Brain Teasers
Murder
Situation
Situation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.Situation
It was a man's birthday. He lay dead in the lounge room of his house. Next to his body was a note, written in pencil. The note read 'Happy Birthday, Friend'. The victim had a girlfriend and the police suspected her ex-boyfriend. They could find no obvious evidence. While searching the ex-boyfriend's car, the police saw an envelope with the girlfriend's address written on it. They thought they would get the handwriting checked against the note. The scientist in charge came in early to work the next day; it was 7am. He looked out his window which faced east and stared at the rising sun and it was then that he realised how to prove the ex-boyfriend killed the man, even though the girlfriend's address was not written in the same handwriting. How did he do it?
Answer
The scientist's office faced east, and the sun was coming in through the window at a very low angle. He saw some very faint shadows on the surface of the envelope. He looked closer. There were the words embossed on the paper. They read 'Happy Birthday, Friend'. The ex-boyfriend had forgotten that a pencil leaves an impression on paper beneath the page written on.Hide Answer Show Answer
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Comments
Actually, i have a pen and it also leaves an impression on paper under it. Everything else was great though.
Great teaser! I loved it................
HARD!
that was hard lol. i lobed oe
really hard i thought he realized he could sneak in the house early or something. i don't know! i liked it though
I was absolutely stumped. Great, though!
I actually got this one in like 3 minutes, I remember hearing about a case where they found a message embossed on a notepad, so this was rather easy for me.
This is a common and simple technique in forensics, they even use all kinds of sprays and black lighting to bring forth unseen impressions even 4-5 pages underneath, good one though
awesome information, sis!
Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's a pen or a pencil - if you press too hard (especially when not against a firm surface) it will leave an indent.
now, why would we expect the guy to have written the note while the paper was on top of the envelope?
I never put my note paper on top of the envelope when I write letters, do any of you?
Now if there were two notes, with the paper being identical, then I could see the connection.
And, you do have to press fairly hard. Not everyone writes with that much force.
I never put my note paper on top of the envelope when I write letters, do any of you?
Now if there were two notes, with the paper being identical, then I could see the connection.
And, you do have to press fairly hard. Not everyone writes with that much force.
the scientist hasnt suspected a thing, he saw the markings the pencil left on the envelope and found they read "happy birthday friend" so that means the person who wrote the note had to do so on top of the envelope, and since the envelope was in the ex boyfriends posession it means and so he either was at the crime scene after the man was already dead and took an envelope with the girlfriends address on it or recieved the envelope from someone or wrote the note himself and took the envelope from the crime scene, either way it makes him a prime suspect
that was hard! i totally forgot about the impression thing!
Circumstantial evidence. Does the ex-boyfriends handwriting match? Yes, so what. Perhaps someone saw him write Happy Birthday friend over the envelope, killed the guy and framed the ex. Now with resonable doubt he walks.
He realized how to "prove" that the boyfriend did it?
Nothing in the body of the teaser suggests that there was evidence to convict the boyfriend, only that he was suspected. Maybe the impression thing (which by the way was a nice twist) is enough to make him more of a suspect, or bring him in for questioning, but it doesnt PROVE anything. Even if the two handwritings match, it doesn't prove the boyfriend as the killer. There has to be blood or DNA or something to tie him to it, not just handwriting which could have been left there by anyone.
YES enough to be questioned and maybe even arrested, but NO, not enough to be proven.
Nothing in the body of the teaser suggests that there was evidence to convict the boyfriend, only that he was suspected. Maybe the impression thing (which by the way was a nice twist) is enough to make him more of a suspect, or bring him in for questioning, but it doesnt PROVE anything. Even if the two handwritings match, it doesn't prove the boyfriend as the killer. There has to be blood or DNA or something to tie him to it, not just handwriting which could have been left there by anyone.
YES enough to be questioned and maybe even arrested, but NO, not enough to be proven.
The thing was, there was nothing in the teaser that implied that he had written the note on top of the envelope.
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