CTI: Crime Team Investigation

Started by Mandle, Tue 16/06/2020 16:50:02

Previous topic - Next topic

heltenjon

King's guard? I'm not into these sites, so I'll leave the searching for you guys while I handle donuts and drink this excellent Danish coffee.

Meanwhile, we still don't know the connection between the victims. Perhaps Deborah's agent is the missing link? Could we see if Alex has gone to any auditions Deborah has gone to? Or if they're both represented by the same agent?

JackPutter

The chief adopts a comforting tone for once, which has the uncanny effect of being even MORE unsettling than when he is screaming. "I'm very proud of all of your work so far. You've been scouring the internet up, down, and backwards. It hasn't paid off yet, but I can TASTE how close we must be.

"Heltenjon, I think you may be confusing Deborah Hawthorne and Rachel Edison. We've been looking into connections between Rachel and Alex, Officer White showed Rachel Alex's photo and Rachel said that his face seemed familiar and that she had definitely seen him somewhere, however she was unwilling to say where. I don't want to go so far as to say Rachel is holding back information, but she hasn't exactly been a fountain of intel either. Officer Leland called to Alex's home, but his parents refused to allow him to be questioned. They don't seem particularly trustworthy of the police. Rachel's agent doesn't represent Alex, though he has seen Alex perform on stage in a couple of community theatre projects and did approach Alex to try and represent him. Alex apparently said he'd have to ask his parents and the agent never heard from him again."

NOTE FOR REFERENCE:
Spoiler
[close]

heltenjon

Sorry, Chief! I'm losing sleep over this case. I'm even eating lettuce again! I'll try to not mix up the names...we don't need any more codes coming from our own! *reaches for donut*

But to think more out loud...could these kids have some secret project? Online, perhaps? Remaking some Stephen King movie? Has the agent only actors as clients, or is he representing writers as well?

And what causes Alex' family to not trust the police? Do they have some history? Hmmmm...

Ian Aloser

Quote
The chief adopts a comforting tone for once, which has the uncanny effect of being even MORE unsettling than when he is screaming. "I'm very proud of all of your work so far. You've been scouring the internet up, down, and backwards. It hasn't paid off yet, but I can TASTE how close we must be.
There must be something behind the TASTE , I just don't get it

heltenjon

"MORE TASTE"? Spice? Savour? Saviour? King's saviour? ???

JackPutter

The chief shakes his head. "Nah, you folks have me all turned around. Sometimes I think you twist what I say back-to-front on purpose."

Mandle

I did notice that K and S are on exact opposite positions on the keyboard. The chief said something about keyboards earlier.
I don't have time right now but maybe someone can have a look if there is any code involving swapping letters to the same position on the opposite side of the keyboard could be applied anywhere?
For example: A=L... W=O... C=B... etc.

Ian Aloser

I have a german keyboard layout thus making it impossible for me.
Instead, I used an anagram decoder using the green and / or brown letters
in the note.
The result was rather frustrating, i set a limit of 500 words and i got 500.
for both the brown and the green letters.
Maybe someone can do it better than me....
Here's what i used for the search (I hope i didn't miss out any letters)
Green:
tiidgaosaufreeththaowhh                 
Brown:
ibenoopsirous   

Pretty hopeless, just too many results....
P.S.: I don't consider this cheating, after all our chief encouraged us to use keyboard and mouse :-)

Laura Hunt

Quote from: Mandle on Mon 06/07/2020 13:42:43
I did notice that K and S are on exact opposite positions on the keyboard. The chief said something about keyboards earlier.
I don't have time right now but maybe someone can have a look if there is any code involving swapping letters to the same position on the opposite side of the keyboard could be applied anywhere?
For example: A=L... W=O... C=B... etc.

Something like that came to my mind too... The opposite letters to KS in the alphabet are PH, but that didn't give me anything so I dropped that line of thought.

I've been trying more usernames like impost(o/e)rkiller, supplanterkiller or kingmaker, but still nothing. I'm so lost.

heltenjon

There are loads of hits on "Savio(u)r King", naturally, but it looks religious and I don't really want to sift through it all. I guess that is not it. The opposite of KS could be SK in some way (Saskatchewan? Stanley Kubrick?) or it could be the opposite of what KS means without starting with those letters.

I noticed that Jack/The Chief used the phrase "up, down and backwards" for the second time now. This could be a clue or a coincidence.

Chief, do we have anything on Alex's parents? I wonder why they act so hostile to the authorities.

And on another thought here, I'd like to ask sargeant Pangborn if there's any personal connection between him or his squad and any of the victims. (This is to rule out whether the police are the final target.)

Thirdly, I'd like to know from that agent what projects he has coming up...if he has something lined up for Rachel, I'd like to know if it is important or not.

Ian Aloser

#330
I'm getting desperate...
Just an idea: Rachel Edison was held by her tormentor for about a week.
I don't know how rural the area is, but from what our chief told us at an early stage
i understand that it is rather sparsely populated. We might ask in local foodstores if anything unusual has
been observed, e.g. someone suddenly buying more food supplies than they usually do.

