Scene Investigators Solutions: Logic & Reasoning

Unmarked spoilers for the game in here, but this guide attempts to explain the logic I see for each set of questions provided. There is a section that points to the evidence I used before I explain the logic I came up with for each.

Scene Investigators Solutions: Logic & Reasoning

I’m just gonna get into it, but some quick statements:

• I will not spoiler the entire guide. If you’re looking for hints, read the evidence collection part. I will leave out red herrings and other things I don’t consider logically necessary, cutting directly to only gathering relevant information. If you want to be on even playing ground, just only gather/consider the evidence I point out. If you scroll past that to read the logic, that’s on you.
• Some scenarios are interconnected. This means that, when it comes to how this guide is designed, each Exam Case File is its own chapter, and I’ll run through evidence gathering before we hit logic.
• I will only answer questions the game asks. I’m trying to keep speculation to a minimum. I will still wind up speculating, but trust me that this is me going easy.

Preliminary Trial

Evidence Gathering

What do you mean? It’s all in front of you!

I kid. Here are the important parts, left to right:

• Documents: Synopsis
• Manila Folder: Masterplan (hint: only the start time really matters)
• Manila Folder: Money Split
• Manila Folder: Newspaper (hint: press R)
• Evidence Tray: Basically all of it, but especially Cash and Phone.
• Investigation File: Report of Stolen Items (hint: time taken, items taken, and their values matter)
• Investigation File: All Criminal Records (hint: only name, age, arrest & sentencing info, & other info matter)
• Investigation File: Written Statement (hint: you only need to read the Statement portion)

If you’re ready, let’s state the questions.

1. Who was the getaway driver?
2. Who participated in the robbery?

Logic

This case is relatively simple once you break it down. Let’s first reference the Money Split page to determine the roles. We have:

• the man with the plan (let’s just call him the mastermind)
• helper
• getaway driver

With that determined, we can reference the Phone for more details. This establishes a few facts:

• Of those 3, there is the mastermind, his friend, and the newbie.
• The friend is older than the mastermind.
• The person who owns the phone is the friend.

There’s some more facts we can get here, but we’ll come back for them in question 2. Let’s think about the Synopsis again. It established that they found this guy next to the van, arrested him, and this was what was inside the van. This happened between the period that Helen was robbed and the heist.

If you’re paying attention, that would mean that the heist didn’t happen, but Helen had to have been robbed. Check out the time on that report: 3:10pm. If you skimmed the Masterplan, you might remember the heist was set to start at 3:15pm, and they needed to be there at 3:15 sharp. Basically, if the heist didn’t happen yet, we can assume if he was found alone next to the van, he is the getaway driver.

So the friend is the getaway driver. But who IS the friend?

Review the Criminal Records. Both Frank and Chad share a stay at the Willow Bay Correctional Facility around the same time. This is the only same place/time connection of the 3, so we can reasonably assume these are the mastermind and friend.

Chad is the younger (note that he was arrested for identity theft at age 18 – wild), making him the mastermind. Thus, Frank is the friend, and the getaway driver. That’s our answer – the driver is Frank Carter.

Now. Question 2!

We can determine the people involved in stealing Helen’s purse based on the details present in the evidence tray. We don’t really need anything else now that we know who everyone is, but I’ll go with the logic for a moment.

From previous logic, the final member of the band, the new guy, is Anthony. Anthony was the one who was able to identify that Helen had a $600 item to steal. How did he determine that?

Helen’s Written Statement suggests she talked with a friend in the cafe about winning some money from the lottery around 2pm. The phone conversation where Anthony asked Frank to assist him was around 2:20pm, establishing that was probably what he overheard. But how did he decide $600?

Helen does not explicitly state it in her statement, but one of the lotto prizes from the newspaper (the only part transcribed) is a $600 prize for 4 numbers. So we can take a guess: she probably got the 4 number prize. That’s how Anthony determined the value of Helen’s purse.

So that means Anthony Young definitely participated in the robbery. We can mark him down.
But we don’t actually have confirmation that Frank participated in the robbery.

