CTI: Crime Team Investigation

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

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heltenjon

Another thought - we've already had a message in the last letters. How about one using the letters in the middle? Is there any hope there? ("in the middle of it all")

Ian Aloser

Good idea, Officer Helten Jon.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work, because line 2 and 3 already have an even amount of letters.
It would have to be odd to get a letter in the middle.....
Let's wait what Cunningham Centre will bring

Mandle

Quote from: heltenjon on Sun 12/07/2020 19:26:00
Another thought - we've already had a message in the last letters. How about one using the letters in the middle? Is there any hope there? ("in the middle of it all")

There are thirteen lines in the poem. Could it mean the clue is in the middle line?

"Will I start a fire next? Or wrap a noose around someone's neck?"

Here's the map again for reference.

Spoiler
[close]

heltenjon

Chief, this Daniel Wiseman may be the latest kidnapped person. We ought to work out if he is connected to the movie project. Is there any way we can do this? Perhaps our IT-wizards can conjure up something from his socal media?

Just in case the suspect should be crazy enough to send us some of his own blood, we also need to make sure Wiseman is not the criminal himself. I'd guess our perp probably owns signed special editions of Mr. King's books. These are ordered from the publisher, and we could probably discover pretty quickly if Wiseman had ordered something like that. I doubt we'll find anything, but at least it could rule that possibility out.

heltenjon

I think the solution must have something to do with "PIGS". Do they produce pig iron somewhere? Do any of the place names have any swine-like meaning I'm not aware of?

Ian Aloser

@Mandle: I don’t see any clue in line #7
@Heltenjon : We indeed have neglected to search for information about Wiseman
The only other clue i detected is the relation between „soiled“ and Leith Acres

Laura Hunt

I have been away for a few days but I'm still as clueless as when I left. Cunningham Centre is definitely one of my candidates, but like the chief says, it feels like we're throwing darts at random at a map: I can't see anything in the text that's like "yes! This must be it!" :-\

JackPutter

#407
THE KS CASE

Chapter Six

Sergeant Pangborn was the first one to arrive back at their meeting point after splitting the team up to look for suspicious activity in Cunningham Centre. One by one, he was joined by officers White and Leland who both reported nothing out of the ordinary. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. "Please, let something show up, please..." he silently pleaded. Suddenly, there was a crackle over the radio. "Son of a bitch!" It was Collins. Pangborn quickly signaled for White and Leland to hop into a patrol car, while he squeezed the button on his transmitter.

"Collins, come in! What's going on?" Pangborn dropped into the driver's seat of his cruiser and turned the key, the engine growling with gusto. He swung the wheel around and pointed the car towards the area he had sent Collins. "Collins, are you alright?" With a flick of a switch his siren was screaming. Looking in his rearview mirror he saw Officer White at the wheel of their other patrol car, Leland beside her with his hands braced and his teeth gritted.

"Uh, sorry Sarge, false alarm... some damn pussycat just leaped out of nowhere and scratched the hell out of my neck." Pangborn rolled his eyes, and noticed Leland throw his hands in the air in the car behind. Pangborn gently pressed the brake pedal and turned off the siren. "Roger that, Collins. What's your location? We're en route." Pangborn checked his watch. Something really should have turned up by now...

"I'm just leaving the cemetery now. Nothing out of the ordinary to report here, didn't find anything at the mill or the..." Collins had trailed off. There was an uncomfortable silence. Pangborn went for his radio, but Collins came back. "Um, Sarge... There's something weird here." A knot started to develop in Pangborn's stomach. "Understood Collins. Hold the fort, we'll be there in less than a minute."

The patrol car's tires skidded on the loose gravel outside the graveyard. Pangborn pulled on his hat and got out of the car. Collins stood just outside the fence, looking towards the treeline. Pangborn approached and stood next to him. "What's the deal, Collins?" Collins didn't turn his head, instead he pointed in the direction of the trees. "That's the cat that scratched me..."

Pangborn turned his head in the direction that Collins had indicated, and the knot in his stomach tightened. A scraggly Maine Coon cat with matted hair was chewing on something a short distance away. It was sitting on what appeared to be a makeshift grave site. A flimsy cross made of branches was embedded in the ground, and dangling from the crossbeam was a sign with the word "CHURCH" scribbled across it in what appeared to be crayon.

Pangborn took a step closer, and his stomach finally sank entirely. The cat was chewing on the exposed bones of a human hand. It seemed that whoever was buried had tried to dig their way out and had expired mere inches from safety. It wouldn't have taken much effort for a feral cat to dig down and make a meal of the poor individual's arm.

With all the force he could muster, Pangborn threw his hat to the ground in frustration. Officer White and Officer Leland had just arrived, their faces pale and their eyes wide. Pangborn looked at each of his officers, his eyes burning. "We've got to CATCH this son-of-a-bitch!"


The chief kicks open his door holding a whiskey bottle and sweeps everything off the first table he sees. "The ONE thing I was holding onto, the ONE little shred of pride I clung to, was that no-one had died. I REFUSED to call this maniac a killer, because so far there was a body count of zero. Well I don't have that anymore goddammit!" The chief kicks the table for good measure.

