a group of crime-havers, eh? Either way, let’s get into it.

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #1

• Kitchen – Permission Slip
• Kids’ Room – Flyer
• Kids’ Room – Child’s Diary
• Kids’ Room – Bottle (hint: to the left of her homework)
• Kids’ Room – Wallet (hint: all the paper is useful)
• Kids’ Room – Safe
• Office – Laptop

So. Questions:

1. Who broke into the apartment?
2. Who was present during the break-in?
3. Who was killed?
4. Who is the killer?

Logic – Scenario #1

Question 1 is relatively simple, though it’s hard to pin down a solid logical line. Here’s the most solid one I have that requires the least amount of evidence. We’re referencing the Child’s Diary, Bottle, and Wallet for this one, all in the Kids’ Room.

The Child’s Diary establishes that Greta stored one of her daddy’s bottles he liked. The bottle she stored we can find is the Am Ale – which is what the receipt in the Wallet is for. We could also reason this out from the Laptop and the note regarding crossed out locations, though this requires you know a little about how that works.

The bank doesn’t change Brenda’s name, but changes her address. That means Clyde would be able to call the bank and request information – and (because he appears to still be Brenda’s husband), he could at least have gotten the street and numbers without turning any heads. I’m not sure why they’d be jumbled, but regardless, he’s the only person who could have gotten an incomplete address from this information.

So yeah, it’s Clyde Kent Peterson who broke in.

Question 2 is a combo question, like how many beatings Phillip dealt out in Missing #2. It’s asking two things: Who was the adult in the house, and was Greta here?

Greta had camp during this period, as shown by the Flyer on her bedroom table. We see her Permission Slip on the kitchen counter, fully filled out. Reasonably, we might wonder why the slip is here, but the Flyer does say we apply online, and there’s a fax machine in the office. So we can assume the slip was submitted in advance via fax.

Greta was therefore not there. So who was the adult in the house? We could try and establish when it happened to establish if there was a sitter. But frankly, let’s put a pin in this and come back. For now, we know there were 3 people in the house: Sarah Peterson (baby’s name – you can infer this from multiple spots in the house), Clyde Kent Peterson (as the person breaking into the house), and the adult who was supervising Sarah.

Questions 3 and 4 are essentially asking us to determine who was killed, and who survived. (There is a single pair of shoes in the shoe well, so we can feel confident the person tending to Sarah was alone.) Therefore, the answer is one of two possibilities: Clyde killed the supervisor, or the supervisor killed Clyde. Barring some way for a baby to commit murder or leave an adult-sized outline on the floor, we can assert that confidently.

Now: The circumstances of the murder. Let’s first establish where the supervisor was when Clyde entered the house. If we check out the living room, we find a half-opened Snickers, the baby monitor, and a bowl of cut strawberries. The baby monitor is enough to tell us that they were in the living room before things started. We see some odd steps around the crib (arguably Clyde picking up Sarah), and then Clyde heading into the office in the back room. His footsteps fade away by this point, but the last steps into the office is at a sharp angle to the left – he is walking with purpose.

As we’ve learned so far (see Missing #2), safes are generally open with intent in this game – if they are open, they were opened by the participants in the scene. This might be a bit of a logical leap, but if you thoroughly inspected the office, you might have noticed that there are two kinds of Bullet Casing here – 2 Luger casings, and 1 Wilder casing. That implies the presence of two guns, one of which you likely ALSO found in the Office. So…

The Safe contains many things, including a case of Luger ammunition and a manual for a gun model that is definitely not the glock on the floor.

In all honesty, we could do a lot of logical leaps here, but I’m going to stick to the simplest logic possible. We’ve identified the person in the house was able to access the safe (and had an opportunity where Clyde was not in the kids’ room to retrieve the gun from the safe). The fact they knew where the safe was and could retrieve the gun from it means they’re the only person living in this house (as we don’t have any notes saying the code to the safe or anything provided to a potential sitter).

So the final person in the house is Brenda Sherman.

If you want to reason out the exact outcome of the encounter here, there are multiple ways to reach the conclusion of who died here – you can reference things like heights from the Restraining Order… or just think about it a little. I think this is a clean bit of logic: We only find one gun. The killer would not have just left their gun on the floor. The gun is not the one from the safe. Therefore, the person killed should be Clyde.

“But what if the killer dropped their gun and stole the other person’s?” A fair point. We can pin down the identity of the killer by reviewing where the killer was standing when they made the fatal shot. There’s a Luger bullet casing on the desk, which directly faces the shot angle. The phone was set to call 911. The person who made the shot was calling 911 – which Clyde would not have done.

