Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Salmon Farm

Salmon farm on a fjord · the night before the harvest · the pens were full and the manager was gone · Difficulty: Inspector 8 · 9×9

The salmon farm lies on a fjord two hours north of Bergen; nobody sleeps the night before the catch. At three in the morning the feed barge still ran and the lab light burned, but Vigdis, the farm manager, was nowhere to be found. Nine people were on the farm: three farm hands, the vet, the bookkeeper, the lab technician, a buyer and the inspector. Vigdis was found dead. The catch never happened.

Rules

  1. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
  2. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the bollard, the crates, the beached dinghy, the lifebuoy, the winch, the barrels, the desk, the scales, the sinks, the microscope, the cabinet, the shelf, the stove, the table, the forklift and the tree) cannot be occupied; the benches, the stools, the chairs, the bed and the armchair can.
  3. 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 was a woman, in any column; “the northernmost person in her area” = nobody else in her area was in a row further up.
  4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area. The victim made no statement – her square, too, follows from the others’.

Statements

  • Astrid (feeder): She was the only one beside a crate.
  • Bjørn (the diver): Exactly one row north of him was a female farm hand. A bench was somewhere in his column.
  • Cecilie (boat skipper): Made no statement.
  • Dag (the fish-health vet): He was the only man beside the cabinet. He was the easternmost person in his area.
  • Eirik (the bookkeeper): He was the only one beside the desk.
  • Frida (the lab technician): She was not in a corner of her area. She was the southernmost person in her area.
  • Gunnar (buyer from Bergen): He was the only one beside the armchair.
  • Hege (inspector, Directorate of Fisheries): She was alone in her area. The forklift was somewhere in her area.
  • Vigdis (the farm manager): The victim. She was alone with the murderer.

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