"The victim is Daniel Wiseman, the guy from California whose blood we found on the shredded material. Single guy, no kids. From what we've been able to gather in the short time since we found his remains, he worked as some kind of freelance location scout for various Hollywood productions. He was staying at an AirBNB not far from the graveyard where his body was found. We searched his room and found some documentation linking him to what appears to be the same production as the other victims, but unfortunately the place was in a ransacked state when we arrived so the... ugh... killer probably made off with a lot of the important stuff to cover their tracks.

"We know it was the killer because they left us this." The chief holds up a single sheet of paper, clearly written using a typewriter.

QuoteHaha! You'r  in doubl   roubl   ow! 19

v ry hi g will b  s   for my fi al  soo . 8  hos  dir y birdi s will s  ,  h y should l av   h  Mas  r's work alo   a d  o  ch ap   i  by  wis i g, dis illi g, a d con or i g i  for  h  mass s. 1  h y hav  do   i   oo ma y  im s  ow a d I will  o  le  i  happ  ,  o   ow,  o  h r ! So  h  dir y birdi s may fly h r , bu   h y will g t a surpris  wh    h y land. 3  H Y SHALL  O  CO  I U . 1  his h r sy   ds  OW. 2

You will v r fi d m . 7 I hav  26 pi c s l ft. 18 I ca  disapp ar. 21 I am  o  old, my bon s do  o  cr ak. 2 Will I  scap ? 12 Do s  h  quick, brow  fox jump ov r  h  lazy dog?

Good luck NYPD

The chief takes a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle. "This has to end, soon..." He starts to mumble to himself and heads back into his office.

MAP FOR REFERENCE:
Spoiler
[close]

(Below is an out-of-character explanation of the previous puzzle.)
Spoiler
Cunningham Centre was the correct location for the previous riddle, so I'm entirely happy to continue things even though some of the methods used to figure it out were incorrect. It wasn't like it was a blind guess on your part, there was a lot of thought put into it and in reality it wouldn't matter the reasons behind searching somewhere. What matters is finding the victims! It was fascinating to see everyone try so many different methods to figure it out!

The pentacle that led to Sheldonville was a complete coincidence! In fact, I was purposely staying away from the puzzles where the crime locations create a pattern on the map because that was such a key element of the Justice Killer case. I just happened to pick place names that created that pattern without even thinking about it.

The INTENDED clues that the poem contained are as follows. "In the middle of it all" was something you picked up on, which pointed towards Cunningham CENTRE. Similarly, the line "He is the centre of my world" was in the poem, again indicating Cunningham CENTRE. The final clue in the poem was the line "You sneaky clever little pigs." What's another way of saying a clever pig? A CUNNING HAM.
[close]

CaptainD

Another case has kept me from contributing much to this one, but I have at least added the missing letters to the last message:

QuoteHaha! You're in double trouble now! 19      

Everything will be set for my finale soon. 8 Those dirty birdies will see, they should leave the Master's work alone and not cheapen it by twisting, distilling, and contorting it for the masses. 1 They have done it too many times now and I will not let it happen, not now, not here! So the dirty birdies may fly here, but they will get a surprise when they land. 3 THEY SHALL NOT CONTINUE. 1  This heresy ends NOW. 2

You will never find me. 7 I have 26 pieces left. 18 I can disappear. 21 I am not old, my bones do not creak. 2 Will I escape? 12 Does the quick, brown fox jump over the lazy dog?

Good luck NYPD

Obviously those numbers are significant somehow.  Since the highest number is 26 I'm thinking they must correspond to letters.
19 s
8 h
1 a
3 c
1 a
2 b
7 g
26 z
18 r
21 u
2 b
12 l

shacabgzrubl

Nothing seems to jump out at me from that set of letters, so maybe it's a cipher.
 

Ian Aloser

Great job CaptainD !!
I took the letters (double checked the numbers ) and crunched them through a ROT-n converter, but nada !
Don't know if it matters, but I got some strange effect when I pasted the text into Open Office (Grey marks, like placeholders):
Spoiler


[close]
Seems like this won't be easy ....

Laura Hunt

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is one of several "standardized" sentences that contain all the letters of the alphabet and is widely used for displaying all characters in a font or typography set.

I applied the numbers to this sentence (1 = T, 2 = H, etc) and got the following letters:

M K T E T H C T U S H W

Looks like there aren't enough vowels there to form a sentence, but maybe I'm close to something here... I feel that the missing letters from the perp's typewriter (N, T, E, Y) should also be significant somehow.

Also, he's talking about "birdies landing". Possibly the film crew arriving by plane to NYC before heading here? He's definitely got a reception planned, that's for sure. But we don't even know when filming is supposed to begin, do we?

Ian Aloser

Good job Officer Hunt!
Seems like we have a target.
We should contact Intrepid Pictures to find out
if they have planned a flight !
Chief, could you please contact the eligible colleagues ?

