Aug 27, 2022
Time for the new puzzler! We had a mechanic named crusty about a police detective that was summoned to the scene of a crime. This crime took place in a locked gymnasium. A very large room, maybe 200 feet by 200 feet. The room was locked and deadbolted from the inside.
In the room is the victim who has been hanged by a rope hanging from the middle of the room. And there's no way for him to have gotten there because he is dangling with his feet about three feet from the floor. It's a rope hanging from the middle of the ceiling, in the middle of the room about 50 or 100 feet from any of the walls.
So the police detective, Lieutenant Columbo, was summoned to the scene of the crime of course they have to break the door. And this took place during Spring Break, so nobody was there. The students all come back after Spring Break, and they see this guy hanging from the ceiling.
I might add that in addition to the person, the victim, and the rope, the only other thing in the room? Three basketballs.
So, the dead guy hanging from the rope, the only other thing in the room, three basketballs.
The police detective comes in. He looks around and says, "This is suicide."
How did he know? And how was it done? Good luck!
Okay, the one with the detective and the gymnasium and the basketballs! Dead guy in the middle of the room and he's dangling like three feet from the floor and the only other things in the room are three basketballs. So the police detective comes in, looks around, and says, "Suicide."
How did he know? Here's the answer.
The basketballs were a red herring. They have nothing to do with the crime or the solution to this puzzler. We like to be sneaky like that sometimes.
Since the room was deadbolted from the inside on all the doors, it was obvious to the detective that whoever killed the man was still in the room. And since there was no one else in the room, the man had to have killed himself. And the way the man did it is he brought in a huge block of ice on which he stood and put the noose around his neck. He hanged himself when the ice melted and the water evaporated over Spring Break leaving no trace of the ice block.
I'm surprised that he didn't get cold feet all that time! Ha!
