FAQs

For Part 1, order doesn't matter at all.

For all parts, it doesn't matter what order you eliminate suspects in (i.e. if you eliminate the "alibi" suspect before the "means" suspect or vice versa).

For Part 2, we recommend completing the first two tasks before eliminating any suspects (it'll make eliminating suspects easier).

For Part 3, you should do the first two tasks (eliminate two suspects) before you move on to the 3rd and 4th tasks (identifying the killer and their hidden motive).

There's two parts to solving this case: identifying the killer and determining their hidden motive.

You'll identify the killer through a process of elimination. There are 7 suspects (Barbara, Colleen, Diane, Lorraine, Malcolm, Steve, and Walter). Eliminate 6 and you'll know the killer.

Determining the killer's hidden motive is less straightforward. To uncover it, you'll need to examine all the evidence and connect the dots by the end of the case.

There are two reasons to eliminate a suspect: they either have an alibi or they lacked the means to commit the crime. For more information on the difference between alibi vs. lack of means, see the next FAQ question.

Lack of motive isn't a reason to eliminate suspects, because every suspect has a motive.

If a suspect is eliminated due to alibi it means they were in a different location than the killer at a specific date and time. Note that an alibi not need to be for the date/time of the murder — it can be for any date/time when the killer's whereabouts are known.

If a suspect lacked the means ("means" as a shorthand) to commit the crime, this means there is something about them that is inconsistent with what we know about the crime and/or killer. For example, we might know the killer has brown hair. If the suspect has blond hair, we would classify our reason for eliminating them as "they lacked the means". A lack of means is a catch-all term—you're either ruling a suspect out because they were in a different place than the killer at a particular date/time (i.e. "alibi") or because they lacked the means.

After you've eliminated a suspect, you can reveal their motive by going to the "Eliminated Suspect's Motive" section at the end of the page (after the Hints section for eliminating that suspect).

You should feel confident when you eliminate a suspect. If you're making huge logical leaps or guesses, you're on the wrong track. That said, you can make reasonable assumptions.

For example, if a piece of evidence has one source of DNA on it, you can assume that the owner of the item is the source of the DNA. It would NOT be reasonable to assume that a blue bracelet belongs to a suspect because that suspect's favorite color is blue.

Note that this applies to ruling out suspects but not figuring out motives. There may be situations where a clue or piece of evidence is not definitive, but shows motive. You can make more leaps/assumptions when figuring out motives.

No.

Because this case is based primarily on a process of eliminaiton, you won't need to find the "smoking gun" that connects the killer to Evelyn's murder. There will be some clues (along with the killer's motive), but the definitive way to solve the case is by ruling everyone else out. If you've ruled everyone else out, and have figured out a motive for the killer, you've solved the case.

There will be no "gotcha" in this case, where the answer turns out to be something totally out of the blue, like a faint line in a photograph that you're supposed to assume is a trap door, or a secret code that you're supposed to guess from a typo in an email. The case is tricky, but after you've solved it, everything should make sense and feel logical. If you examine the evidence carefully, and make logical inferences, you'll be able to solve the case without jumping to any wild conclusions.

No. There are no answering machine voicemail clues.

Yes.

Not complicated. They are basic ciphers and accessible to all skill levels. Once you figure out the clue (which is written on the same page as the encrypted message), you should be able to decrypt the message fairly easily.

Mostly. The only piece of evidence that doesn't contain a clue of some sort is the obituary. It's there to give you a picture of the victim.

Make sure you have JavaScript enabled.

If they're still not working, you can solve the task, then check your answer by revealing the last hint for that task (which is the solution).