The victim is Clyde Kent Peterson.

The killer is thus Brenda Sherman.

The 4th Floor – Room 402

This is where the game starts to get… I hesitate to say ‘easier’, but in essence, we’re way less dependent on evidence for the next two rooms. This is way more dependent on making good logical leaps. I’ve found everything I can in the rooms (as far as I can tell), but this one is… there’s multiple logical lines here, but they’re all pretty tenuous. I’ll try and be thorough here.

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #2

• Coat Hook – Purse
• Table – Everything (yes, really)
• Kitchen – Sticky Notes
• Kitchen – Recipe
• Kitchen – Wine Bottle (hint: read the back)
• Item List – Medicine Bottle
• Entryway – Ronnie’s Wallet (hint: It’s all useful, but we only care about one thing)
• Living Room – Calendar (hint: It’s all useful, but we only care about one thing.)

And then, questions:

1. How many people live in this apartment?
2. Who is Jessica’s cousin?
3. Who sat in chair #4?
4. Who was killed?
5. Who is the killer?

Logic – Scenario #2

Question 1 is easy. There’s 5 set spots at the table, and 3 listed guests on the Kitchen Sticky Notes. 2 people live in the apartment.

Question 2 is also easy. Jessica’s cousin is referred to as “he” and is not James. Her cousin is Victor.

Question 3 requires us to identify who was sitting where. Let’s go down the list.

• Victor was sitting at Chair #1, as it’s the only chair without wine.
• Chair 2 will require some extra logic, but note that the person has an un-dirtied napkin.
• Chair 3 had a woman sitting at it – if you look at the wine glass, there is a lipstick mark on the glass.
• Chair 4 will also need that extra bit of logic.
• Chair 5 is set opposite to how everyone else was set, and went untouched. This was James’ chair – he didn’t show up.

So based on this, we don’t know the locations of Carol, Jessica, or Ronnie – but we know Chair 3 had a woman sitting there. So the victim was either Carol or Jessica.

Let’s review the Purse. The important point here is the lipstick – it “leaves no marks and no smears”. There’s also a gap wide enough for the medication. (Even if the lipstick is not actually that water resistant and COULD leave a mark, it’s the wrong color.) This purse is therefore not owned by the victim.

It isn’t impossible that Jessica could have left a purse from an earlier excursion on her own coat hook, but if that were so, we probably wouldn’t be able to examine it. The purse must therefore be Carol’s. And since it’s the wrong lipstick for the dead person…

Jessica was in Chair #3. But how do we determine which chair was Ronnie and which chair was Carol? Buckle up.

Review your item list. The Medicine Bottle is likely medicine the killer was personally prescribed, so we should assume the killer is taking the medicine alongside using it as the murder weapon. Especially considering the name on the label suggests it may be anti-seizure medication (just from the sort of pun it makes), the killer could not have avoided taking it.

The killer would thus not have drank any alcohol to avoid the severe liver damage. But we don’t have any full wineglasses… Did you check out the back of the Wine Bottle? Review that. As the winebottle states, a ‘filled’ wineglass is 1/3rd of the way full. We do only have one of those – Chair #2’s. Add in the un-dirtied napkin, and they definitely never drank anything.

That places the killer in Chair #2. If you remember the purse, there is almost EXACTLY enough room in the purse for the pill bottle. Let’s put a pin in this, suspect Carol of being the murderer, and say she sat in Chair #2 pending review.

That means the person sitting in Chair #4 was Ronnie.

Because of previous logic, we already know who died – it’s Jessica Grayson.

So now, the killer. Carol is the most suspicious. But we know next to nothing about her, even after skimming her purse. We only know she exists because of a sticky note with her name on it! So let’s give her a fair shake. Let’s establish her opportunity, her means, and her motive.

Her opportunity was given by her seating arrangement. She was directly next to Jessica’s wineglass, and could have spiked Jessica with an overdose of her Spazax when nobody was looking. Even if not an overdose, she could have caused severe liver damage by just mixing the Spazax with alcohol.

Her means is her own medication, the Spazax from the bottle. We don’t know about any medications that Ronnie would have owned, but since this is Ronnie’s home, they likely would have been mentioned or otherwise found elsewhere. We don’t have enough information to reasonably assume this is Ronnie’s, but the empty space in Carol’s purse… That’s suspicious enough.

But a motive, though? Where will we find that?

