motives
Sophia is sleeping with Cameron. he's using her to finance his addictions and she's using him to get his father's money since her expensive lifestyle is draining her fast.
Samuel fell in love with the nurse. their relationship was kept hidden as he wasn't on the best of terms with john. one day he notices the nurse not being herself. he gets her to talk and finds out john had forced himself on her.
methods
knife in locked room seem too difficult but here's something anyway
John is walking back to his room. someone comes up behind him and stabs him in the back. he trips inside quickly turns and locks the door. goes to reach his phone by the bed but it has no signal/not there. he lost too much blood by now. tries to go back to the door but fails and passes out halfway there and ultimately dies.
John is hopped up on some pretty strong drugs/is gas-poisoned to a degree where he can barely feel his body. someone stabs in the back before he gets in his room. he doesn't feel it, goes inside locks up, and gets ready for bed. finding himself spewing blood, he gets out and walks to the door but can't. again: lost too much blood, passes out, dead
if you end up using any of this let me know (for my own curiosity)
Some of the ideas are usable. Ai-chan will probably use some. Though Ai-chan just wants to confirm... you remember Cameron is Sophia's son, right?
I'm honestly reminded straight away of "Detective Conan", so I'm going to imagine it in that way. (More description of the room would have helped. Are there windows? Furniture? Old air shafts? Modern doors?)
Samuel Hardy found out something that ruined his life plans. John Spats, that piece of shit is going to lose all his fortune according to his financial manager. He pleaded Samuel to reason with John, to stop his idiotic plans. Samuel agreed, but only on the surface. He was raging mad inside. John has promised his sister compensation during their divorce, but now it looks like they will get nothing. Why did he forgive that piece of shit? He will pay, before he can burn the money so that he can get his cut.
A final gift. A remote control toy car. Samuel knows his former friend. He knows that John will take his expensive present to a private study room, to play with it when everyone has retired for the night.
What John doesn't know is that the remote control is fake. A intentionally made electronic hazard. Strong enough to knock unconscious a fully grown man and perhaps kill him if Samuel is lucky.
Samuel knows the layout of this mansion, easily navigating the corridors in the dark.
A prone figure greeted him in the study. Time to clean up the real evidence and fabricate a story, with a knife!
The fake controller replaced with the real one. The toy car placed in front of the door. A tin wire looped over the rotating wheel axel. One end attached to the inside lock, the other passed under the floor. Samuel has tried this setup before. As a "friend" he visited the mansion and tested this setup. Now the final touches... STAB!!!...The body spasms its last, reaching out for help.
Samuel is already planning his next move: I need to quickly dispose of these two fake controllers down the mountain. I'll have plenty of time to hide and then completely erase the evidence from existence with all this confusion going on. Maybe they will think that a killer came in from the outside? Some special gear to unlock the window, then lock it from the outside? Matters not. Rest is hell, old friend.
Yes, there are 3 windows, but all of them are locked from the inside same with the door. Not the auto lock on closing either, he use dead bolts which means it must be manually locked by hand. So it's not possible to lock the door and windows from outside. The air shafts are high on the wall that connects the room to the hallway. It's too small for an adult to go through.
Samuel definitely still has some resentment over the divorce, and that could be his motive. Thanks for your input.
Reminds me of Hercule Poirot's Christmas
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Penelope is John's illegitimate child. He left her poor mother when she became pregnant, leaving her with some meagre shush money. Penelope's mother soon after married someone so she would not be a single mother rising a child on minimal income, so Penelope got her stepfather's last name and John did not realise she's his daughter. The affair remained secret, until the mother told Penelope on her deathbed who her father is, though not what kind of person.
After that, Penelope wanted to know what her real father was like, so she got employed as his nurse and maid - and over time learned just how much of a douchebag he is. So being the psychopath she is, hiding behind a mask of gentle beauty and kindness, she starts plotting his demise and the celebration presented the opportunity.
She injected him with enough adrenaline to induce overdose when she was supposed to give him another drug (I assume there is a reason he needs a nurse) and when it set in, started monologuing about her revenge. When he tried to crawl away and find help, she stabbed him in the back, with a knife that just about everyone touched that evening.