Or do we? Review the Items Taken again. Helen had $40 in assorted bills, and a $600 lottery ticket.

The cash is now incredibly suspicious. Did you notice that it has 6 crisp $100 bills, as well as exactly $30 visible in ragged, wrinkled change? It’s not unreasonable to decide that the beer and cigarettes COULD have cost $10, but the crisp money…

Or you might notice that there’s a bill hidden under the $100s – flip to the back, and that’s a $10! Thanks to @Tankfriend for calling that out. Regardless of if you’re blind like me or not, that’s definitely all the money.

If Frank didn’t assist and someone else assisted Anthony in getting from the robbery to the bank, this would not have wound up in his car. In other words: Frank definitely helped out. Mark down Frank Carter again.

And there it is! That’s the logic for the preliminary test. When we break it down, both questions are very simple:

• The guy who we arrested is the getaway driver.
• The guy we arrested is not the mastermind or the new guy.
• The mastermind is younger than the friend.
• Only Frank and Chad could be the mastermind and friend.
• Frank is older, and thus the friend, and thus the getaway driver.

• Helen talked about her lottery ticket in public.
• We know the new guy overheard her, and his valuation ($600) matches a specific lotto win.
• There is a suspiciously crisp $600 in the car, alongside some spare change that aligns with the contents of the purse minus things clearly recently bought.
• The timing is too tight for the money to have gotten into the getaway van unless the getaway driver helped with the escape.
• Therefore, the getaway driver and the new guy collaborated.
• We know the getaway driver is Frank, and the new guy is Anthony, and they both were involved in the robbery.

It’s only more twisty-turny from here, though. Buckle up!

Missing – Scenario #1

Missing is our first multi-scenario questionnaire, but the game is merciful and only requires the most barebones of inter-scenario associations. Even so, I highly recommend you write down every name you come across.

Since each scenario in this one only unlocks after you clear the one before it, we’ll be approaching it that way in the guide as well.

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #1

There is a lot here. A lot of it is really sad and paints a great picture of this scenario. But almost all of it is irrelevant to the questions at hand. Here’s your important data synopsis:

• Kitchen – Wallet (hint: There’s a few different receipts; only one suggests the right date & approximate time.)
• Living Room – Planner
• Living Room – Child’s Art Sheet (hint: Kids will draw on anything these days, huh?)
• Living Room – Home Phone (hint: Almost of it all matters. Who’s been ringing?)
• Kids’ Bedroom – Hazel’s Diary (hint: All that really matters is someone’s first name.)
• Master Bedroom – LAPD Report (hint: check her desk)
• Master Bedroom – Check (u) (hint: Who paid it, from where?)
• Master Bedroom – Trashed ATM Receipt (hint: Tommy, you really could have just left it in your car…)
• Master Bedroom – Truckers United Health Insurance (hint: If you know the questions, you know why this matters. Thomas seems to have had it fall off his desk.)

Let’s get into it. Our questions are…
1. Where was everyone at 2pm on the 6th of September?
2. Would the insurance cover the hospital bill?
3. Who picked up the kids on September 18th?

Logic – Scenario #1

The first question has a curveball here, but it’s not too hard. Everyone but Katherine only needs one piece of evidence to solve, so let’s do them first.

Thomas is definitely SUPPOSED to be taking care of the kids on the 6th. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that. But if you found that Trashed ATM Receipt in Thomas’s trash bin next to his desk, you probably noticed he was withdrawing $500 from an ATM in Las Vegas rather than at home taking care of the kids. The time on the withdraw is 15:09, but despite suspecting there was a dev error, thank you to @emmathompson04 for pointing out that there’s a second piece of evidence that contextualizes this.

Head to Thomas’s wallet in the Kitchen and look for the Cashout Voucher. It’s the same address, establishing it’s a casino, and the cashout voucher is for 1:30pm or so. So we’ve now established he was most likely there at 2pm… C’mon, Thomas.

So Thomas was at 4830 Sunrise Road, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Okay. So Hazel and Nicholas next, and they’re just as simple. If you saw the LAPD Report, you probably know where they were. If you didn’t, reread it now.