Review her purse again. She has a match set from Celine’s Kitchen. It has some slight damage at the edges, so it’s probably been in there a while, but only one match has been used. If you review Ronnie’s receipt, he spent an hour and 10 minutes at Celine’s Kitchen with someone on the 14th (10 days before the murder), but that’s not on Jessica’s calendar. (We can tell Jessica is the one who maintains it, as Ronnie’s name is on it.)

Carol’s motive… What if Ronnie was having an affair with her, and she wanted Jessica out of the way? This lines up pretty nicely with everything we know so far.

Beyond that, there’s no real reason for Ronnie to commit a murder. The observant among you might have noticed it seems like Ronnie is potentially pressuring Jessica (who is some variant of Christian, from the cross on the wall) into an abortion (between the “Appt. with Dr. Richardson” while Ronnie was away and Ronnie’s card from a director of an abortion clinic), but that isn’t a real reason for Ronnie to commit murder. Even if he wasn’t ready for kids, he is married to Jessica, so he’s already committed to some extent. If he could spike her drink with anything, birth control or some kind of abortive would be a more likely choice, not something that’d kill her.

Most importantly… Ronnie likely wouldn’t have bothered buying her $57 of chocolates and wine for her birthday. This murder was clearly premeditated from the use of the medication, or at least a crime of opportunity rather than passion, where the killer was just waiting for the chance to do this.

Thus, with Ronnie much less likely to have killed Jessica, Carol is the most reasonable killer.

Yes, this one was rough. We only even know Carol’s name because of the sticky note on the fridge – she doesn’t come up anywhere else. And it’s not clear why the laptop is locked out, either. Maybe to imply extra martial strife or that Ronnie was hiding things from Jessica?

This is just a little odd facts power hour, but “the account is locked out” is actually a really, really weird detail.

The login screen resembles Vista (which is from 2007). First strike. Windows XP (which this should be based off) would only do a password lockout if you misentered your password 3 times, and it would lock you out for 30 minutes.

XP would also show multiple users, even if the account was locked out – meaning we would be able to see if this is a shared computer or not.

That means we’re missing a lot of information to come to the likely intended conclusion: After Jessica collapsed, Ronnie attempted to look up what he should do on the computer, but misentered his password in his panic, and locked himself out. That’s the only way this computer should have wound up locked out… except that none of this is established and this is the wrong version of Windows for this era. I’m not even 100% sure the lockout security protocol was in place for home machines in 2002!

This added like 30-45 minutes onto my first run of this because I had thought Ronnie had died (until I reviewed and noticed the lipstick on the glass). This is a very unhelpful piece of evidence, in other words…

Alright. On to Room 403.

The 4th Floor – Room 403

Last one. This one is even less physical-evidence oriented than the last one. It’s a lot of reading. At least it doesn’t have too many crazy logical leaps…

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #3

• Document File List – All of the Interviews (hint: All of them are useful somehow… Except Andrew, really. He just doesn’t mention anything we don’t already know, though)
• Guy’s Room – Laptop (hint: I’m only adding this one as a courtesy)
• Guy’s Room – Band Application
• Girl’s Room – Laptop (hint: Pretty much every chat here is useful somehow)
• Apartment – Cups (hint: There are 6 of them)
• Entryway – Backpack
• Entryway – Sports Bag

Questions are:

1. Who died?
2. Who was the second to last to arrive?
3. Who is the owner of the blue sports bag?
4. Who is the killer?

Alright, right into the logic again.

Logic – Scenario #3

For ‘who died’, all we actually need is Kristy’s interview. The officer explicitly states Brian’s full name.

Brian Olson is dead.

The second to last to arrive is also easy. We just need to find someone reliable to answer the question. So let’s look to Eric’s interview.

He establishes that the first 4 at the apartment are Brian, Grace, Jack, and himself. From Kristy not having a cup, we can assume there were only 6 actual people here: Jack, Lisa, Andrew, Grace, Eric, and Brian, our victim. So the only people left to arrive are Lisa and Andrew. And Eric says explicitly Andrew is last to arrive.

So Lisa (Olson, as we know she’s Brian’s sister) is second to last to arrive.

Who owns the blue sports bag? All you need is Lisa’s Laptop and the bag itself. Reference Lisa’s private chats with everyone. We can establish from lillian87’s conversation that there’s someone who recently joined the tennis team who has a crush on Kristy, and that Kristy has brothers. (Put a pin in that one, we’ll be back to it.) csandra90 introduces the Kristy being sexually assaulted information, which we then have jester578 react very strongly to. From how Lisa calls them “cowboy”, it’s a guy, so we can reasonably assume jester578 is the one with the crush.

