One morning, someone found Old George dead in his study. He had been strangled and was lying in a couch, and his music system was playing track number 1.
Detective Mills talked to the three visitors from the evening before. He asked questions to learn more about George’s routines and what had happened that night.
George dealt with a serious sleep disorder. He could only fall asleep while listening to track 187 on his music system. If the track stopped or switched, he woke up right away. That evening, George had put on track 187 before meeting with his visitors.
Sarah, who was his niece and heir, showed up at 9:00 PM. “Uncle George appeared nervous but aware,” she mentioned. “Soft music played in the background. It was that particular song he always used to help him sleep. We talked about family stuff for around half an hour. When I left at 9:30 PM, he was still wide awake and mentioned he had meetings coming up.”
Marcus, who worked as George’s business partner, arrived at 10:00 PM. He was set to inherit all of George’s shares in the company once George passed away. “At first, George seemed uneasy about discussing our ongoing business deals” Marcus said. “But as we talked, he started to feel sleepy and dozed off in his chair sometime around 10:20 PM. I didn’t want to bother him so I moved him to his couch and decided to leave a bit earlier around 10:20 PM, to let him rest .”
Dr. Peterson, who was both George’s doctor and an old friend, showed up at 11 PM. People knew him as George’s rival in love life. He explained, “When I got there, George was already asleep in his couch. I didn’t want to disturb him so I just did a quick medical check. Since I know he relies on music to sleep, I left the music player as it was. Everything seemed fine. I handed Sarah a prescription and left around 11:20 PM.”
Detective Mills discovered something critical. At 10:35 PM, the power had gone out for one minute. When it came back on, all electronic devices reset to default settings.
The detective inspected the scene with care. George’s bottle of pills remained undisturbed on the nightstand. An unsigned business paper rested on the desk. The music system showed “Track 1,” which is default after a power reset.
“The killer made a big mistake,” Mills declared.
Can you figure out who is the killer and what’s that mistake?
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SOLUTION:
Marcus murdered George and then pretended he was asleep. Marcus claimed George fell asleep at 10:20 PM, but the power outage at 10:35 PM would have reset the music system to track 1. This track would have woken George up because of his sleep disorder. Since they found George dead with track 1 still playing, he must have been killed before the outage—while Marcus was there. Dr. Peterson lied to hide his medical negligence. He never examined George and just thought he was asleep (Peterson didn’t know which music George listened to sleep). He left a routine prescription with Sarah to avoid trouble of checking on a patient who had already died, and later lied to hide his negligence to save his license.