They were both at 2839 Garners Ferry Rd, Los Angeles, CA. As for why they were there, you can logic it out if you take a deeper look at Hazel’s room and diary… But Thomas definitely wasn’t doing his job.

Back to Katherine, now. Only two pieces of evidence are needed: the Planner, and the Check (u). Katherine’s planner for the 6th places her at Wilsons, but we can’t just write that in – we need an address.

Even if you get a big idea from the Star Diner flyer on the floor and search the house, there isn’t a matching Wilsons flyer. Instead, reference Check (u)’s upper corner. It’s a payment check from the Wilsons, with their payment address. Since it’s a family restaurant, they probably aren’t franchised, so that’s most likely their actual establishment’s address.

Thus, Katherine was at 4572 Charter St, Santa Clarita, CA. That’s question 1 down.

Question 2 is a double bind. It’ll trip you up if you aren’t paying attention. But it’s still solvable using only the one piece of evidence – the Truckers United Health Insurance document on the floor by Thomas’s desk. You just need to pay attention.

Normally, “Non-Surgical Procedures” should cover what Hazel’s costs are. (There’s a list of her costs in the Living Room, hidden on the end table on the right side of the sofa, if you’re curious.) Even if it doesn’t due to it being an overnight stay expense, that might still be covered in Section C (which we did not receive). However…

Check out the names of the insured and dependents. Thomas Harrington… and Katherine Patton. These two aren’t married. (Which makes sense, if you reviewed their relationship timetable from Katherine’s love letter box – Hazel and Nicholas are too old to be children from Tom and Katherine’s relationship.) Now, review Coverage – Section A(f).

Tom is not legally Hazel’s family.

In short… the answer is No.

Question 3 is the most sensical and yet also kind of wild? For this one, you’ll need the clues we haven’t referenced yet from the list. That’s the Home Phone and Hazel’s Diary, as well as a revisiting of the Planner.

On the 8th, Hazel was introduced to someone concerned about her Mommy by the name of Hannah. This is the next day after Hazel was taken out of the hospital she wound up at. If you’re following the story, what makes the most sense is that Hannah is a CPS worker, here due to the LAPD report and hospital stay, to check in on Hazel.

There is some supporting evidence here (thank you @Blackened Sheep!) in the little art piece on the coffee table. Pick it up and flip it over – it’s dated September 10th, and it states “the district’s CPS supervisor has already met with both students to understand the situation”. Hannah is the only one who circumstantially makes sense here as the CPS worker Hazel met. If you haven’t already made the jump that Hannah is a CPS worker, this is where you should be making it.

Following that, we need to logically notice that “Ms. Olson” is mentioned in the Planner as calling constantly. However, as we can see from the planner, Katherine is so overworked that she works a consistent 6-8 hours at two jobs every day – understandably, she’s not really available for ‘Ms. Olsen’ to talk to.

Now, Home Phone. Review the call log – a number ending in 9753 called 3 times on the 7th, twice on the 8th, twice on the 11th (and was finally received), twice on the 13th (and was picked up again), called twice on the 15th (no response), again on the 17th, and then one more time on the 18th. The VM from the same number on 9/18/1998, that just says “Now I will be taking things into my own hands.”

Hannah Olson is a CPS worker assigned to their case after Hazel collapsed outside a toy store without any adult presence on 9/6, and after two weeks of attempting to check in on the family, was unable to contact Katherine consistently and took away their kids.

So the person who picked up the kids is Hannah Olson. Bummer.

That resolves Scenario #1. Please remember: this information WILL be useful later, so I recommend keeping all of the names in your hat. They help.

Let’s get onto…

Missing – Scenario #2

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #2

This is the first scenario where there are explicit details that will help a lot with future inferences. I will mark ‘future inference’ data in bold. Tip: You can take pictures with C, and review relevant pictures with I.

Anyway, welcome to the drug den. Let’s get investigating. Just so you know, there are 3 doors that can be opened in this section. Also, hot tip: If you are looking at something in this section, be careful about hitting ESC instead of Q. This can cause you to drop through the floor. Hit ESC and “Quit”. Don’t save or you have to restart the game to fix the clipping issue.