CaptainD

Quote from: Laura Hunt on Mon 13/07/2020 13:25:56
the missing letters from the perp's typewriter (N, T, E, Y) should also be significant somehow.

Just for clarity, only E, N and T are missing.  Y is in the original message in "lazy".

The missing letters could represent:

- The number Ten
- ENT - a common abbreviation in hospitals (at least in the UK, not sure elsewhere) - stands for "Ear, Nose and Throat" (otherwise known as otolaryngology)
- Ent as in a walking tree (Lord of the Rings) - "THEY SHALL NOT CONTINUE" does remind me of Gandalf's stand-off with the Balrog "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"
- Net (as in, we're caught in the killer's net?)

Of course the missing letters may mean nothing in themselves.
 

JackPutter

The chief makes a phone call and reports back to you all. "The receptionist for Intrepid Pictures says that there's a team headed to Upstate New York as we speak, they flew in to JFK this morning and are traveling by road up there to finalise some shooting locations. But get this, he couldn't track down their booking info for where they are staying. Seems like all the data on the trip has been wiped from their records. This could be gross negligence or a malicious hacking attack, but the bottom line is that there's no record on where their destination is.

The receptionist said he'd try to reach a member of the team and would get back to me if he had any success. In the meantime, I bet the killer has left clues as to their planned destination in that last letter. We need to figure out where they're going so we can protect them!"

heltenjon

*Groan* I can't believe I missed Cunning ham! In fact, it occurred to me immediately when Jack revealed that there was something to find there. And I can't believe we never sent anyone there...we were so close! 8-0

Ian Aloser

#415
Yeah, we were on our way, but then switched to Sheldonville ....
Talking about Sheldonville :
This is the only place on the map i found that contains 12 letters !! (Correct me if I'm wrong )
Assuming that the 12 numbers in the text lead to a location, it can only be Sheldonville.
The only alternative I see with 12 letters ist Margaret Anne (12) Penitentiary (12), but these
belong together (24).
Hmmmm.......
EDIT: Maybe the numbers don't mean anything at all but just point to a 12 letter location
EDIT: I NEVER EVER would have found the CUNNING HAM :-)

Cassiebsg

I did some more counting, assuming the numbers refer to characters in the sentence's order... (roll) So:
start is starting count from the sentence right before the number.
backw. is counting backwards from the number.
forward is counting forwards from the number.
1.st Counts always from the start of the 1st sentence.

I wasn't sure if I should take the numbers so I counted them and after the / with without counting them

Code: ags

	start	backw.	forward 1.st
19	r 	e	t	r
8	i 	n	r	r
1	t  	s	t	H
3	e	a	e	h
1	t	e	t	H
2	h	o	o	a
7	l	r	6/p	u
26	e/r	O/N	2/m	o
18	1/a	7/d	m/o	t
21	t/l	e/e	t	u
2	a	a	i	a
12	1/D	2/k	k	d
	


Not sure if this can be of any use, but I'll leave it here.

Quote
The only alternative I see with 12 letters ist Margaret Anne (12) Penitentiary (12), but these
belong together (24).

Uhm... I was going to suggest that the clue might indicate 2 locations ("double trouble")... and I could see some planing over filming at the Penitentiary... but I doubt the team would "stay" there. Or would they?  :-\
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Ian Aloser

#417
Interesting approach, Cassiebsg,but I think you are thinking far too much ahead.
It was said in the game rules that the riddles are easy to solve ( I never would have
found out the thing with the audio file, though).
What we can see from the numbers (if converted to letters from the alphabeth) is:
Neither Margaret Anne (3xA) nor Sheldonville (3xL) nor Penitentiary (2xN+2xE+2xI+2xT)
would comply with the letters in the note ( max. 2xB+2xA ), so Double Trouble might be the clue
that leads us to Margaret Anne Penitentiary !!
I'm sure they would be able to accommodate a film team over there, these institutions do everything to
have an extra income !
EDIT: Double trouble could also mean that we have to protect or find the target AND get the killer
But I am pretty sure that the 12 letters lead us to both of them

Ian Aloser

PRE-POTENTIAL SOLUTION
Chief,
We need to make phone calls to all eligible places like hotels and institutions and ask them if any bookings were made by a company named INTREPID PICTURES.
Let us focus on Sheldonville first, then MARGARET ANNE PENITENTIARY.
However, they may have booked an acommodation in the surroundings, so check them all !!

heltenjon

#419
Quote from: Ian Aloser on Mon 13/07/2020 22:25:41
PRE-POTENTIAL SOLUTION
Chief,
We need to make phone calls to all eligible places like hotels and institutions and ask them if any bookings were made by a company named INTREPID PICTURES.
Let us focus on Sheldonville first, then MARGARET ANNE PENITENTIARY.
However, they may have booked an acommodation in the surroundings, so check them all !!

...hoping the missing letters don't spell out TENT... :-D

EDIT: Oh, and the murder site mirrors Pet Sematary.

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