Reference the Grad Party groupchat. Hey, look, it’s jester578 again! He says he’s bringing drinks. Aww…

Hey, wait a minute. We know Andrew brought the drinks. We could reasonably make the jump from here that Andrew is jester578. Let’s tie that back to the bag now. Open the bag up. We can examine the drumsticks, the tennis rackets, and the pages in the back. We only really care about the rackets and the pages for this.

The rackets are basically brand new – there’s almost no visible wear on the grip, and no wear on the racket’s strings. Which does suggest these are a recent acquisition, but probably not enough on their own. Check out the notes now – skim to the last page.

Hey, that’s just straight up a love letter to Kristy. High school style. The bag contains newish tennis rackets, which we know Andrew recently joined the tennis team. We know Andrew has a crush on Kristy. This is honestly enough to tie this bag to Andrew. There’s some extra logic you could do to tie the drumsticks to Andrew instead, but I think this is the most solid path with the least amount of evidence to interact with.

Final question. Who killed him? You might have already picked up the lie if you examined everything on the evidence list carefully. I invite you to punch it in now before reading further and submit.

If you did, congrats! Easiest case file GG no re.

For anyone who didn’t notice. Jack’s interview states he “finished his drink and then left”. Meanwhile, his actual drink on the kitchen counter is mostly full. Eric’s interview (thank you, Eric, for your reliability) also states that Jack and Brian argued about something, before Brian locked himself in his room. Considering Jack is the only person who clearly lied to the police, you can point to him as the killer. The game accepts firstname inputs, so you could just stop here, but this IS supposed to be us establishing logic, not just catching a lie and jumping on it.

So let’s go back to the opportunity, means, and motive discussion we used for Room 402.

For opportunity – the keys in the door of Brian’s room are the spare keys. Lisa’s interview establishes they were in the kitchen, but disappeared by the time she arrived home. The only people who would thus have had the opportunity to steal them would be the people who were there before Lisa: Grace, Jack, Brian, and Eric. Jack remains on our radar as a suspect.

For means… If you found the shell on the floor of Brian’s room, we know a gun was used. Whoever did this likely brought a gun from home, as we don’t have any evidence pointing to a gun being kept in the house. So whoever did this premeditated this murder – we could already suspect this because they stole the keys BEFORE alcohol arrived with Andrew, but bringing a gun is proof positive.

For motive, though? We only know Jack and Brian had an argument. Jack doesn’t appear to have any surface level ties to the sexual assault allegations, and whoever did this premeditated the murder. Even if Jack just carries a gun wherever he goes, Jack would have had to steal the keys before the drunken argument.

So let’s establish a motive. Most people will assume this has to do with the only thing we knew Brian did that is murder-worthy – the sexual assault allegation. And I will admit, that’s a good place to start. So how do we tie someone to that?

There are actually a few ways to do this. But let’s just reference the Backpack for now. There’s an asthma/allergy attack kit, and a note about summer school. Whoever owned the backpack was not going to graduate this year (and from the writing, this is to ‘allow them to graduate with their class’, so in other words, this isn’t for someone failing their senior year of school). So let’s talk ages.

If we look to the Band Application slip, we can see that Brian, Eric, and Andrew were 18, while Jack was 17. We can also tell Lisa is at most 17, as they’re considering making her the new captain after Kristy graduates this year (making her 18). That means we have everyone but Grace accounted for. … But we KNOW Grace’s last name from her interview. She’s Grace BURNS.

The person who owns the backpack is Jack. His full name, therefore, is Jack Carter. And if you read Kristy’s interview, HER full name is Kristy Carter.

Yeah, this is all coming together. Jack is one of Kristy’s brothers we mentioned previously. And even if he was having second thoughts, he arrived with Grace, and saw Kristy leaving the apartment. We know nobody was in the apartment at that time except for Brian. … Yeah, at this point, it’s very safe to say Jack committed to his plan at this point if he didn’t already.

He stole the keys, waited until everyone was asleep, broke into Brian’s room with the spare keys, shot him once in the chest, and left. He most likely was in a daze after committing murder, resulting in him forgetting his backpack and the state of his beer cup as he left the door open and just walked out of the apartment.

The killer is Jack Carter.

Fun fact: I realized I needed to test and make 100% sure that you couldn’t just put in Jack’s first name before I posted this. Turns out you can. I just thought we needed full names for every name we could find, and this is the first case where that came back to bite me. Oh well.

