How to solve any murder within 24 hours (or your 0$ you paid for this guide back!) and also the DREADED codebreaker trick
Forward From The Writer
[THIS GUIDE ASSUMES YOU PLAYED THE TUTORIAL AND HAVE A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONTROLS OF THIS GAME. IF YOU DIDN”T, MAYBE CONSIDER THAT BEFORE YOU DEFAULT TO GAME GUIDES.[/b]
Alright so you’ve got a body and you don’t know what to do now. Here’s how to solve the murder within 24 hours, usually.
WARNING: This is a very formulaic guide to how to chase down every lead that I know of patched together from several other guides. This is not for those who like to learn this on their own pace. This guide does not promise to help you get 5/5 on every murder, it only explains a way I’ve found to find a perp quickly before they kill again. This guide also really makes the more scripted motive-based murders less fun so I’d only use this with caution there.
For this guide you will need a codebreaker (get it from city hall vending machines. If you didn’t know that, you may need more advanced help than this guide provides). This is pretty non-negotiable if you’re lazy like me but if you want you can break into people’s homes and find codes to work/government computers that way. It’s just a massive time sink that I don’t bother trying when I could be better spending my time doing warantless government database searches of the dead guy’s entire contact list.
PROLOGUE:THE CODEBREAKER TRICK
So if you put a codebreaker on, wait for only a few seconds, take it off, then put it back on again, and repeat, you will unlock the safe/computer you’re working on, and usually won’t lose the codebreaker doing it. This is almost certainly a bug but for now, with a no skill method, you can hack any electronic door/safe/computer unlimited times with the codebreaker. I’m going to assume you’re doing that instead of buying new codebreakers like a sap.
PART I: WHERE DID THEY DIE?
Ok so you’ve got a notification that someone died. BOOK IT THERE AS FAST AS YOU CAN. Time is of the essence, especially if they died on the street.
They died on the street: Ok good for you! This makes it very easy as you don’t have to trespass to solve the murder. Start asking anyone nearby the crime scene if they saw anything suspicious. Do this quickly before those people go on with their lives and you lose them forever. Don’t forget to ask shopkeepers of nearby businesses as well, they may have seen or heard something. Also, a lot of this guide assumes they died in an apartment, so feel free to skim those parts if you don’t care. Besides, they should have an ID On
In an apartment: Unlucky, but what happens 75% of the time. Chances are, you won’t beat the Coca Cola Cops there, and if you do, not by much. Knock on the door. If a civilian answers, ask them if you can come in. Chances are they won’t let you without making you pay them, so you decide how much money its worth for you to go about inspecting the crime scene completely unbothered. If a cop answers the door, close it in their face, walk to the nearest seat, and wait about an hour. Go back to the apartment and you should see the cops leaving and putting up some crime scene tape. Once you see them do that, just walk right in and close the door. They won’t react fast enough to ‘spot’ you and once they’re in crime scene tape mode, they do not come back to the apartment, so you only risk discovery by any returning domestic partners.
PART II: THE CRIME SCENE, MEETING MR/MRS. DEAD GUY, THE MURDER WEAPON, AND THE SEARCH FOR PRINTS
Alright so we finally get to the exciting part: The dead guy.
Search the dead guy. They should have some ID on them. If they don’t you need to search them anyways since you need to establish cause and time of death. When those two things pop up, I would pin them to your crime board, as they are things I tend to forget and need to remember later. YOU ESPECIALLY SHOULD PIN CAUSE OF DEATH, AS THIS REALLY INFORMS HOW YOU APPROACH THE REST OF THE CASE.
Now get out your print scanner and try to point it at the dead guy’s hands. Have fun getting really frustrated with this because it’s very finicky. Now go around the apartment and scan tabletops, drawers, and the safe. These should give you the prints of the victim, and if there are any other common prints you get, it is probably their domestic partner. This is important to sort these out as you need to be able to tell the murderer’s prints from their domestic partner. Unless they’re the same person, which can happen.
Now go find out where the victim worked. The easiest/most consistent way to do this is by going to the closet in their bedroom and searching the box with all their personal documents on the floor of the closet. This is also a very convenient way to find out if they have a domestic partner who isn’t home, and where their domestic partner works. Pin the workplace address of your victim and their spouse to your crime board, you almost certainly will be needing them later.