Then she got out of the room through the window after locking the door from inside and closed the window with a string attached to the latch/handle. She makes sure to remove the string in the confusion and panic as they find the body.
Well, Ai-chan's style is supposedly similar to Agatha Christie after all. So Ai-chan thought, how better to see how Ai-chan fare against someone successful with a similar writing style. So Ai-chan decided to write in the genre that made her popular. Ai-chan has never read Hercule Poirot's story, though. When Ai-chan was young, read Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.
Ai-chan did think about making Penelope John's illegitimate daughter and that could be her motive. Thank you for your input.
Or the cop wasn't invited at all.
To be fair, the V screwed up almost eveyone life I think.
Let summarize that V's bad history. A huge majority is based on assumptions.
- Assaulted a HS girl (Who?)
- Got arrested by cop for assault
- Divorced from SH's sister, had fallout with SH
- - Likely to be cheating with one or more women
- Rich = money drama
- Playboy = Love trouble
- Douchebag = Asshole miser who like to trample the lower classes or the weak
- Rich + Playboy + Douchebag = Potentially spoiled childhood or money corrupted = Potential involvements with embezzlement/ fraud/sex crimes (may have been covered up)
- Killed after giving Christmas gifts at party one night
** Christmas gifts or "repentant" speech strongly agitate Suspects
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Just a question. Victim was killed in his bedroom correct? Or whose room was it?
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Victim killed trying to escape toward door
= Ambush setup / fear of someone he know
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But one thing really bug me is the victim's posture. It's like he got stabbed out of surprise than fear.
So what was position of Victim's left hand?
We gonna need height of the suspects too.
How tall is Victim?
- Assaulted a HS girl (Who?)
Ai-chan hasn't decided to make the case significant, but he did provoke you by mentioning how he got off scot-free when you were instead demoted.
- Got arrested by cop for assault
Yes, he did.
- Divorced from SH's sister, had fallout with SH
Yes, that was several years ago
- - Likely to be cheating with one or more women
He did.
- Rich = money drama
That could be a motive
- Playboy = Love trouble
That could be a motive too
- Douchebag = Asshole miser who like to trample the lower classes or the weak
He doesn't gain pleasure in trampling the lower classes, he just likew ruining people he considers a challenge or would be fun to ruin
- Rich + Playboy + Douchebag = Potentially spoiled childhood or money corrupted = Potential involvements with embezzlement/ fraud/sex crimes (may have been covered up)
Some of those did happen.
Yes, he was killed in his own bedroom. He was alone in a locked room that can only be locked from the inside.
The left hand was under his forehead. His right hand is more extended towards the door.
Victim is of average height, around 5'7.
Henry Frond is slightly shorter by a few inches but stockier.
Sophia Melrose is 5'6 and quite slim.
Penelope Gayle is 5'4 and quite bosom.
Cameron is about the same height as Penelope with a potbelly and messy appearance.
Samuel Hardy is 6'1 and quite fit.
You're about 5'6 and not as fit as you used to.
Can one of the murder weapons be a condom?
No.
All of them, but they don't know it. They each sought out other people in the group to organize everything, but only ever two others, so nobody really knows the whole plan, just that their two contacts are involved.
1. Henry Frond
John's bad behavior is catching up to him and Henry wants a permanent out of their association to not be dragged down with him.
He is the one to actually do the killing, became part of the whole complot on rather short notice and based on manipulations the others have planned for a while. Probably the one to officially get blamed.
2. Sophia Melrose
Revenge because John caused his brother's death to get him out of the way for his very much unreciprocated advances on Sophie.
3. Penelope Gayle
Revenge for being blackmailed into sleeping with him with some debt her family has. Also money.
4. Cameron Shayle
Revenge for John indirectly causing his gambling addiction and the failure of his artist career. Also money.
5. Samuel Hardy
Revenge for the way John left his sister in the wake of their marriage (outwardly fine, but actually broken and addicted to heavy medication).
6. You
Bringing justice to scum that evades the system.
Maybe make it two win conditions, one where Henry is identified as the culprit and one excellent one where the whole complot is uncovered.
Ai-chan hasn't thought about having two culprits, but Ai-chan will explore the possibility. Thanks.
Should we start panicking and raising the alarm? I mean, there clearly were at least two successful murders