Bloodbath – Part 1 (Questions 1-4)

Welcome to the most confusing scenario in the game! It’s not the most demanding, but it sure asks a lot of you, and doesn’t ask some of it very clearly!

Good luck!

Evidence Gathering

• Corkboard – Morning/Noon Shift
• Baker’s Office – Birthday Card
• Baker’s Office – Notebook
• Baker’s Office – Long Empty Display
• Baker’s Office – Dismantled Gun
• Boltz’s Office – Journal (hint: a sneaky briefcase)
• Boltz’s Office – Planner
• Boltz’s Office – Scratch Pad
• Snyder’s Office – Gun Manual
• Snyder’s Office – Journal
• Nakamura’s Office – Gun Poster
• Nakamura’s Office – Notebook (hint: Beanbag time!)
• Nakamura’s Office – Composition Book
• Nakamura’s Office – Planner
• Interrogation Room – Broken Clock
• Interrogation Room – Planner

Alright, questions time:

1. What is in the package by the exit?
2. Was the gun the killer was using standard issue?
3. Who died by the office doorway?
4. Who was the dirty cop?
5. How many people were murdered?
6. Was Harry Baker in a reasonable state of mind, yes or no?
7. Which prisoner was in interrogation room #1?

Lots, huh? Let’s get into it.

Logic

Question 1 is pretty simple, all things considered. Check out the Birthday Card. Note the mention of Bartholomew Baker here. Then check out Baker’s notebook – the package keeps getting rejected/returned to sender.

Now, the long empty display (above the rifle). It says it was an item from “Bartholomew Baker”. So… what was it? My first personal answer was ‘Rifle’ due to it being hung with a rifle, but if you look at the holders for the rifle, they don’t really make sense when you compare them to the holders for the empty case. So… there isn’t really much else it could be other than a sword, right?

Yeah, Sword works. Or – apparently – you can even just get simpler with it. If you completely disregard the case, you can just write “Gift”. The game will accept this too.

Question 2 requires paying attention to the bullet origins. The killer appears to have stood up from the interrogation room chair, and (over the course of it) taken 10 shots. We find all casings here are 9mm. So… if it wouldn’t be a standard issue, what are the possibilities?

It could have been that the killer stole a revolver from Baker’s office beforehand, but the guns are a .50AE and a .45, which means they couldn’t have taken the shots. We also don’t know if other shots were taken due to the Gun Manual from Snyder’s office – if those revolvers were used, they wouldn’t have dropped their casings.

If we pay attention to Nakamura’s Composition Book, he mentions having a “fancy baby”, like the poster on the wall. If you review that, it mentions using .40 Super bullets. So every other possible gun requires more powerful ammunition than 9mm, and we can see that Harry was cleaning his (likely standard issue) gun – which has 9mm clearly etched into the side of the piece we can examine.

The killer was definitely using a standard issue pistol.

Question 3 now. Who died by the office doorway? As previously mentioned, someone was cleaning guns in Harry Baker’s office. We also wouldn’t view him as the potential murderer: as mentioned in his journal, he is leaving the evening of the 25th (the day of the shooting) and would not want to ruin that.

If we want to really confirm that Harry was in his office, we just need two things: Boltz’s journal, and the corkboard shift, as well as to pay attention to the broken clock’s time (12:35). Boltz’s journal mentions that Baker was taken off his case the previous day, and the shift mentions that Baker would only watch over the prisoners during lunchtime (13:45). As such, Harry had no cases, and wouldn’t have been participating in the interrogations. With 2 people dead in each interrogation room, and only one seat having been used outside of the interrogation rooms, that accounts for the other 3 cops in this office – so Harry is the only one who would have died there.

Question 4 – dirty cop. This one is just reading comprehension and thoroughness. If you haven’t already, read Snyder’s Journal. Since we’ve mentioned them offhand, if you’ve read through both Boltz’s Journal and Nakamura’s Composition Book at this stage, you might have noticed something strange: Snyder mentions that he’s getting charged $50 for something now, but he seems to have a lot of money. In fact, his desk is LITTERED in small-change bills. Yet, somehow, on the salary that Nakamura is struggling on, he’s supporting three kids, despite also having some kind of medical expenses?

The most suspicious mention is the sympathetic writing in the last page of Snyder’s page. Phil isn’t another cop, but one of their suspects… so what is this?

