MAKE YOUR CASE

Mansion
Welcome to my mansion.

Please, step into my den,
and I'll try to explain what it is you must do to solve this crime.

There now. What I'm asking is that you read the following with a critical eye. There is a good deal of information, complex, confusing, and confounding. You must try to work through the details and come up with a motive, a weapon, and the opportunity that any of these suspects would have to commit the murder and then write your indictment of your prime suspect.

Newspaper Story

A young woman working as a television anchor person for KBOB T.V. and a powerful woman-about-town was found dead yesterday in her fashionable state-of-the-art computerized condominium. Police, receiving an anonymous phone call, rushed to the unit to find the young star dead on the kitchen floor. Seven suspects have been taken in for questioning, and Chief Inspector Heinbockel has been called in from Scotland Yard to direct the case. He had this to say about the incident:

"We have very little to go on in this investigation as of this moment--- no weapon, no motive, no cause of death, and only the stories of the suspects. The coroner is still baffled. There are small marks on the body but nothing which he can label the cause of death. He does believe, however, that she died between 1:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Besides that, here is all we know:

The very tired Sayers left her T.V. studio at 8: 24 p.m. last night after her last broadcast, telling her boss that she was going to meet a "contact" for an update on a story she had been working on and then was going to go straight home. 		A Safeway clerk reports checking her out at about 9:30 p.m. She was purchasing a roast, a few potatoes and some mushrooms; he said she looked very serious to him and barely greeted him. He also noticed that she seemed to be clutching a small package and seemed to be looking around nervously.

The neighbors questioned agree that they all heard a disturbance at about 2:30 in the morning which ended in a ten minute period. One young woman was particularly surprised by the noise since at around midnight, leaving a party she was throwing, she knocked on Sayer's door to see if she could borrow some ice cubes. No one answered the door, and she heard nothing. No one else noticed anything until the·next morning when a garbage-person noted a cab pulling away from the front of the apartments at about 5:20 a.m. Our last spotting was by a paper boy who simply saw a woman descending the back stairs near Sayer's apartment and walk off hurriedly carrying a small package. That was at 8:15".
Below are the statements given by the suspects in the case. Read them over and compare each story with the facts we have in the case. Then write an essay that clearly absolves some of the suspects by virtue of their accounts and then write an explanation, using all of your critical abilities to explain exactly what took place. Remember you must present the motive, opportunity, cause of death, weapon, and a logical account of the actual death using evidence at the murder scene.

Statements of Primary Suspects

Arnold "Patch" Hoblin

0 Mr. Hoblin is or was Miss Sayers' secret lover who has been paying for her luxury apartment and keeping her showered with expensive gifts. He himself is a very jealous man although he is also married. Gail has been reckless with his affections. She spends a good deal of money taking friends out to lunch and giving lavish parties and then sends him the bills. She has pressure him to divorce his wife, and he filed papers only last month. It was just last week that Gail told him she had changed her mind about him and wanted to see another man. Patch was livid and told many people that she would be sorry.

His statement: " Yes, I saw Gail last night. It was terrible. I had a lot to drink and felt that I wanted to settle the issues. I know I went over to her place but someone else was there in the next room. I remember being angry and causing a disturbance, but I'd had so much to drink, the rest is rather hazey. I yelled and threw a few things and then went stomping out and walked for miles and miles. I awoke in my car this morning and went home".


Kalme Bunkers

0 Police finally arrested this animal-rights terrorist who has been threatening animal-testing labs at major universities for the last year. He has used arson, blackmail, and small bombs to force experimenters to give up the practice of using animals for experiments. Last Tuesday, Gail's station, who had aired a critical assessment of the animal rights movement, received a call from someone who threatened to "cause problems" for the station if they continued to support the labs and scientists who use animals. Gail specifically received a letter telling her to read a statement from Bunkers or she would be taken care of. She laughed and over the air told him and his group that they would have no power to make her respond.

His statement: "I know what this is about. You are all trying to have me locked up to stop the progress I've made with my cause. You all deserve to die the way the little innocent animals die; they're tortured. Whoever she is, she got what was just. But I didn't kill her. I have my babies to protect from you savages. I want my lawyer".