• Master Bedroom – Glennon Footwear Boots (hint: Why can you close the safe door? Take a picture of the soles.)
• Kitchen – Westwood Apartments Key
• Kitchen – Calendar
• Kitchen – Child’s Diary (hint: I swear she hides things better than anyone else. Purse on the chair.)
• Kid’s Room – Math Homework
• Kid’s Room – Scavenger Hunt Page
• Kid’s Room – Phone (hint: almost TOO easy to miss. check her pillow.)
• Girls’ Room – Phone
• Girls’ Room – Journal
• Girls’ Room – Note (bed)
• Girls’ Room – Note (under pillow)
• Girls’ Room – Note (desk)
• Girls’ Room – Luggage (both)
• Master Bedroom – Broken Lock
• Master Bedroom – Journal (hint: behind the pillows)
• Master Bedroom – Bookmark Note
• Master Bedroom – Phone (ruby case)
• Master Bedroom – Burner Phones
• Master Bedroom – Ledger

This is the first scenario to really sit down, look you in the eye, and ask questions where it is demanding a lot of you. Probably the most challenging of the Missing case files. Not helped by a special question.

We have a grand total of 6 questions this time. Buckle up!
1. Who stole Emma’s money?
2. When was Marley hospitalized?
3. Did Janine move to another state?
4. How many times did Phillip physically assault someone in the house between Nov. 7 and Nov. 15?
5. Who has an appointment with the tattoo artist on the 17th?
6. Who is the intruder?

If you’re trying to solve all questions before reading the Logic portion… here’s my best tip for you: disregard anything you think I’ve implied and go with your gut. A double hint: Technically, saying that this is the first scenario where you can get information you would use in the next scenario is lying.

Now, let’s logic!

Logic – Scenario #2

Question 1 is easy. We’re referencing Emma and Marley’s conversation (found on Marley’s phone, in the Girls’ Room) and the burner phones for this one.

Emma had her bag stolen by a client 11/11 at 2am. She isn’t on the calendar for that day, so it was a burner scheduled client. And we know the only client-facing call around that time was Frank, 11/10 at 11:12pm, saying he didn’t want a bruised girl, requesting a new girl. So accounting for travel time, Frank is most likely her client. Thus, Frank stole her bag.

Question 2 is a little harder. But only a little. In fact, I personally just got it off the burner phones.
Phillip texts the doctor to check in on Marley on the 13th, so I just figured he’d brought her in the day before. However, it’s explicitly stated that Marley didn’t come back after the 12th in the Master Bedroom Diary. So… yup. Marley was hospitalized 11/12/2018.

Question 3 – if you’re like me – is dead easy for all the wrong reasons. The question it asks is something I personally just went “who?” to, but considering how literally everyone in this house is coming up with a plan to escape Phillip, and Emma talks about losing someone because Phillip is a psychopath, I picked “no”.

Janine’s name can be found in the Child’s Diary in the kitchen, where Irene mentions that she missed her. … As previously mentioned, Emma talks about losing someone to Phillip right around when Irene says Janine moved away. Yeah, the answer here is No.

Question 4 is where they just spike the difficulty for fun. You now need to track every single beating Phillip laid out between the 7th and the 15th. Thankfully, there are some very helpful little notes here and there. The Master Bedroom Diary keeps coming in clutch. It mentions that Stephanie was beaten 11/10. We know Philip came home angry after Marley was hospitalized. And – previously unmentioned, but review the Kid’s Room Phone. “Mommy is going to die.” There aren’t any other specific mentions of beatings that happen over this timeframe, so… 3!

Question 5 is very easy, as long as you turn off any assumptions that Phillip is a human being. The Master Bedroom Phone (ruby case), the Note (bed) in the Girls’ Room, and Anton’s conversation from the Burner Phones is all you need to understand what is happening. For the name, you just need the Math Homework from the Kid’s Room.