Snyder has way too much money for his situation, and appears to be trying to cozy up with a drug dealer they’ve arrested… Which makes him incredibly suspicious. Between Boltz’s personality, Nakamura’s struggling with money, and Harry intending to leave – yeah, no.

The dirty cop is Mike Snyder.

Also, if you check the vent next to the fern, surprise! He was buying cocaine! And storing it at a police station!! Why???

Okay, Question 5. How many people were murdered… We’ll need to explore how the crime went down. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough text to do that… so I’ll have to make this a two-parter.

Bloodbath – Part 2 (Questions 5-7)

Picking up where we left off… how many were murdered. Okay. There are 6 dead people, but that isn’t what this is asking. This one requires that we understand the scene of the crime. With how things are arranged, each room contained 1 cop and 1 prisoner, and the person sitting in the Hawaiian print chair was a cop monitoring things. Harry was cleaning his guns in his office.

From Boltz’s journal, we know that Boltz was supposed to handle questioning Carl Tristan, and Mike would be in charge of questioning Phillip Clemence, with Nakamura supporting. Let’s assume that’s when this happened, before the switch – Nakamura was in the chair. During Mike’s attempt to squeeze Phil, Nakamura – who lost his medication 9/20 (per his Notebook under the beanbag chair and his Composition Book) – lost it, took the chair next to him and blocked the Officer’s Lounge door, and then shoved a file cabinet to block the other door. After that, he pulled his gun on Mike and shot him twice. Mike may have become alert and pulled his gun in retaliation, but only managed to fire a single shot at Nakamura before collapsing. There are other casings in Interrogation Room 2, suggesting that Phil (who was not cuffed at this moment) dove for the gun and tried to defend himself. It is unclear if Nakamura had any intent to shoot him.

At this point, Harry heard the gunshots and moved with his revolvers. He was unable to open the door, but he pushed it open a crack and stuck a revolver through in order to take shots. There should be 5 shots taken at the doorway from the position behind the desk in Interrogation Room #2. These shots result in the 3 bulletholes in the wall under the Detective’s Office plaque – we can tell due to the bullet angles – and the fourth hole, in the door itself. The two bullets in the wall beyond the doorway have a much sharper angle, suggesting those came from Nakamura after Harry tried to enter the room with the revolver.

Based on the hole in the door and Nakamura blocking it with a file cabinet, the only person who could have landed the fatal shot was Phil. We can also trace 4 of Harry’s shots. Harry first shot the wall of Interrogation Room #2, based on the bullet type and huge shatter pattern, causing debris to hit Phil in the neck. Based on the slow bleed pattern, it’s more likely Phil was incapacitated and bled out a large quantity of blood before his heart stopped. (Nevermind, this game is buggy about texture layering sometimes.) It’s most likely Phil’s throat was damaged due to the debris.

The other 3 bullets from Harry we can find are in the wall next to the hole in the window (likely around where Nakamura’s head was), and in the broken clock… and a bloody bullet next to the fax machine in front of Room #1 – Harry is the only person who would have had the opportunity to injure Nakamura, causing the blood trail. The blood spatter here is Nakamura removing the bullet from his leg, also.

From here, the scene plays out pretty simply: when Nakamura approaches the door to Interrogation Room #1, he is approached by Boltz, whose gun is broken and thus he is unarmed. Nakamura shoots him in the head. He then collapses against the wall under the clock, and shoots himself.

Hey, wait a minute, that’s 5 fatalities. What about the sixth body?

That one – Carl’s body – if we look at, does not appear to have been shot at all. If you look at the pose he fell in, he appears to be clutching his chest. At the time of death, he was also drinking a coffee, it looks like. Carl seems to have independently had a heart attack.

So… what’s the total, here? Murder is, in this context, “the killing of one human being by another”. So in this killcount:

• Nakamura killed Mike.
• Harry killed Phil.
• Phil killed Harry.
• Nakamura killed Boltz.
• Nakamura killed himself.
• Carl died of a heart attack.

The answer is thus 4 – Nakamura’s suicide is not murder, and a heart attack is not murder.

Now that we’ve laid this all out, we can easily answer the rest of the questions.

Question 6 was just: Was Harry in a reasonable state of mind? Boltz’s notebook mentioned that Harry was over his alcohol bender as of the 20th, so he wasn’t drinking at the moment, but it does also establish he’s been odd/subdued. Harry’s notebook also establishes that he needs to be clean, presumably to meet his son Kyle. So he wasn’t under anything mind-altering at the time of the crime.