Ok so you’ve searched the dead guy and found his cause of death, and learned most of what’s worth knowing about him. If you’re lucky, the murderer is a moron and they left the murder weapon at or near the crime scene (e.g. victim died of blunt force trauma and there is a mysterious hammer lying on the floor in the immediate vicinity) if this is the case, scan this thing for prints, and you’ve just won half the battle right there.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DONT FORGET TO PIN THE PERP’S FINGERPRINTS, THE WHOLE REST OF THE GUIDE HINGES ON YOU DOING THAT. IF YOU CAN’T FIND ANY FINGERPRINTS AND YOU TRIED REALLY REALLY HARD, PROCEED DIRECTLY TO EDGE CASES FOR TAILORED ADVICE
More often then not, you won’t find the murder weapon at the crime scene. This is frankly preferable at times, as usually the perp will be carrying the murder weapon on their person, which is a nice way to check your work before y ou book them. ALSO DON’T FORGET TO PIN THE MURDER WEAPON TO YOUR BOARD WHEN YOU FIND IT. YOU WILL BE NEEDING THAT WHEN YOU FILL IN YOUR REPORT.
If you’re really lucky, the murderer might have used lipstick to draw a message on a nearby wall taunting the police. If you find any lipstick nearby the crime scene, scan it for prints, but be careful as I’ve been burned before on lipstick that just happened to be next to a crime scene and it was the victim’s spouse.
Chances are you aren’t so lucky, BUT your murderer is still a moron. Check the crime scene for anything out of place. This can be ANYTHING, from a weird note taunting the police to a toy race car in one case I found. Good news your killer is still a moron. Scan this weird note/spoiler thing for prints and you’ve got everything you need in terms of prints.
PART III: LEAVING THE CRIME SCENE, FINDING THE SECURITY CAMERA
Before you leave the apartment, check by the victim’s phone for an address book, pin that to your crime board. If things get REAL desperate, you might need it, which happens more often than you’d like if you’re trying to solve this before they kill again.
Now for the singular most obnoxious part of this guide. You won’t like doing this but you’ll regret not doing it more.
Despite this being a dystopian sci-fi 80s, CCTVs sure seem to be on par with the quality of the Spongebob Soulja Boy style of 90s CCTV cameras.
BRIEF STREET INTERLUDE: If your victim died on the street, look for the nearest metal box that looks like this:
Pick it open and you’re good to go. Just a warning: CCTV cameras on the street are placed psychopathically but they still pick everything up somehow, so you’ll be relying on conjecture and the bar at the bottom of the screen that show you who is techncally in view of the CCTV at each frame. Go back at least an hour before the time of death. Look for the victim, who will be there for hours (Gee, they sure don’t seem to move much once they get in frame. I wonder why?) Pin anyone who is in frame with your victim from an hour before to the end of the time of death range, and go ask around about those faces until people give you some names. Once you get to that point: go to ‘L’État, C’est Moi’ for what you my wish to try next.
BACK TO THE APARTMENT: So now you get the enviable tax of looking at every door in this apartment complex. Look for a door that looks like this:
It will probably not be on the ground floor. Any doors you can see like this on the ground floor are probably management offices of adjoining businesses and should be viewed with suspicion. You could technically try to find this office using your map, but its easier to just walk every floor until you find it.
This office is obnoxious for another set of reason: It is, of course, illegal for you to be there, looking at CCTV footage is a time consuming process, and both the janitor and a security guard frequent it. You might be tempted to just knock out whoever is in there but I wouldn’t bother. Reviewing the CCTV footage will take a while, and they usually wake up before you’re done. Instead find the nearest bench and wait it out until they leave.
Now I assume you’ve been using the codebreaker trick I taught you and still have your codebreaker. if not, return to the prologue. Now use your codebreaker to hack into the admin account of the computer. Review the CCTV footage from an hour before the victim’s time of death (boy I sure hope you pinned that) to the end of the time frame. Try to ignore the fact the apartment door is covered in crime scene tape even before the murder, even though it almost provides a dramatic and tragic atmosphere to the whole thing. The one time I caught a perp using this method, they stood in front of the victim’s door for like an hour before going in and atomizing the dead guy with a shotgun, so I hope it’s that obvious for you.
If you get someone fishy, you gotta do some legwork now, Knock on doors around the apartment complex and ask if they know the fishy person. If they say they saw them on the street anytime that isn’t within the last hour, ignore them, that’s useless. If they say they saw the fishy person in a place of business or other apartment complex, consider going there. Those leads tend to be more promising.
Once you get a name to go with the face, proceed to ‘L’État, C’est Moi’ for more information on what to try next.
Chances are though, that the CCTV didn’t catch anything. If that’s the case, proceed on to the next section, where we cover the best way to really narrow down your suspect list,
PART IV:PARIS GREEN AND YOU: YOUR GUIDE TO SALES LEDGERS.
“Paris green (copper(II) acetate triarsenite or copper(II) acetoarsenite) is an arsenic-based organic pigment. As a green pigment it is also known as Schweinfurt green, emerald or Vienna green. It is a highly toxic emerald-green crystalline powder[4] that has been used as a rodenticide and insecticide,[5] and also as a pigment”-Wikipedia
So I hope you pinned the cause of death like I told you to. Here’s where to look for each that I know of:
Killed by gun: Pawn shop, arms dealer, black market
Killed by poison/syringe: pawn shop, pharmacy
Killed by hammer: Hardware store
Killed by edged weapon: Lol sorry buddy you’re SOL I got no clue.
