Brain Teasers
Water in the Desert
Two men have planned a trip across the desert and back. The day before, they tie a barrel with all the water they'll need to their donkey. They go to sleep. At 11:30 p.m. the first wife gets up and puts a small hole in the bottom of the barrel, calculating that at its rate of coming out, the men will have no water left on the way back. At 1:30 a.m. the second of the men's wife gets up. She sneaks out and poisons the water in the barrel to kill the men and goes back to sleep. Sure enough, along the trip they die. Who is guilty of murder?
Answer
Although they are both guilty of attempted murder, the wife who poisoned the water is guilty because they drank that first and died of it before all the tainted water leaked out.Hide Answer Show Answer
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Comments
Who said they drank it first, maybe they saved the water for the trip home and then realized they were out and died of dehydration
Yeah, it depends what they died of, which was not specified
It wasn't meant to be specified, you had to figure out how they died. And why wouldn't they drink any on the first half?
yeah i think if i was crossing the desert id be drinking aver 3 seconds.
they needed to drink the water. Nice teaser, but kinda easy
It actually depends on the rate at which the poison spreads ie. did they die of dehydration first or did the poison spread quickly enough that they died from it first... In saying that, I did enjoy the teaser sitting there trying to find some qwerk (sp?) in it - Oh, and also, they are obviously numbskulls not to notice water leaking out of one of their only life supports!!! ;o)
surely the answer depends on how long it takes them to first drink the water? the men might take a drink until well after all the water has leaked out (eg, if the desert they were crossing was only small, or they slept a lot longer than they intended, so the water had longer to leak out of the barrel than was anticipated)
The donkey would also drink the water and die strand the men in desert. They were doomed any way you look at it. However, the poison in the barrel could be traced back, the hole could be found and plugged, but to find a way to kill the donkey or donkeys and leave the men out there to their fate would accomplish the deed and desert cleans itself of dead animals. Humm. I enjoyed this one. Well Done.
The donkey is guilty because the donkey would drink all the water. Makeeverythingatrickteasergirl strikes again!
The real question here is why did the wives want the husbands dead so badly
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