Deadly Secrets

ASSIGNMENT #1: Whose story has a hole in it upon closer inspection?

Looking through all of the evidence will help you discover someone wasn’t being totally honest.

The solution for this assignment requires you to understand the timeline for each of the suspects and their story explaining what they were doing. There are 5 possible suspects to investigate: Frank Christian, Eva Davis, Preston Williams, Sean McDonald, and Hadely Ravi.

Ultimately we can't discount someone just because they don't have a solid alibi. However, this assignment doesn't require you to prove everyone has a great alibi. Instead, your job is to find a discrepancy in someone's story. This will take both an understanding of what each person was doing, but also a keen eye. Have a close look at some of the evidence to see if something stands out.

Someone had said they were at one location all day, but something in the evidence photos indicates that they had to have visited at least one other place in their day. Can you spot the clue?

Preston insists that he was at the bar all day and hadn't come back to the house the afternoon of the murder. However, in one of the security camera photos we see him pulling money from an ATM bank machine around 12:39 pm. And he is wearing his watch on his left wrist. But in the next bar photo, taken at 3:45 pm, we see that he is no longer wearing that watch. And in the evidence photo of the blood stain on his bedside table, we can clearly see his watch being charged. This leaves enough of a question in our minds to at least ask him back for more questioning.

You may now open the Assignment #2 envelope.

ASSIGNMENT #3: Solve who is Christine’s secret boyfriend.

There is some evidence that points to an individual who has been lying about their relationship with Christine. This means someone has spent time with her that we didn't realize. This requires you to explore the evidence again to find a discrepancy.

This assignment filters a few people out of our search - her current boyfriend and female best friend, Eva. That leaves the few men left in this investigation.

When Inspector Douglas Hane arrived on the scene, he immediately connected with everyone. This included Preston, Greg, Frank and Hadely. He was even quick enough to ask each of them to immediately screencap their last meaningful conversation and text it to him for his files.

Because he did this just outside of Christine's house, there was a clue left behind by one of the phones...

The evidence that points to her secret boyfriend indicates that this guy had access that Christine hadn't given anyone else.

Looking closer at the cell phone screen captures, you will notice that someone had wifi access on their phone when nobody else did.  We might expect Preston to have wifi access, being so close to where he lives, but he didn't.

But who did that shouldn't... the one person in the group who was least familiar with Christine... Greg Torres, Eva's boyfriend.  This is very suspicious and worth investigating further.

You may now open the Assignment #4 Envelope.

Assignment 4: Solve who killed Christine. There is new evidence that points to an individual as the likely killer.

Someone has said something that makes them seem more guilty than the others. The best place to start is investigating any new evidence.

There are only three pieces of new evidence to look at:

• The new Eva Davis interrogation
• The new Greg Torres interrogation
• The "Prominent Fashionista Slain" news article

Something seemingly innocent in these three items only seems innocent if you don't know when it was said.

When looking closer at the news article, you might find something said that seems innocent, but this article doesn't have a date on it. And if you could prove the date of this article, you might be able to show that someone knows something about the crime that wasn't yet made public.

In the "Prominent Fashionista Slain" news article, you might have noticed that Greg Torres mentions that Christine was stabbed.

From the crime scene photos and notes written by the police on the scene, there was no obvious sign of how Christine was murdered. At least not until the autopsy results came in, which was 4 days after the murder.

Next is the challenge of dating that news article to prove he was quoted before the autopsy results came out.

On the back of this newspaper article, "Prominent Fashionista Slain," there is an advertisement for Sammy's Breakfast Hut, which announces, "We opened our doors for the first time this morning."

To date stamp this event, we must look at the back of another newspaper clipping called "Press Conference Unveils Disturbing Details of Whispering Pines Murder Investigation." On the back, it has another advertisement for Sammy's Breakfast Hut that says, "We opened our doors six weeks ago today!" 

To determine this date, we can read the front article that starts with "As the six-week mark of the unresolved murder of Christine Black arrived, lead investigator Inspector Douglas Hane sought to address the community's growing concerns through a press conference held early this Thursday morning." This means that the "Prominent Fashionista Slain" article was posted the day after the murder. Since the autopsy wasn't yet announced, Greg should not have known about the stabbing.

Noticing this discrepancy invites further investigation into Greg Torres. You're now welcome to open the SOLUTION Envelope.