He heard gunshots, moved to investigate, and never took a fatal shot except on the person with the loaded gun pointed at him, Nakamura. Phil’s death (even though he was responsible) appears to be entirely accidental. Yes, Harry was behaving reasonably.

Finally, last question. Which prisoner was in Interrogation Room #1? We actually established this earlier, on accident. The guy who died of a heart attack, Carl Tristan, was in Room 1. So that’s the answer.

Technically, if this was post-switch, it could have been the other way around – but Mike was to “join” Boltz, which would normally suggest that they’d be in the room together. Setting that aside, the switch was to happen at 12:45, and the clock was broken at 12:35pm. “Wait, but the slow clock!” you might be saying, if you remember Boltz’s Scratch Pad.

It’s not that. The time of investigation is 11:56pm. Y’know how Boltz’s pad mentions it might be a bad battery? Check out the clock in the main room. It’s stopped at 8:45, which is around when they appear to take a break for donuts.

We can assume Boltz asked Harry to look into it, and Harry removed the battery at that time. That establishes that the shot clock was not running slow, and so Mike hadn’t switched rooms yet, so everything works here.

Now, bonus question: Something’s just laying around that shouldn’t be where it is. What is it?

If you answered Nakamura’s medicine on his desk, you’d be right. He lost it on 9/20, after all. Why is it here?

What if I pointed out that Nakamura says, “[Mike]’s been cruel in some stuff recently too, keeps making jokes about issues that the others still haven’t clued in on.”, dated 9/24? And his medicine was stolen 9/20 out of his car?

I think Mike stole Nakamura’s medication to screw with him, which is also how he became aware of Nakamura’s condition. He made veiled threats about exposing him as jokes to play off to try and make Nakamura settle down and stop fighting him. And he left it on Nakamura’s desk when they were heading in to speak with the perp, perhaps after realizing Nakamura was starting to become genuinely a bit deranged.

Kinda think if anyone here deserved any of this, it would definitely be Mike.

The Finale

If you aced everything on your own merits (or mine), congratulations! Here’s the final case, where you are now at an ALL TIME LOW for evidence, and the reason for things being here actually matters a lot!

Evidence Gathering

• Audio File List – All of it. Read or listen, all of it.
• Entryway – Briefcase
• Entryway – Phone
• Entryway – Sticky Notes
• Living Room – Opened Letter
• Living Room – Last Will & Testament
• Living Room – Business Card
• Guest Room (White) – Phone
• Guest Room (Green) – Postcard & Ring

Questions:

1. Among the total money to be distributed to the children, how much % was each son supposed to receive?
2. How many people were killed in the mansion?
3. For each murder, who killed who?

Let’s get into it.

Logic

First question demands we learn everything there is to know about these guys. The Last Will & Testament establishes the base numbers for everyone, but we’ll get back to them. The Opened Letter is what we need here.

To dramatically simplify what it says, if they are:

• Unemployed: -1
• Any Job: +1
• Governmental Job: +1 (additional)
• Middle Management Position: +1 (additional)
• C Suite (Chief) Position: +2 (additional)

Then, if they are:

• Single: +0
• Divorced: -1
• Married: +1
• Have a Son: +1 (additional)

Highest point total gains +15%, the next two gain +10%, and the final only gets +5%.

So let’s reference the eulogy. Ellis was the first to go, and offered very little useful information on his employment or relationships. Roger was next, and we again get very little useful information out of him. Glenn approaches, he thanks Glenn, and then Glenn takes over.

Glenn is where we start getting actual information. “Roger is now a successful chef”, and “I am a lawyer for the state”. Glenn also mentions “Our own growing families”, so we can assume he has a family to some degree. Finally, Roman comes up.

Roman declares that he founded his own company, Roman Estate Co. That places him as the CEO or otherwise of the company. He also mentions his wife experiencing childbirth, so he’s basically at the forefront of the race here. Current standing is:

• Ellis, with no info, is +0.
• Roger, with a chef job, is +1, possibly +2 if middle management
• Glenn, with a governmental job: is +2, possibly +3
• Roman, as the CEO of his own company with a wife, is at minimum +4. If he has a son, +5.

We actually only need to determine who ranks best and worst in this race… so at this stage, we really only need to determine a few things.

Roger’s job can’t compete with the C-Suite bonus, so unless he is middle management, married, and has a son, he can’t actually beat Roman. Unless Ellis is better than him, we can set Roman aside for now.

Glenn, with a governmental job, is the only one in a position to potentially beat Roman then – if Roman has no sons and Glenn is married with sons, then Glenn wins.