I still have the suspicion that our perp or however we might call him/her has captured someone.
I have the movie "Misery" in my head, just a feeling ......

JackPutter

#331
The chief rubs his temples, and pours himself a glass of whiskey from his stash. "Alright, we're all getting bogged down here with more details than we can handle. Let's take a breath for a moment and think about what we know. We know that this person thinks that they are more clever than they really are, since (a) we've rescued every potential murder victim and (b) they can't even come up with their own methods and have to copy them from the movies.

"My money is on 'KS' standing for 'King Slayer' because it's a stock phrase and they probably wouldn't have the originality to come up with 'King Supplanter' or anything more creative. So, before we get back to working out what the 'opposite' of that is, let's all pause. Go to the bathroom. Splash some cold water on your face. Look at yourself in the mirror and see what comes to you. I'm going to make some calls."

The chief spends a long time calling various different people of note, before addressing you all again. "I've got the scoop on Alex's parents. Turns out they're both lawyers, so they are resentful of the fact that the police tried to question their son alone. Seems like they have the kid on a pretty tight leash, they're terrified of him incriminating himself in some way.

"Pangborn claims there's no major connection between any of the officers and any of the victims. One of Ullman's kids is in the year below Alex at school, and White admitted that she owns a few of those pink unicorn toys from Rachel's commercials. That's a brave thing for a grown woman to admit that in a unit full of men...

"I called Rachel's agent, and I'll be damned if he isn't being as cagey as Rachel. Says that she's had 'a lot of interest' for a 'big role' but there's 'nothing official on paper' right now. I don't think he realises how dangerous the situation is, because when I pressed him for details he claimed that he was late for a meeting and had to run.

"The local stores haven't noticed anyone buying anything unusual, but they've promised to keep a watchful eye and call us if anything suspicious crops up. Sometimes a nosy busybody is exactly what we need."

Finishing his drink, the chief slowly scans the room. "You've all been doing great work. I hope it pays off soon."

(Writing out of character here for a moment just to say that if anyone had gotten the username right or "close enough" I'd have had the IT gremlins jump in with the next step. Unfortunately so far no one has gotten quite close enough for me to consider the puzzle "solved" but I hope you don't stop trying!)

Laura Hunt

Quote from: JackPutter on Mon 06/07/2020 21:05:37
(Writing out of character here for a moment just to say that if anyone had gotten the username right or "close enough" I'd have had the IT gremlins jump in with the next step. Unfortunately so far no one has gotten quite close enough for me to consider the puzzle "solved" but I hope you don't stop trying!)

Hmph, I should have listed here all the ones I tried, but there were just too many of them to remember. I'll do what I can now:

kingprotector, kingmaker, kingservant, kingmaster, loyalist, kingcrowner, kingsavio(u)r, imposto(e)rkiller, supplanterkiller.

I think I might be focusing too much on the idea of "king" here, but maybe somebody else can steer the general train of thought in some other direction :-D

Ian Aloser


Laura Hunt

#334
Quote from: Ian Aloser on Mon 06/07/2020 21:46:02
Why not queen ?

Hmmm because the way I see it, the suspect thinks of themselves as somehow protecting a king from his inferiors, as they literally said that "KS" are "those who use opportunity to usurp the big man's seat".

But yeah, maybe the opposite of "king slayer" is... omg, "killer queen"? It's Freddy Mercury's ghost! :-D

Seriously though, maybe something like... protector queen? What else can we come up with in that vein?

Ian Aloser

Maybe a name of a woman who killed a king
I‘m bad at history .....

Mandle

#336
POTENTIAL SOLUTION

Have the I.T. Goblins search for the username: REYALS GNIK on the platforms potentially mentioned in the killer's note:

Torrent
Soundcloud
Tumblr
Twitter

Laura Hunt

#337
Quote from: Mandle on Mon 06/07/2020 22:40:49
POTENTIAL SOLUTION

Have the I.T. Goblins search for the username: REYALS GNIK on the platforms potentially mentioned in the killer's note:

Torrent
Soundcloud
Tumblr
Twitter


MANDLE OMG!! https://twitter.com/reyalsgnik

which leads to https://soundcloud.com/user-756517080/hello-nypd

(transcribing as we speak)




Mandle

OMG that is so awesome! (But a certain Jack Putter might have gotten him on a watchlist. That's dedication!)

We need to somehow listen to that backwards, but I can't find how to download it at first glance. Anyone can do?

EDIT: Found it. The download option is available if you click "More..."

Laura Hunt

#339
[Female synthesized voice]

Let's count the ways, one, two, three
I'm smarter than the NYPD
You've saved some lives, which is not bad
But I've put two of yours in hospital (sic)
Are you sad? You sneaky clever little pigs.
(you) won't catch me as I (incomprehensible?)
Will I start a fire next?
Or wrap a noose around someone's neck?
In the middle of this all
Will you rise to the challenge, or will you fall?
The Master's work must not be spoiled
I'm stopping those who would have it soiled.
He is the center of my world
Soon my finale will be unfurled.


Can I have the IT goblins try to decipher the bit I didn't get? Maybe they can clean up that part of the audio somehow.

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk