Guess:

1) Murderer is CC

2) Joseph discovered in the journal that Dr. Morris botched an operation on Joseph's wife years ago. To hide the truth that the operation was not a success, he had her killed.

3) A piece of navy blue cloth was found next to the stairs belonging to CC.

4) Here's how I believe the crime took place. CC attacked Paul outside of the house. After dinner, CC and Dr. Morris went to the study to confront Joseph about the journal. Joseph attacked Dr. Morris with the statue. Dr. Morris stumbled back into the mantle, knocking items off onto the floor. The doctor got short term memory loss from the blow to the head. CC grabbed the letter opener when her husband was hit, and stabbed Joseph. She dropped the knife she had brought in her purse from home, threw the papers off the desk into the fire and tore off a piece of her navy blue clothing, using it to grab the statue before rushing to the window and throwing the statue outside. She grabbed the letter opener and her husband, pulling him out into the hallway before running for the stairs. Passing Alexa she accidentally dropped the piece of clothing she had while heading up the stairs looking for a place to hide the murder weapon. Realizing she had no time, she hid the weapon and rushed back to her husband.

Ok, I give up, so sue me, I couldn't wait to see whether you could get it, it was exciting!!!!!!!!


Winner!!!!!

A few elements were wrong, some very wrong in fact, but that's to be expected...

One element that was wrong was Mrs. Costa's death. It was a red herring all along! Still, impressive! Also, Dr. Paul Morris was actually much less involved! But you didn't include him as a killer, so I'll go with it.

Here are the "FACTS"

Timeline, Pre-Murder:

1. Morris held the last party. [See post 1 for a 'schedule' of the cycling dinner parties. Seemed so unimportant, didn't it?]

2. At the last party, Costa discovered Morris' old journal in a pile of junk on the floor, which was to be thrown away into the garbage.

3. Curious, Costa began to read.

4. Costa discovers the entry about Morris' major mistake during surgery many years ago back when Morris was a drunk, which caused the death of a patient. (See information about character of Dr. Morris: surgeon, former drunk, writes EVERYTHING down.)

5. Costa rips out the entry.

6. Troubled, Costa had begun to consider whether or not to turn his friend into the police for the negligent death. (Leading to the rumors discussed by the stylist about him being upset about a tough decision he had to make. He had been upset for a "few days", I.E., less than week: dinner party schedule.)

7. While picking up the pile to throw it away, Cecilia "CC" Morris discovers the entry missing.

8. Evidence "Letter #2" talks about him receiving support from someone, he had revealed his past mistake to her already. So she knew what was missing...

9. CC suspects Costa has stolen the entry, and knowing him to be a "brutally honest" man (see information about the deceased section), wonders whether he will turn her husband in.

10. Understanding that if he got turned in, he would probably lose his medical license and maybe even get arrested, CC decides that would endanger her lifestyle too much, and figures to silence Joseph Costa so he cannot speak on the subject.

11. The party at Costa's provides the perfect opportunity. [Red Herring: Dr. Morris is excited because there will be "a lot of people" at the party. In fact, Cecilia is even more excited, because it will help her cover her tracks.]

12. She packs a knife in her jacket, concealing it.

Timeline, night of the murder:

1. Guests begin to arrive for the party.

2. Everyone is inside when the Morris' arrive.

3. The last remaining guest, Paul D'Souza will arrive in just a minute. CC knows that his car is the only one not there yet.. and that he never misses the dinner, so he'll be there soon.

4. Having heard the rumors [see the testimony of the stylist] that Costa was struggling to make an impossible decision, Cecilia begins to worry whether he has revealed what that decision is to his best friend, Paul D'Souza, who also happened to be his biggest confidant.

5. Seeing the perfect opportunity to ensure that no loose ends remain untied, when she gets to the door, Cecilia tells her husband Dr. Morris that she forgot something in the car.

6. She runs back down the driveway and hides in a bush near the last two unoccupied spots in the large driveway. When D'Souza arrives, she attacks him from behind, shrieking a bit as she slams his head into the hood of the car. The spot on the driveway is far enough away from the house that with all the doors and windows closed, no one hears the thud.

7. CC pretends to drink all night, but she isn't actually drunk. When the murder is discovered, she can claim she was incapacitated by drinks. But she wasn't.

8. After dinner seems like the perfect opportunity: everyone has split up, so blame can be spread around. Other guests will be without alibis.

9. She lets her husband, Dr. Morris, take her to the lounge, grabbing her jacket (knife in store) on the way there, claiming she was cold. The lounge is conveniently located near the study (where she knows Costa is going.)

10. Dr. Morris tends to her for awhile, but eventually she convinces him to lie down on a couch, much the same as her.

11. When she thinks he's asleep, she creeps towards the door and heads into the study...

12. Dr. Morris is still somewhat awake and actually sees her leave the room and heads out to see where she's going in her drunken state. [At this point, Judge Zelger is on the terrace and hears the heavy boots of Dr. Morris in the hallway, later in the study.]

13. In the study, Joseph Costa is burning the letter from Horace Kim, but also the journal entries of Dr. Morris. He is going to tell Dr. Morris that he knows what happened, but that he also knows he has changed his character, and so Costa can be trusted with the secret.

14. Unaware of this, Cecilia carries out her crime.

15. She removes the blade from her jacket, and charges Costa with it.

16. Costa knocks the knife away and onto the floor, grabbing his statue from the mantle to defend himself.

17. Dr. Morris sees his wife grappling with Costa and steps in to stop the fight.

18. Thinking Dr. Morris is after him too, Costa bashes Dr. Morris on the head, Morris falls down.

19. CC meanwhile grabs the letter opener right nearby, plunging it into Costa's neck (at this time, the scream occurs)

20. She pulls back the letter opener and pockets it. She brings her husband out into the hallway, and has him lay with his back against the wall. He is barely aware of what is happening around him.

21. Seeing the gold coins inside the statue as an opportunity to indicate a false motive, CC rips a small loose piece off the bottom of her dress to hide her prints, grabs the statue and heads into the lounge, where she can pretend she was lying down from being drunk all the time.

22. On the way into the hallway before she gets to the lounge, she slams into Alexa Costa, knocking her to the ground in front of the stairs, the fabric from the dress falls. Alexa is stunned for a minute, and sees only a flash of dark color.

23. Seconds later, she throws the statue out of the lounge window. In mid-air, one gold piece falls out of the statue and into the bushes near the study. The statue itself is closer to the lounge than the study.

24. A minute later, Cecilia leaves the lounge and joins the others in the hallway as the body is discovered.

25. I'm sure I missed a few things, feel free to ask, but that's basically the story.

Congrats, and thanks to everyone for playing!

Cowboy won, and gets to pick a 9.99 GOG of his choice! The runners up will get advanced notice and an automatic reserved spot in the next murder mystery contest... if they want to give it another go.

Thanks Stoic!

For the reason why I had Dr. Morris so involved, I needed a reason for Joseph to attack him so the Doc would lose his memory. What would make a guy more angry than to find out that his friend had slept with his wife and was the father of at least 1 of his kids? To find out he messed up an operation on your wife and had her killed to cover it up and save his license? How else would he get the bump on his head. I remember you joked earlier that it would really be a twist if one of the players WAS the killer, and I thought who would be able to kill and not remember it? Dr. Morris.

Hah do you guys not sleep?

Anyway good job Cowboy! And excellent game Stoic!

Hah, I couldn't sleep because he was so close!!

Yes, congrats again to Cowboy! And to you and taran, thanks for playing and I will reserve a spot for you if you want to try next time!!!

Who won your spinoff questions?
I know it wasn't me, but I'm nosy....

Believe it or not, no one! Sorry :(

You came very close though, knowing that D'Souza would be involved in the twist.

He did. My character won't talk to him anymore. Just kidding!

Congrats, Cowboy! :-D

Excellent story, Stoic. If you have the full transcript, please post here :-)

Thanks!

I never wrote it as a full story, it wouldn't really have made sense then because the dialogue you guys had with the NPCs would be all off. However, on the first post of the first page, I posted the timelines for the crime.

I have a few questions regarding the story. But since I am at home with poor net connection, I think I'll postpone until tomorrow.

And as for the reservation on the next mystery game. Sure, I'll play it, even without prize. I'm in for the fun :-)

I didn't really sleep that night. I knew I had caught onto something and couldn't get it out of my head.