Harriot Beecher

0 This is Gail's ex-mother-in-law from Gail's second marriage. Mrs. Beecher had always been against her son's marrying Gail and said so openly. He was well off and Gail seemed to be thrilled with her "catch." Her son was an alcoholic who had given up drinking until he met Gail and then began to party with her which put him back on the wrong path. Last June after divorcing him, Gail wrote an article in which she discussed his strange sexual habits and also suggested that he had attempted some cross-dressing. He lost his job as a result, lost face with all his friends, and finally committed suicide. Beecher physically attacked Gail at his funeral and had to be restrained. She was hospitalized for emotion problems and was only recently released.

Her statement:" I was going to see Gail for breakfast this morning. I called last night and made arrangements on the phone with her about 10:00 last night. But no one answered the door at 7:00 a.m. when I arrived so I took a cab home".


Suth Sayers

0 This was the sister of the victim. This is a woman who is remarkably less attractive than her deceased sister and who spent most of her life behind books, studying and making her mark as a scholar. She had always felt her sister was a cold and calculating person who would only be successful because she slept around with whoever would give her a break. Suth went on to become a brilliant chemist and had recently been working on a secret government experiment that involved a spray that could eliminate all life within a 20 foot radius but no beyond. She had almost proved her case to the government but ran out of money to buy the experimental animals needed to make her case. She almost had those extra funds when her father died and left Gail and her equal amounts of the inheritance. However, Gail managed to convince him weeks before his death to leave all the cash to her. When police went to interview her, they found her lab was a total wreck. Co-workers believed that Suth went into a rage when she discovered her sister's ruthlessness.

Her statement: "How can you believe I would kill my own sister? Anyway, I was at the lab all night cleaning up the mess of the break-in to my lab. The night watchman saw me in the parking lot checked me in at 7:00 p.m. and another one signed me out this morning at 9:00 a.m.".


Ellen Curly Beige

0 Ms. Beige was a single mother of three who had been convicted of poisoning her husband who was molesting one of their children. She had served her sentence and was starting a new life with her children. After working for three years as a lowly staff person at KBOB, Ellen finally thought that she was to get the anchor job. She attended night school for several years to acquaint herself with news writing, speech techniques and, since she knew the station had plans for having a hearing-impaired segment to the nightly news, learned sign-language with special hopes of being specially qualified for the opening. She was hoping Gail would provide her with a recommendation for the spot when she told her of her special plans. She was shocked to discover that, in fact, the job was given to Gail who had secretly gone out and taken a quick course in sign herself. Instead of getting the anchor job, she was instructed to teach Gail all she knew about sign. Friends say that Ms. Beige was furious.

Her statement: " I didn't like her, but I wouldn't kill her. She had plenty of enemies so leave me alone. Where was I for the last twelve hours? Well, believe it or not, I was taping myself for practice signing and anchoring, After coming home at 2 p.m. with friends who will testify to that, I set up the recorder and have over 7 hours of filmed practice to prove it."


Shamus Gemstone

0 This expert jeweler and rare gemstone expert has spent a lifetime tracing the three-golden rings of Gunjah. After reading about them some twenty years ago as a graduate student at Hale's University, Gemstone made the first of dozens of journeys around the world. It was only this year that he discovered where he could purchase the last of the set. Gail's first husband, the Prince of Ikdom, had bought it for her as a wedding gift. When he offered her five times its value, she turned him down saying that it was her belief that he was a fraud and that the other gems were just fakes to convince her to sell. Without the ring, the other two would be worthless and Gemstone's lifetime project would be over forever.

His statement: " I was shaken by this, yes. But I just thought I would wait patiently. I am obviously a patient man, look at my history. I also was with my best friend from my homeland and we were eating at McDonald's until 4:00 a.m. this morning. Momar will support me in this".


Captain Lowell Stoddard

0 Everyone knew that Capt. Stoddard was arrested for smuggling drugs into the country after Gail did a story that uncovered his role in the plot. She had based her story on the information she got while pretending to be his girlfriend. She told him she would be able to provide protection for him after he revealed all, but failed to do anything. He was arrested after she stole the one piece of evidence that would have supported his story of being a expert in deadly spiders who was caught on board a ship that contained drugs that he never saw before. In fact, he claimed that he was given free passage on the boat by the same man who later gave him Gail's telephone number to help him clear his name. The man had jumped overboard and disappeared when the drug authorities took over the boat. Stoddard had been released from prison two months ago.

His statement: "Look, why would I want to go back to jail. I paid my dues. I just wanted to get back to my private life studying insects. I hate what she did to me, but I don't care anymore. I'm only interested in my future."

Now go to the murder scene and the evidence