Braingle: 'Unlucky Car Thief' Brain Teaser

Unlucky Car Thief

Logic puzzles require you to think. You will have to be logical in your reasoning.

Puzzle ID:	#22386
Fun:	(2.58)
Difficulty:	(2.96)
Category:	Logic
Submitted By:	i_am_hated
Corrected By:	4demo

A car thief, who had managed to evade the authorities in the past, unknowingly took the automobile that belonged to Inspector Detweiler. The sleuth wasted no time and spared no effort in discovering and carefully examining the available clues. He was able to identify four suspects with certainty that one of them was the culprit.

The four make the statements below. In total, six statements are true and six false.

Suspect A:
1. C and I have met many times before today.
2. B is guilty.
3. The car thief did not know it was the Inspector's car.

Suspect B:
1. D did not do it.
2. D's third statement is false.
3. I am innocent.

Suspect C:
1. I have never met A before today.
2. B is not guilty.
3. D knows how to drive.

Suspect D:
1. B's first statement is false.
2. I do not know how to drive.
3. A did it.

Which one is the car thief?

Show Answer

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Comments

(user deleted) Apr 21, 2005	that completley blew my mind. good job.
cnmne Apr 21, 2005	I also started by pairing off contradictory statements (A1 and C1, C3 and D2, B2 and D3, B1 and D1. Also, A2 contradicted both C3 and D2. This left A3. In order to get 6 true statements, A2 and A3 would have to be either both true or both false. Since the opening statement said the the theif did not know it was the inspector's car, that meant that statement A3 had to be true, which meant that A2 had to be true. A2 said that B was guilty.
froggygg Apr 21, 2005	Very creative and enjoyable.
i_am_hated Apr 21, 2005	im glad you liked it a lot better than my last teaser
michelle192837 Apr 22, 2005	It was HARD!
darthforman Apr 22, 2005
dapperDave Apr 22, 2005	You would think that being an inspector, he would be aware of the dangers of car theft. He should have had an alarm. What kind of car was it?
i_am_hated Apr 22, 2005	i dont know
moktapa Apr 23, 2005	you should have sent this teaser to the mystery category
michelle192837 Apr 23, 2005	Couldn't really be bothered to solve it. I like the mysteries better, though this WAS a pretty good teaser.
brain_dead Apr 24, 2005	now my head hurts
lil_Brat Apr 27, 2005	wait so who did it?
deadeye823 Apr 30, 2005	This isnt a "trick" teaser!
deadeye823 Apr 30, 2005	This isnt a "trick" teaser!
shandela May 02, 2005	Good I cnmne. I didn't remember that it had said unknowingly but still guessed B because if he wasn't you couldn't definately decide who was.
libra0890 May 04, 2005	do i sound like anybody? "omg i feel so bad for myself, im so hated. everybody hates me" lol libra0890
i_am_hated May 04, 2005	i dont go around saying that, im actually mature
bad_kitty_meow May 05, 2005	I figured it out just by looking at the clues, to me it was pretty easy, but it was a good teaser anyways!
libra0890 May 05, 2005	ok im sorry. libra0890
i_am_hated May 05, 2005	s'ok
IMCUL4E May 06, 2005	BOO!
xsadclowneyezx May 09, 2005	holy cow, this -i think- is an awsome teaser. kick --- job with the 'tricking' considering its not trick, its more of a ruling out teaser than anything, preferably logic or logic grid, and maybe mistery i congradulate you with this, you seem to have stumped just about everyone
(user deleted) May 16, 2005	I am confused if D1 is false doesn't that mean D did it
yourmom0101 May 18, 2005	yeah d says b's first statement is false, but b's first is d did not do it????? I am sorry I do not like this teaser.
(user deleted) May 22, 2005	YOU ARE HATED
Question_Mark May 28, 2005	I agree with deadeye823 but disagree with moktapa. This should be in logic.
Question_Mark May 28, 2005	I also agree with tdionne.
Isabella2204 May 30, 2005	I gave up too fast...lol. Good one
Reaver May 31, 2005	i finally found one i couldn't answer, good job!
i_am_hated May 31, 2005	thank you! i guess you must be smart
i_am_hated May 31, 2005	you know what RAIDERS, the raiders are the worst team in the league(in my opinion). and, you think it's retarded becausew you didn't get it. HA! so there!
onlyeeyore Jun 01, 2005	While this wasn't a trick teaser, all the info we needed was there to solve it. If others got it, how can anyone dispute a good teaser? This was a fun one!
Yoyobug02 Jun 04, 2005	good job i liked it
tennistripleXXX Jun 04, 2005	This teaser took me hours to figure out. But after all that i was wrong anyway. And the fact that the answer made no sense didn't help!!!
solidtanker Jun 07, 2005	That was very enjoyable!
aubreyy Jun 07, 2005	Man D rats himself out and says that he did it. How is it not D? Is it just a boo boo? I mean if B1 says D is not guilty, and then D says that B1 is a lie . . . Maybe I just dont get it cuz im new. But I think something is off.