My clue at the beginning of the game listed 4 main suspects because of the heavy footsteps I heard. All of them were the people (besides myself) that weighed the most. The suspects were: Beth, Billy, Horace, and Dr. Morris.

Plus, I do believe that my character was jealous of yours. He did not have a way with the ladies as you can tell with Beth and Margie hating his guts. I had wrote off the Dr. as a suspect at the beginning of the game, but when he lied about his journal I immediately kicked myself for not really taking the time to fully investigate him and jumped on him as the killer. Then, I realized that CC was trying to place all the blame on her husband and she took the spot of murderer.

Surprisingly, I had believed that CC was an accomplice to the murder since the beginning. She was a homemaker and her husband seemed to have a wandering eye. I believed she had found a secret lover and had or was having an affair. I matched her up with the other suspects and came up with theories about what happened. One theory was that Beth and CC had killed Joseph because Joseph planned on telling Dr. Morris about the affair between CC and him. Beth, as a former lover of Joseph and as a close friend of CC, could have had her own reasons to kill him but I could not ask because she would lie and try to mislead me.

Anyway, good luck in the next game tarangwydion and GoJays. Thanks again for the contest stoicsentry.

QUESTIONS

(*). Why did Billy lie about when he first noticed the statue on the mantle?

(*). Charlie stated that he and Horace did not leave the kitchen, while Horace stated that Charlie left at some point. Which of them lied and why? Assuming Margie did not lie and they (Charlie and Horace) were couple, would not it be safer for them to just say they both never left the kitchen (nobody knew they were couple anyway)?

(*). So, the clue given to Judge was the sound of heavy boots. What was the clue given to Alexa?

(*). Why was Morris excited that there would "be a ton of people there" in the party? Did he intend to confess himself to Joseph?

(*). As a doctor, could not Morris have observed that CC was not actually drunk? (Of course I did not examine her, but am just curious whether in the story the doctor did not know that his wife is not really drunk)

(*). Mrs. Costa was shot. Who shot her? Morris or CC?


OBSERVATIONS & SUGGESTIONS

(*). The part where Morris requested to have handwriting samples seems weird if he initially insisted not to give his own sample. Of course it was my own doing, ha...ha...ha...

(*). Maybe next time leave the thread posts as they were, Stoic. Just post summary, new findings, etc. in next post. That way I can archive the thread for future reading, I mean after the game is over :-)

Of course, this is something you would have to ask Billy. ;)

I would say because he had stolen some of the coins from the statue, and was taken aback when Charlie said he knew about the coins (he thought he was the only one who knew.) When he found out Charlie knew, but had already confessed to being aware of the statue, he wanted to suggest that it had only been placed recently, thus giving him less time to have actually stolen anything from it. Horace lied because he didn't want their relationship to be revealed, figuring that the less time they were known to have spend together, the better. It would, which is a good point. I don't think that is what Horace was concerned about the most. He knew that Charlie didn't actually commit the murder, so he knew the evidence wouldn't point towards him. A list of people wearing either black, or a dark blue. She knew the person that crashed into her was wearing a dark color. No, he didn't actually know that the journal entry was missing so really, he had no motive to commit the crime. He was just excited because that is the way his character is... he's a very social person. I suppose that's possible, but it sounds unlikely.

He didn't realize that she had watered down her drinks, and when she appeared drunk, there wasn't really any reason for him to doubt it. He had no cause for suspicion. That might be something you could figure out if you know that the person has a reason to *appear* drunk, but he didn't know she had a reason to do so. Who knows? It's a red herring! Indeed. This created a huge quandary for me. You were playing the character, but as the character had requested to incriminate yourself without knowing it.

On the one hand, I had to stay true to your character.

On the other hand, I had to stay true to your actions controlling that character.

In retrospect, I believe what I would have done differently, is that I would have explained to you in a PM that you KNOW it's your handwriting and you could decide for yourself whether you wanted to go through with it. You mean leave the initial post as it was? Sure thing!

Thanks for the feedback. This was, I'll admit, very tough to pull off. And also admit, I did not to the best job with it. But I appreciate your patience, as it's really hard to envision how it would work without a trial run.

My next problem is... coming up with an entirely new cast of characters and scenario, and tweaking certain things. (Private questioning did not really work as planned.)

I'll do that, thanks for the idea.

Do you have any other suggestions as to how I could improve the game?