Ellis must be reviewed to see if he’s got a shot at the races, here. For that, let’s look at the Guest Room (Green)’s ring and postcard. The postcard is to a “Hun”, a woman who does not share the name Hughes. And it mentions that “this time, I won’t have to worry about constantly having to look for a job”. And, of course, the ring next to the postcard establishes this as Ellis’s room, which suggests this is written by Ellis. … At best, Ellis might be currently employed, and just happened to experience poverty before… But he’s definitely not currently married. Ellis maxes out at 1, but is most likely -1 from being unemployed.

Roger – if we look at the business card in the living room – is a sous chef. That would place him as the second in command of his kitchen, which would be middle management. Roger is thus +2, more than enough to beat Ellis unless we become aware of a divorce.

Glenn starts at +2, but we need to review his family status to see if he beats Roman. For that, his briefcase is needed. See his planner inside it. “Call Valerie when home. Won’t be good to see Ruby.” His home is not where he would go to see Valerie or Ruby, who we can assume (based on crossed out information) is the woman he had Ruby with, and his daughter.

Glenn is clearly divorced, and does not have a male child. He’s at +1. Ouch.

Roman is now only able to be tied by Roger, and that’s only if Roger is married with a son while Roman doesn’t have a son. Aaand see the sticky notes next to the phone in the entryway. “Roman’s son is allergic to nuts.”

Welp. Roman wins! Payouts are now:

• Ellis – 17% + 5% for coming in dead last. So 22%.
• Roger – 16% + 10% for being neither the worst nor best. So 26%.
• Glenn – 14% + 10% for being neither the worst nor best. So 24%.
• Roman – 13% + 15% for coming in first. So 28%.

Let’s move on.

Question 2; how many people were killed in the mansion? There are a few reasonable ways to reach this conclusion, but the simplest is the following:

The bloodstain in the entryway is critical amounts of blood loss. If anyone bleeds that much blood, they will almost definitely die without help. Let’s say that’s death #1, from the streak-marks – that’s like a body being dragged out, and NOT on a stretcher.

Now, the white outline in the Guest Room (White). That’s death #2. Easy. There don’t appear to be any other signs of a struggle anywhere else. So that should be it – 2 deaths.

Question 3, then, becomes a question with 4 names attached. Who killed who?

Let’s first look at the Guest Room (White) body. The lack of blood is what’s important. The broken vase, damage to the wall, fallen pillows, and statue falling over are signs of the struggle that occurred. Whoever was killed here was attacked in the doorway, slammed into the wall (likely their head), and then – still fighting – dragged into the bedroom and finished off. Whoever did this had a lot of strength, far more than whoever they fought.

Of the four jobs, the one with the most brute strength SHOULD be Ellis. There’s some corroborating evidence here, but between a chef, a lawyer, and a CEO – Ellis could have reasonably overpowered any of them. But who died?

Review the Butler Questioning. You’d normally take this as confirmation just that they were all in the house, but remember: this also establishes that the butler wouldn’t be coming back for a while. Furthermore, with the funeral over, these guys should be gearing up to leave. This is another case where things remaining here after the fact is actually suspect in its own case.

The phones, specifically. We can’t pin down the owner of one of them, but the other one appears to be Ellis, from the fact the other 3 phone numbers that seem to be relevant aren’t just typing in all lowercase. So if we assume the entryway phone is Ellis’s, and also make note of the ring still being here, the second victim should be Ellis.

Now. Ellis was texting a collaborator. If the gift bags are representative of the kids who were here who haven’t left yet, this confirms Roman is the collaborator (as this confirms Roger can’t be the collaborator Ellis is texting). Roman collaborated, and thus probably wouldn’t have killed or been killed by Ellis.

So who died, Glenn or Roger? Well. Ellis was fed up with the killed person for what they said. But Roger barely managed to say anything. So… Glenn, then. We can also intuit this from Glenn’s briefcase with his pendant of Ruby’s being left behind.

So who killed Ellis? Well. We saw that Roger and Glenn had a good rapport. And it looks like a crime of passion, from the gun that was knocked down in the hunting room. Most likely, Roger heard Ellis kill Glenn, confronted him with the gun, and shot and killed him. Supporting evidence is the singular missing coat – Roman wouldn’t want to bring his kids near the area, and probably left a different way. So with Glenn and Ellis dead, the only person who would have killed Ellis and dragged him away would be Roger.

And that’s it. Congrats – you’re done with the game!