Break into the back room of the businesses mentioned and look for their sales ledger (with the exception of the black market, they keep their ledger on their counter in my limited experience). Pin the whole sales ledger just to be safe, and once you’re at the next part, single out anyone in the ledger who bought something that could have killed the dead guy.
Now for you to meet your idol, your golden god, the altar at which you, the detective, worship: THE STATE
Part V:’L’ÉTAT, C’EST MOI’
Congrats meet your new HQ.
I hope you still have that codebreaker. If you don’t I am at this point forced to respect you in your stubbornness regarding not reading the prologue, but at least it isn’t a long walk to buy a new one.
Hack into the computer. Congrats! You now have access to the literal most powerful tool in the game.
Go to the government database. Start entering the names of anyone who bought anything that could have murdered the dead guy. The government database has a wealth of information on people, but it has a few things that are very valuable to you. Name, Picture, Address, and best of all fingerprints. Once you enter a name, click on their name so its highlighted and print it. Take the printed ticket. Check your case board. If you just printed off the name of the perp, the fingerprint of the murderer you got from the crime scene will update, showing their name under the fingerprint. Congrats, you’ve found your murderer! Proceed to Part 7: BOOK ‘EM DANNO.
But if that didn’t work: don’t worry you’ve still got your fallback. Get out that address book that you got from the dead guy’s apartment. Put in EVERY SINGLE NAME until you get a fingerprint match.
Now if you’re still reading this, I assume you didn’t get lucky. If so, there’s one more Hail Mary Pass you can try before it’s time to consider ragequitting my guide and finding another one.
PART VI: THE WORKPLACE SAFETY GUN: HOW TO END THE MOST SERIOUS WORKPLACE DISPUTES
And who do you have to interact with every day that you hate? That’s right, your coworkers!
Go to where the victim and their domestic partner work. Break into the backroom and look for some employee files in the drawers, flip through them all, then check your case. Employee files have fingerprints, so chances are you’ll find your perp at this step if you haven’t already. If you do, congrats! Proceed to Part VII.
If you don’t, I give you full permission to leave my guide and find more targeted help, which is what you probably need at this point anyways.
Part VII: BOOK ‘EM DANNO
My favorite way: if the suspect is at home, knock on the door. Wait for them to unlock the door, confirm its the suspect, and close the door in their face. Quickly back up to the other side of the hall, sprint towards the suspect’s door, and right click on the door before you run into it to shoulder check the unlocked door into their face, knocking them out and sending them flying. Now book them as they nurse their TBI.
A tip: If the suspect is at work in a group of people and you don’t want to play the long game, equip the coins you always have on your person and flick one into their head. This makes anyone you do it to homicidally angry while also not bothering anyone else in the vicinity. Lead the suspect to a secluded area away from others, and feel free to engage them at your leisure now that all of their coworkers won’t jump in to defend them.
A warning: If the suspect killed the dead guy with a shotgun, proceed with extreme caution. They can one-hit KO you so it’s best to sneak up behind them in a crouch and cuff them (protip-you can also pickpocket people this way, great way to find out who gave you a side job sometimes) or, at the very least, bring a sword or combat knife (bought from pawn shops) as those weapons give you enough damage that you might survive an encounter if you knock them out fast enough.
As they lay sprawled on the floor, search them. They will probably have the murder weapon on them if you didn’t find it already, which you should pin. Finally, it’s time to cuff them
FINAL: EDGE CASES
DO NOT PANIC, THIS IS STILL SALVAGEABLE, IF NOT IDEAL.
Get the victim’s address book and pin it. Before you leave, check the ground for footprints using the print scanner. I saved this for this section as its a real gamble: you’re just as likely to get the victim’s partner or a Coca Cola Cop who spent an hour rolling around in the evidence for fun before letting you finally sneak in as you are to get the foot size of the actual killer. Check the CCTV to see if you get lucky (I did the one time this happened to me). Go to the stores where one can obtain the murder weapons and check the sales ledgers and pin them. Go to the workplace of the victim and their partner. See if you can find any names on the sales ledgers who bought a plausible weapon/ammo who are also coworkers or in the address book. These are your prime suspects.
Thanks to Perplexus for his excellent guide, all credits belong to his effort. if this guide helps you, please support and rate it via Steam Community. enjoy the game.
Related Posts:
- Shadows of Doubt: 10 Things You Should Know Before Playing
- Shadows of Doubt: How to Find Illegal Businesses
- Shadows of Doubt: All Job Titles and Salaries
- Shadows of Doubt: How to Solve Any Job
- Shadows of Doubt: How to Survive the Mean Streets