drift15 Jun 08, 2005	like someone said, contradictory statements can be subtracted out together because # of true statements=#of false statements, and if you subtract one from both sides, you still have an equal number of true and false statements. it's really easy if you do it like this.
sweetime Jun 15, 2005	i was doing the whole "subtracting thing" and then read A3 which said that the suspect didn't know it was the inspectors car...i would have thought only the person who stole it would be in a position to know that sort of information.... (and thus decided that the rest of the info was a ruse and that A had done it...)
brainfog Jun 19, 2005	Yeah, I also thought that about A knowing it was the inspector's car and initally assumed it was him because of that "inside" information. Then I wondered why on earth D would say that B's 1st statement was false, seeing as how that made him guilty. Seeing how easy those two guesses were made me realize I was totally barking up the wrong tree. Sooo, I got a little hint by peeking (i.e.: speed of light glance at the answer without reading it) and saw just how wrong I was by the length of the answer. So, I ended up working it out. Good one, but the "obvious" answers threw me!
burfly01 Jul 02, 2005	WOAH!! very hard really confusing to i like the kind were u dont have to think for an hour and need paper n stuff but i think lots of people like this and you dida good job bcuz u tricked lots of people!! too bad no1 can get it
spookyb Jul 03, 2005	my frien and i could have got it but we were just too lazy for this particular teaser because it is way too long(in my opinion)but the answer made no sense at all!!!!!!!
sambean Jul 07, 2005	too long and hard!!!!
cllmsky Aug 21, 2005	hey andy nice teaser it actully keep me up from the other wones i read by other ppl they were so boring and raiders doesnt have to be sush a jerk
sudokulvr Sep 03, 2005	it said Assume D is guilty..blah...blah...blah...Dis innocent. WHAT?!?!?!
i_am_hated Sep 03, 2005	Follow the instructions, you'll get it!
kayleeskitties Sep 05, 2005	This one was too much for my brain. Good
boxers Sep 10, 2005	i gave up it was confusing...lol
FerretGirl Sep 11, 2005	Good job, but would one suspect really know what the others said, and in what order? I still liked it though!
chickybaby3 Sep 20, 2005	Does anyone have some Tylenol?
greywolf Oct 20, 2005	wrong category
i_am_hated Oct 20, 2005	No, Mystery is a perfect category.
(user deleted) Dec 01, 2005	read it once, didnt bother to think it through because it was flawed. B says that D is innocent. D then calls that statement false. There is no incentive for D to do that ruling out his and the author's insanity. And I prefer to assume the guys innocent until PROVEN guilty. not vice versa. a mathematician couldnt catch a car thief for nuts.
i_am_hated Dec 01, 2005	INSPECTOR means private eye...
BPKANERVA Dec 20, 2005	the answer was sort of hard to understand. hard teaser, didn't get it i thought that d was it to because he said b's third statment was false and b's third statement said d was innocent
i_am_hated Dec 21, 2005	Read the directions! Only six statements are true.
jlvsbeks Jan 01, 2006	i thought that was a really awesome teaser glad you could do it cause i could never think of that really fun thanx
goblu91 May 16, 2006	Cool Teaser !!!!!( I am saying this as i was able to solve it !) But, i guess, this is more of a logic problem than a MYSTERY TEASER....Nevertheless, the police also needs logic to find out the criminals !
kcheer2493 May 27, 2006	yeah, um... my brain definitly hurts now great job anyway, must have taken a while to make
flamehead Oct 19, 2006	That confuzled (no that is not a typo it's my cooler word for confuzing) my brian!
d-babes Jan 20, 2007	this is a very dumb teaser considering Bs first statement was that D didnt do it and D's first statement was that B's first statement was wrong so all clues point to D because he said B's first statement ,which proved him innocent, was false so it proved him the car theif.
pookiekat Jan 25, 2007	Good job, I liked this teaser a lot! I solved it by making a chart and went through the four possibilities of who could be guilty. I think the important thing is to realize that it doesn't matter if statements like A1 are true or false... just that they're the opposite of statements like C1. Assume A1 is true (or false) and count up from there. There are several teasers like this in the Logic area, but Mystery is a good place for it too.
icecraze10 Mar 02, 2007	Wooooooah. Headache! It was fun though! But a little too, thinkative for me. Hehe
Holografik Apr 29, 2012	was unexpectedly easy.. A3 is true and then there 4 contradictory pairs of sentences.. that gives 5 trues and 4 false.. and with the contradictory pairs you can arrange true or false in anyway to make either A or D or non of those two to be the culprit.. the remaining 3 sentences are A2, B3 and C3. if B is guilty, only A2 is true and other two are false. and since you need one more true statement and 2 more lies, B has to be guilty.