GUMSHOE System

The Stir Crazy Killing - The Mutant City Blues Competition

Colleague Statements

Medical Examiner

The light is your murder weapon

The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the skull. The vic may have died instantly, before exsanguination. Traces of tissue on the sharp corner of the light indicate that it caused the wound. Wound shape is consistent with the shape of the fixture.


Evidence Specialist

A mutant power?

The bracket holding the light to the grid has been bent out of shape. I’ll have to do a stress test back in the lab to be sure, but I’m thinking it was wrenched quickly, with a high degree of force. This was not normal wear and tear. You can rule out negligence, too: it was well secured. Something brought that light down.

We found a pair of white sneakers stuffed behind an equipment case, in a quasi-backstage area of the set-in a blind spot between cameras. They’ve been crudely swabbed down but still have apparent bloodstains on them. I’ve turned them over to Doc Jensen; he’ll run a DNA match to confirm that the blood is that of the victim. The sneakers match those seen on Michael Hayes in footage from prior shows. We don’t have footage of him wearing them today, though.

Computer Specialist

Maybe some techhead

When the room plunged into darkness, the software controlling the camera system reacted as if to a catastrophic computer failure. It shut down the program and rebooted, which in my personal opinion is big screw-up on part of programmer. We not only lack footage of what was happening in the room where the killing occurred. We have no video on hard drives for approximately three minutes prior or three minutes subsequent to lights going out.

This is what tapes tell us regarding where everybody was. Before lights go out, Michael Hayes is in kitchen, Joy Huerta and Jarrod Udy are in their separate bedrooms, Eryssa Henry is in rec area, and Betsy Kelman is in sauna. When lights go back on, all still are in the same rooms, except Betsy Kelman, who is in vestibule leading to bathroom area, and Michael Hayes, who sometime in interim has come into rec area to offer Eryssa Henry a pineapple smoothie he has made.

As soon as footage resumes, we see otherwise empty empty laundry room with body of victim in it. Four minutes later, Betsy Kelman, after going to her room to dress, enters laundry room with basket containing bath towels, discovering corpse. She screams, bringing others from their rooms into the laundry area. All of them react to body as if surprised and upset, except Jarrod Udy, who seems not so much bothered. Most upset seeming is Michael Hayes.

Uniformed Officer’s Statement

Frakkin chromes

We got preliminary interviews from everyone who was in the studio at the time of the murder. The studio is locked and alarmed to stop participants from getting in or out for the duration of the show. They’ve been in here for eight weeks. The vic, the producer on the show, was locked in along with them the whole time. He’s the only member of the crew who has access to the set while filming is going on. All the cameras, sound equipment and so on work remotely. A crew on the other side of the building watches the footage, edits it, and does all the stuff to get it on TV every week. If you watch the show you never see this producer guy. On rare occasions you hear his off-camera voice. But they were supposed to pretend he wasn’t there.

We have witness statements from the following people: contestants Michael Hayes, Eryssa Henry, Joy Huerta, Betsy Kelman, Megan Miller and Jarrod Udy, and the co-executive producer, Amber Maser.

One big problem: although all the contestants supposedly are supposedly chromes-uh, pardon me, I mean gene expressives-none of them are willing to say what their powers are, if they weren’t already revealed yet in the episodes that have aired so far. They all signed whaddaya call, non-disclosure agreements, promising not to reveal their powers until the show says they can. They think that the show will go on and afraid they’ll get disqualified for the million dollar prize money.

We also got a list of people who were on the show but got booted off. Cherie Hallier, 21, Reno, Nevada; Todd Franks, 25, Medford, Oregon; Patrick Knight, 37, Northfield, Minnesota; Zane Waterland, 30, Kimball, MN; Selene Beard, 26, Ponca City, Oklahoma; Liam Cowper, 28, Beverly Hills, California; Kerr Dale, 27, Chicago, Single, Model, and Edie Mihalka, 20, Tarzana, CA, Single, Pro Basketball Player. We haven’t talked to them, since they’re not here. They’ve all gone back to their home towns.