Yeah. The logic here is that Anton is the tattooist (seen in the Note (bed)), and Phillip schedules an appointment with him for the 17th (the Saturday after the 13th) for ‘a bit young’ of a girl. Follow that up with Rose and Phillip’s phone conversation about how ‘she is our daughter’ followed by Phillip saying ‘she is MINE’ and. Yeah, Phillip intends to pimp his own daughter. In case you’re curious: Her homework is long division. In the United States, long division is usually introduced in the 4th or 5th grade.

Yeah. Irene is 11 years old. Maybe 12 TOPS.

Even so. The answer is Irene Haynes.

Question 6 is where you look at me, horrified, realizing I cited like 20 different resources, but didn’t use more than like, half of them?

So first, we need to establish who “Mommy” is, because that’s fundamental. There’s a lot of incidental evidence pointing to this among all the different evidence I cited, but I will just upfront say it’s most obvious when you consider the Phone (ruby case) in the Master Bedroom. The conversation between Rose and Emma (which you know is with Rose due to Marley’s phone in the Girls’ Room) is a mother concerned over her daughter.

So “Mommy” is Rose. Rose, for the record (if you review other evidence) is the only person who does not appear to have a bed (as Marley’s things are in the Girls’ Room, but she doesn’t have luggage – she’s the top bunk on the right side.) That’s because she sleeps with Phillip (and thus, it’s her diary that we’ve been relying on for most of these questions). Rose’s diary has clearly been planning an escape, and additionally, if you reference the Note (desk) in the Girls’ Room, you’ll notice that Rose identifies as using that stationery with that handwriting. If you check the Bookmark Note in the Master Bedroom, you’ll find some suspicious codes punched into it. And if you close the safe’s door… There’s bloodstained fingerprints on the next code that hasn’t been crossed out (45092).

Plenty of reasons for Phillip to beat her. Rose is also under an overt time crunch, because she obviously is trying to protect Irene and have a backup plan to escape if Phillip can’t be convinced to not force her into prostitution. So that’s the setup: Rose is in a position where she is being assaulted. Irene texts… someone. And then there is an intruder.

Let’s look at Irene’s part of this outcome. This is where we need to reference the Scavenger Hunt, Child’s Diary, and Phone from the Kid’s Room. The number Irene texted for help is the same number from the Scavenger Hunt’s “call if you ever need help” note. And the Child’s Diary says “we found everything on the list” – in other words, Irene and the man from the park played together and completed the scavenger hunt. So we have to assume this is the man from the park from the diary and Rose’s texts with Emma.

But we can’t just write “Kind Park Guy” and be done. The game wants a name. Only question is, do we have one?

At this stage, I want you to know: I am 100% confident the game wants you to fail this. So give it your best guess. We’ll be back.

Missing – Scenario #3

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #3

This one is far easier than Scenario #2, but it makes no sense without context from both other Scenarios. So we’ll hit it as we go.

Frankly, almost no evidence here is relevant. But there’s just a little bit.

• Doorway – Muddy Footprints
• Bedroom – Missing Persons Report (Corkboard)
• Bedroom – Shoebox (everything inside)
• Bedroom – Phone (hint: Look at Hazel, then look down.)
• Desk – Late Rent Notice

That’s all you need. So now… Questions.

1. Who entered through the window?
2. Who died here?
3. Who is the killer?

Logic – Scenario #3

Question 1 cannot be solved by this scenario. In fact, the only reason you can solve this is because of the Late Rent Notice. The document mentions it is for a “Westwood Apartments”. Do you remember the Westwood Apartments Key, next to the dog’s outline, in Scenario #2?

Let’s flash back a bit. We established there was an intruder, but we had trouble establishing who it was. It was the guy from the park, but we don’t know who that actually is. But what did the stranger do?

