Topic: New "Black Stories" Crime Riddles

[heltenjon]

Did they do magic? One went into a box in one end of the room, and the other appeared somewhere else?

[Mandle]

Did she read that her dad and uncle used to do a live double-act together

Closer...

I only meant "closer" in that it was something both brothers did to each other.

[Stupot]

Would they often play pranks on each other?
Would they often set each other little puzzles and challenges?
Was there a puzzle in the journal and Gwen called her uncle to help solve it?

[Mandle]

Would they often play pranks on each other?

This is the final piece in this puzzle.

So now the full story:

Gwen was cleaning up her late father's house when she stumbled upon his journal that he wrote in his late teens.

She got engrossed in reading his words of a life of his before herself that she had never dreamed of.

Gwen was just about to head back to her own home when she came upon a passage in the journal describing how her father had pranked her uncle by putting kitchen-wrap over the toilet bowl.

She called up her uncle to talk about this story of the prank and they laughed about it, and then the uncle told her to keep reading to find out how he had gotten his revenge for that prank, as he was sure that his brother had also written about that.

At this point, Gwen also considered just going back home and reading the journal there, but she couldn't resist the lure of finding out what the revenge prank had been.

Quite some pages later she found out that her uncle had pre-recorded a scary voice on a tape recorder and put it outside his brother's window with an extension cord that he could plug in and out of the socket from his room and still call back that it wasn't him doing the voice outside his brother's window every time his brother freaked out.

Gwen got a great laugh from reading how her father had been revenge-pranked, but she was too tired to drive back home and just decided to sleep over at her old home in her old bed.

A burglar, who knew that the home owner had recently passed away, and that there may be valuables left over, broke into the house that night and surprised the sleeping Gwen.

They struggled and the burglar panicked and strangled poor Gwen to death on the floor of her childhood bedroom.

CASE SOLVED!!!

[Mandle]

Hmmmm, silence reigns.

I think this was one of my favorite Black Stories that I have made. I think I got the misdirection just right, in that it was confusing, as a decent riddle should be at first, but fair when you find out the solution.

The questions and answers that were called into question:

"Is the murder related to the phone call?" is no, but the answer to "Would she had been murdered if she hadn't made the phone call?" is also no.

Are both fairly answered I feel.

The murder itself wasn't related to the phone call. The killer has no idea that Gwen had even made a phone call.

Yet, if she hadn't made the phone call she would have gone back to her own home as planned as would not have been murdered.

So, the reason why the murder ended up occurring was related to the phone call but the actual act of the murder was not.

[Stupot]

Yeah this was a good riddle. I was starting to wonder if it was worth trying to guess the contents of the book when the case itself was basically resolved. But I’m glad you persisted because the book actually does directly lead to Gwen making the decision to keep reading and to stay longer. (Describes one prank, then uncle tells Gwen to keep reading to find out how he got his revenge).

[heltenjon]

*Lining up participants in a choir position*

 
Thank you, Mandle. for your riddle and your time!

[Mandle]

Yeah this was a good riddle. I was starting to wonder if it was worth trying to guess the contents of the book when the case itself was basically resolved. But I’m glad you persisted because the book actually does directly lead to Gwen making the decision to keep reading and to stay longer. (Describes one prank, then uncle tells Gwen to keep reading to find out how he got his revenge).

Yeah, I was considering ending it there but decided that that small point was pretty important: The thing that lured her back into wanting to read on.

[Ian Aloser]

Thanks from my side for this nice story of course, too.
Though, at some point I completely lost track,
due to the sheer amount of answers :-)

[Riaise]

Yeah, that was a good one. I'm glad you made us guess right up until the last detail, as frustrating as it was. Also, you're right in that it was a fair solution, while being very difficult to work out at the time. I was so fixated on it being a bad thing that had distracted Gwen that it didn't ever occur to me that she could have been distracted because she was amused. So, good job on that!