Whodunit: The Videotaped Suspect

The following is a Whodunit by Hy ConradThese mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution?

At first it seemed like death from natural causes. Marcus Tomby, an investigative reporter, was found slumped over his desk at the Times, victim of a heart attack. And then the security director from the Fordham Arms apartment building came forward.

"Mr. Tomby lived at the Fordham," he told the lieutenant in charge. "He did a lot of dangerous reporting and used to joke about being knocked off some day. When I heard about his death, I reviewed the tape from the security camera in his hallway. Look."

A fuzzy image popped up, showing a red-haired, bearded man leaving the Tomby apartment and pulling closed the door. As he walked towards the camera, he lifted his hand to his face and adjusted his ring. "That's from this morning's tape. Marcus lives alone and that isn't him."

The lieutenant immediately contacted the Times. "Yes, Marcus was on a story," explained the editor. "He suspected Metro Carting of illegally dumping toxic waste. He said he had an inside contact and was preparing a dynamite expose."

Armed with a blurry blow-up from the security camera, the police visited Metro Carting. "Why, that's Al Cuellar," a secretary blurted out. "He started working for us last month." The lieutenant asked if Al had any reporter friends. "He never mentioned any." Did he come in to work today? "No. He never showed up." When the police telephoned Al Cuellar's number, they found it was the same as that of a midtown bar. His address corresponded to a vacant lot.

"Put out an APB," the lieutenant barked. He checked his watch. It had been less than eight hours since the reporter's death. "Get over to Tomby's apartment. Dust the place for prints."

Two hours later, there was more bad news. All the prints, both in the apartment and on the doors, belonged to the deceased. As for the mysterious suspect, Al, he had vanished completely.

The lieutenant mulled over the evidence. "I think I know what happened," he drawled with a smile.

What happened? And what clue pointed the lieutenant to the truth?

Show Answer

(Image created with the Newspaper Clipping Generator)


The whodunit above was provided by American mystery fiction author Hy Conrad.

In addition to his work in mystery and crime puzzles, Hy was also one of the original writers for the groundbreaking TV series Monk.

Currently, Hy is working on mystery novel series "Abel Adventures" as well as the Monk series of novels, starting with Mr. Monk Helps Himself (published by Penguin, order from Amazon here)

Check out Hy's official website and Facebook page - and stay tuned for more whodunits puzzlers on Neatorama from the master of whodunit mysteries himself!


Comments (0)

Nice to see that people think this just must be 'shopped because it looks so freakish. But like one guy says over there- this pic was taken with a tele lens, so the effect of the deforming looks even more severe than it already is.

But reading the newslinks they provide over there, they had a rather huge problem.
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A quick youtube search for the naysayers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2eCjeLaRHk&feature=player_embedded

Trust me, having lived through this quake I can tell you that this damage is not at all surprising. The earth shook in a lateral movement. There was very little "up and down". For the record, the quake yielded 648 kilotons of energy, and was only 20 miles deep. Thats the equivalent of 45 Hiroshima bombs, practically directly below where this image was taken.
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Bullshit. This pic does not show quake damage, it shows new track being built. Notice the tire ruts, fence line, etc. that are not deformed. I've seen other pics of tracks after earthquakes; the info in the article is correct, but the pic is the result of a lazy reporter I think.
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Indeed, fake, and a good Photoshop attempt.

So, what happens to gravel when shaken? It gets flung quite widely. Steel rails will bend, but not get stretched, unless under a high temperature to make it pliable. They would be straight, lying in pieces, scattered like gravel. Nice try.
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Artor and tdcpunkology what about that 'tube that philfy posted? Also fake? Seems philfy was there and you guys not. This is just like saying hey that quake was fake because lots of houses didn't have damage, so the ones that are damaged are fake and must have been Shopped.
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To all of you "Photoshop" people out there. The photo and explanation is genuine. You may want to learn about the energy released during a 7.0 earthquake.

How about simply Googling that Earthquake and seeing the complete damage it did.

What you see in the image is a compression failure, not a fault movement deflection. This is why the rest of the landscape is not deformed. This makes it extremely dangerous as those rails are still under extreme pressure to remain deflected as they are, like a spring.

I would guess in order to repair those rails, they'd have to place cutting charges on them and get the heck out of Dodge.
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The quake was a fake. Count the pixels. There are extra ones on the area where the green grass suddenly appears out of the purple stuff beside the fault-line. And why are the sheep still standing?

I came up with 42 extra pixels.

Nuff said.
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We like a lively debate here at Neatorama, but draw the line at name-calling and attacks against other commenters. A couple of comments have already been deleted. If there is any more nastiness directed at other Neatoramanauts, this thread will be closed -and possibly some violators banned. OK?
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i call fake cause im from new zealand and havent seen this photo in any news representation here. and believe me, if this was real the photo would have been put everywhere all the time! such is our annoying news representation.

that said the destruction in the latest quake was pretty epic
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http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/historic-earthquakes/11/6

A quick google for NZ earthquake and railroad yielded the above link.

It has a great photoshop, they even turned the locomotive over in it.
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http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2010/11/02/the-canterbury-earthquake-images-of-the-distorted-railway-line/

Here's a great one. The second picture on this link is a different angle of the same deformed track. The angles apear even sharper from the new perspective, and imposible to photoshop.

Remember: Google is your friend.
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and, once again cos people just don't seem to get it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2eCjeLaRHk&feature=player_embedded

Watch the first 10 seconds of this vid. Nothing fake about it. Try living through a 7.1 quake and then you are qualified to call whatever you want.
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I can assure you that this is not fake. As someone who experienced this earthquake firsthand a couple months ago this sort of thing is the norm as you walk around Christchurch and drive around the Canterbury region.
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