From the layout of Scenario #2’s bloodspatter and effects, the timeline looks something like this:

• Rose is viciously beaten in her bed by Phillip with his brass knuckles.
• Phillip locks a still-bleeding Rose inside their bedroom with a portable lock.
• He leaves.
• The stranger got into the house (Irene likely opened the door for him while on the phone with her.)
• The stranger was attacked by Spike in the kitchen.
• The stranger grabs a kitchen knife from the nearby knife block and stabs Spike, killing him.
• Injured, the stranger heads to the main bedroom and breaks the door down.
• The stranger assists Rose (presumably bloody in her spot on her bed) with her wounds.
• Rose opens the safe (thus the bloody fingerprints), takes Irene, and leaves ASAP with a backpack full of money and whatever she felt she needed. The stranger presumably assists.

A lot of this timeline can be determined by examining the Scenario #2 Master Bedroom, as well as noticing that the door has been destroyed on the side facing out toward the hallway. If it was destroyed due to having the lock kicked down, it would follow it would tear off the highest point of tension, which is the location the lock has been installed. There’s a first aid kit on the bed, and an examinable bloody rag. The bloodspatter from the stranger’s dog-inflicted wound has also stopped bleeding substantially by the time they head out to the door. (You can see two different spatter patterns – one from the dog to the master bedroom, then smaller, more sporadic bloodspatter from the master bedroom to the front door.)

Setting all of that aside, I actually left one thing out. When Spike attacked the stranger, we can safely assume that the stranger lost the key at that time.

So the stranger lost their key to their Westwood Apartments apartment. And we know this is the same key, as if we take a picture, we can find the same key left in the lock in the front door of Scenario #3. So… what does that mean?

Question 1 only makes sense if the person who came in through the window knew they didn’t have the key to the door, and knew they wouldn’t have any trouble getting in. The lamp is knocked over in the main bedroom, and there’s a very bloody green jacket hung in the right place for if someone was coming in from the outside.

The stranger from Scenario #2 is clearly the answer to Question 1, then. But who is he? He clearly lives here (or else he wouldn’t have known to use the window), and he lives here alone.

See the Late Rent Notice. Who is it TO? (Oh, hi Thomas!)

Thomas is back. Yeah, Thomas Harrington is both the answer to Section 2 Question 6 and the person who lives here, the person who came in through the window. (You can choose to edit your Scenario 2 answers here without switching scenarios – in the Edit Answers, look in the upper right, there’s a number for each scenario you can pick.)

So Thomas Harrington is the answer to Question 1. Now, who died?

That one’s pretty easy. There was nobody else in the house, and if you review the local evidence, it seems pretty self-evident that Thomas did not intend to live much longer. He has 0 reason to put up a fight.

Thomas Harrington is thus the answer to Question 2.

Who killed him? Even easier. Only one person could both have gotten the key and would have been brazen enough to kill a man in his home and go through all of his belongings (likely assuming he had the money that was stolen, unaware Thomas and Rose had already parted ways).

The final nail in the coffin? The shoes you took a picture of in Scenario #2. Compare their shape to the muddy footprints. It’s a perfect match.

You have to figure out his name, but once you remember that the devs so far have always assigned children their father’s name, it’s not hard.

Phillip Haynes is the murderer.

And that’s it! That’s the entire logical deduction for these questions.

I’d like to make a casual little ending to this scenario list – it’s stated that Phillip renames people when he takes them in by Irene. So I can’t help but feel a little bit like the real answer to the final question (even though it’s not explicitly stated) is that it is the story of Hazel Woods, with Hazel being renamed to Rose.

But that’s just me. I think I’m going to publish this one as is, see what people think, and then come back for The 4th Floor.

The 4th Floor – Room 401

These aren’t like Missing – they’re not interconnected, but they are all on the same floor. What a group of crime-havers, eh? Either way, let’s get into it.

Evidence Gathering – Scenario #1

• Kitchen – Permission Slip
• Kids’ Room – Flyer
• Kids’ Room – Child’s Diary
• Kids’ Room – Bottle (hint: to the left of her homework)
• Kids’ Room – Wallet (hint: all the paper is useful
• Kids’ Room – Safe
• Office – Laptop

So. Questions:
1. Who broke into the apartment?
2. Who was present during the break-in?
3. Who was killed?
4. Who is the killer?

