You’ve Got Mail
On a Friday morning, a mailman delivering a daily newspaper noticed three unopened bottles of milk on the porch of a man’s home who is known to be a recluse. One of the bottles was already sour. The mailman looked through the window, saw the homeowner’s corpse, and called the police. When the police arrived, they noticed Tuesday’s newspaper beside the man’s body.
The police soon arrested the killer. Who was it, and how did they solve this crime?
ANSWER: The mailman killed the man because the police only found Tuesday’s newspaper. No newspapers for Thursday or Friday were found inside or outside the house, which meant that the mailman knew no one was alive to read them. The mailman tried to redirect the blame by reporting the murder himself.
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Executioner
A man kills his wife. Many people watch him do so, yet no one will ever be able to criminally charge him with her death. Why?
ANSWER: The wife was previously found guilty of a crime and sentenced to death. Her husband was the executioner. Current U.S. state law protects their execution workers from criminal wrongdoing through qualified immunity.
Parisian Perspective
A serial killer in Paris wants to taunt the police, so they send a letter telling them that they plan to kill someone in the one place where you can’t see the Eiffel Tower from the city. When the killer arrives at the scene with their would-be victim, the police are waiting for them.
How — and where — did the police catch the killer?
ANSWER: The police catch the killer inside the Eiffel Tower — the one place in Paris where you can’t see the structure from the city.
Choose Carefully
A killer has kidnapped several people and offers them a deal. He offers them each two pills, and tells them to choose one – one pill is poisonous, and the other pill is harmless. Whichever pill the person chooses, the killer will take the other.
Each victim choses one pill and the killer takes the other pills. They swallow the pills with a glass of water. Every victim was poisoned, but the killer survived despite taking several pills. How did the killer manage to avoid being poisoned?
ANSWER: The poison was not in the pills, but in the water that the victims drank. The water the killer used to swallow the pills was safe, so he had no chance of being poisoned.
“I’ll be right there!”
Suddenly one night, a man receives an incoming phone call to his cell phone. Even though he’s driving and it’s a number he doesn’t recognize, he picks up. A police officer identifies himself on the other line and says that the man’s wife was found murdered and that he should get to the scene as quickly as possible. The man responds by saying, “I’ll be right there!”
He hangs up the phone, turns around, and drives the 10 minutes over to the crime scene. As soon as he gets there, the police arrest him for murder.
Why did the police have probable cause to arrest him?
ANSWER: The police didn’t get a chance to tell the man where the crime scene was, so the husband already knew where to drive, indicating that he did it!
Poisoned Night Out
Two women, Jenna and Sophia, sit down at a restaurant for dinner. Both women order unsweetened iced tea, with ice, a straw, and a lemon on the rim. They also order the same meal.
Jenna drinks her tea quickly before her meal arrives, butt Sophia drinks her tea slowly throughout the meal. Suddenly, Sophia dies from poisoning less than 10 minutes after finishing her meal, leaving an empty plate and an empty glass. Both women ate the same food and had the same drink; neither consumed the lemon, and both used a straw.
Why did Jenna live, while Sophia got poisoned?
ANSWER: Both girls had their drinks poisoned, but because Jenna drank her tea quickly, the ice didn’t have a chance to melt. The poison was in the ice!
Eyes Don’t Lie
A man is on trial for killing his wife. In the defense’s closing argument, the lawyer announces that the wife is still alive and is about to walk through the door! The jury turns to look at the door while the man stares blankly forward. After no one walks through, the lawyer says, “If you were positive this man killed his wife, you wouldn’t have watched the door!”
The jury leaves to deliberate and soon comes back with a guilty verdict, saying that a recent event confirmed for them that the man did kill his wife. What happened?
ANSWER: When the jury was looking at the door, the man was looking straight forward. He knew his wife was not going to walk through those doors because he knew she was dead, so he didn’t bother to turn around. He was guilty!
On the Record
Police discover a man dead in a room with a single gunshot wound to his head. There is a gun and a tape recorder next to him. One of the officers presses ‘play’ on the recorder. They hear the following message: “I don’t want to go on. Please don’t blame anyone,” followed by the sound of a gunshot.
The police quickly realize that this is a homicide instead of a suicide. Why?
ANSWER: The tape recorder was already rewound! If the man had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, he could not have had the chance to rewind the tape and have it ready to play the message.
Muddied Truth
Police arrive at a home where the owners say someone must’ve broken into their house while they were away on a week-long vacation. Hidden valuables were the only thing missing. The house was a mess, with fresh muddy footprints everywhere. There were no other signs of a break-in.
How do police know the homeowners are lying?
ANSWER: Police know the homeowners are lying because even though they say the break-in must’ve happened while they were on vacation, the muddy footprints were fresh. Mud would’ve certainly dried by the time they got home! The vacation was the alibi for insurance money.