Lights Out on Broadway

Alcatraz cellhouse · a foggy night tour · the letter about the 1962 escape is gone · Difficulty: Detective 6 · 9×9

Foggy October night on Alcatraz: the old prison island, “the Rock”, is a museum now, and this is the last night tour of the season. The lights go out for the lights-out demonstration, and when they come back on, Vinny, the treasure hunter, is dead. The letter that was to prove the fate of the 1962 escapees is missing. The last boat waits at the dock; nobody may leave until it is clear who did it.

Rules

1. Exactly two people were lying on a bed.
2. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
3. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the bookcase, the desk, the toilets, the staircase, the sinks, the clock, the tables, the console, the dummy head, the air vent and the locker) cannot be occupied; the beds and the benches can.
4. Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “exactly one row north of him was a woman” = the person in the row directly above is a woman, in any column.
5. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Alec (night custodian): He was in the Dining Hall.
• Betsy (volunteer guide): Somebody else in her area was beside the clock.
• Cooper (park ranger): A bench was somewhere in his row. A bed was somewhere in his row.
• Dawson (photographer): Of the people in his area, exactly one was a woman.
• Erin (true-crime podcaster): Exactly one row south of her was a woman.
• Faith (sound recordist): She was lying on a bed. She was not beside a sink.
• Geraldine (a former guard's granddaughter): She was in the Library.
• Herbert (prison historian): He was not beside a bed. The locker was somewhere in his row.
• Vinny (treasure hunter): The victim. He was found in B Block, beside the dummy head – alone with the murderer.

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