Logic – Scenario #1

Question 1 is relatively simple, though it’s hard to pin down a solid logical line. Here’s the most solid one I have that requires the least amount of evidence. We’re referencing the Child’s Diary, Bottle, and Wallet for this one, all in the Kids’ Room.

The Child’s Diary establishes that Greta stored one of her daddy’s bottles he liked. The bottle she stored we can find is the Am Ale – which is what the receipt in the Wallet is for. We could also reason this out from the Laptop and the note regarding crossed out locations, though this requires you know a little about how that works.

The bank doesn’t change Brenda’s name, but changes her address. That means Clyde would be able to call the bank and request information – and (because he appears to still be Brenda’s husband), he could at least have gotten the street and numbers without turning any heads. I’m not sure why they’d be jumbled, but regardless, he’s the only person who could have gotten an incomplete address from this information.

So yeah, it’s Clyde Kent Peterson who broke in.

Question 2 is a combo question, like how many beatings Phillip dealt out in Missing #2. It’s asking two things: Who was the adult in the house, and was Greta here?

Greta had camp during this period, as shown by the Flyer on her bedroom table. We see her Permission Slip on the kitchen counter, fully filled out. Reasonably, we might wonder why the slip is here, but the Flyer does say we apply online, and there’s a fax machine in the office. So we can assume the slip was submitted in advance via fax.

Greta was therefore not there. So who was the adult in the house? We could try and establish when it happened to establish if there was a sitter. But frankly, let’s put a pin in this and come back. For now, we know there were 3 people in the house: Sarah Peterson (baby’s name – you can infer this from multiple spots in the house), Clyde Kent Peterson (as the person breaking into the house), and the adult who was supervising Sarah.

Questions 3 and 4 are essentially asking us to determine who was killed, and who survived. (There is a single pair of shoes in the shoe well, so we can feel confident the person tending to Sarah was alone.) Therefore, the answer is one of two possibilities: Clyde killed the supervisor, or the supervisor killed Clyde. Barring some way for a baby to commit murder or leave an adult-sized outline on the floor, we can assert that confidently.

Now: The circumstances of the murder. Let’s first establish where the supervisor was when Clyde entered the house. If we check out the living room, we find a half-opened Snickers, the baby monitor, and a bowl of cut strawberries. The baby monitor is enough to tell us that they were in the living room before things started. We see some odd steps around the crib (arguably Clyde picking up Sarah), and then Clyde heading into the office in the back room. His footsteps fade away by this point, but the last steps into the office is at a sharp angle to the left – he is walking with purpose.

As we’ve learned so far (see Missing #2), safes are generally open with intent in this game – if they are open, they were opened by the participants in the scene. This might be a bit of a logical leap, but if you thoroughly inspected the office, you might have noticed that there are two kinds of Bullet Casing here – 2 Luger casings, and 1 Wilder casing. That implies the presence of two guns, one of which you likely ALSO found in the Office. So…

The Safe contains many things, including a case of Luger ammunition and a manual for a gun model that is definitely not the glock on the floor.

In all honesty, we could do a lot of logical leaps here, but I’m going to stick to the simplest logic possible. We’ve identified the person in the house was able to access the safe (and had an opportunity where Clyde was not in the kids’ room to retrieve the gun from the safe). The fact they knew where the safe was and could retrieve the gun from it means they’re the only person living in this house (as we don’t have any notes saying the code to the safe or anything provided to a potential sitter).

So the final person in the house is Brenda Sherman.

If you want to reason out the exact outcome of the encounter here, there are multiple ways to reach the conclusion of who died here – you can reference things like heights from the Restraining Order… or just think about it a little. I think this is a clean bit of logic: We only find one gun. The killer would not have just left their gun on the floor. The gun is not the one from the safe. Therefore, the person killed should be Clyde.

“But what if the killer dropped their gun and stole the other person’s?” A fair point. We can pin down the identity of the killer by reviewing where the killer was standing when they made the fatal shot. There’s a Luger bullet casing on the desk, which directly faces the shot angle. The phone was set to call 911. The person who made the shot was calling 911 – which Clyde would not have done.

The victim is Clyde Kent Peterson.

The killer is thus Brenda Sherman.