Hunt-a-killer: Moon Summit Mystery

And a quick posting…We did finish the Moon Summit Mystery case so I am going to do a quick posting of the rest of the summaries.

Anyway, back to Moon Summit Mystery:

Summary links: Box 1 & Box 2

Here we are with Box 3:

So in box 1 we have determined that poor Toby was indeed murdered with a 5′ knife. Because we are working what we know can call a cold case and because the original investigation stopped at the words “Animal Attack”: we are getting bits and pieces from Ami at the university and what she sends is a bit disorganized and some is even irrelevant. Box 2 had us figure out the route the killer took back to the camp. Apparently, the team planted cameras around their camp so they could catch the mystery Lynx that they were searching for. While the killer knew about the cameras he did get caught on one of them (well his thermal body did). Now we can figure out which person might be the killer. This helps us eliminate suspects.

We have been given access to Michelle’s shared desktop for this assignment, however due to the nature of the case, Michelle will be changing the password every so often:

www.moonsummitcase.net

Password: MSNP17

We also have access to Ami’s school Portal. The website is through the shared desktop:

UN: atakahashi

PW: orcinus92

 

So we have found out there has been a murder, now we have to examine the new evidence we have so far….

 

Thanks to the last 2 boxes(Box 1 & Box 2) we did figure out that there was in fact a murder. We figure out that the murderer used a 5” tactical knife and hide the murder by placing the body infront of a bear cave. The body was scavenged by a grizzly bear.  (Due to the bear tracks around the body and claw marks on the body). We also found out that the killer possibly used the Tall Pines Trail. The killer would have made it back to camp by 11pm without setting off any red flags.

 

Evidence: 

• Video Evidence: Thanks to Ami’s investigation and snooping, she has found more information and has uploaded it to the DeviantTracker. 6 clips from Lillian’s film that contain interviews of the suspects talking about the expedition. 
  • Lillian interview herself infront of Toby and revealed that she doesn’t really like Toby, Nigel & Conrad butt heads often and Emma & Rusty looked like they were getting friendly
  • Emma mentioned that she was getting close to Rusty, didn’t want to talk about her protest past and mentioned disagreements with Toby
  • Rusty didn’t really talk much. Did say that his job was to keep the group safe but a lot of members, Toby & Conrad, wanted to go off on their own. Believed Ricci was practically useless, Conrad knew the most about the forest, Emma was smart, Toby was a danger to himself and everyone else and he had no idea why Lillian was even there.
• Paperwork: She has also included some random paperwork that doesn’t seem to connect to a suspect yet…
  • Postcard found somewhere in camp
  • Untamed Wilderness Safety Protocols leaflet
  • Storyboard drawing (2 pages)
  • A loose page of Toby’s notebook
  • University emails between Ricci & Douglas Plinkly (an official at the school)
  • Wifi & laptop record

 

University Email records:Completed by Dr Nigel Ricci

Email records between Nigel Ricci and a coworker named Douglas Plinkly. They were sent during August 23-24, 2018.  Mentioned some key factors:

1. What Ricci thinks about Conrad
2. Ricci’s University username & password
   1. NRicci & password: “the time we usually have our meetings”
3. Douglas mentioned how the school board would react to them coming back without results.

 

Postcard: Completed by possibly by Conrad, not sure where it was found

Findings: There is a code on the postcard. Not sure what kind of code it is but its actually quite clever. It requires the signal mirror and a compass. Picture unsolved & Picture solved.

Postcard doesn’t actually reveal any pertinent information. Handwriting leads us to believe that it was owned by Conrad.

 

Safety Protocols: Found at camp

Picture here. Original message looks like the footprints of the snowshoe hare. (picture in wildness guide) THe snowshoe hare’s footprints and the message look like it could be a version of the widely used morse code. THe code translate into:

 

..–.-.—.-…  —-..   ..  -.-…-…-   -.—–..-

 

(..)(–.)(-.)(—)(.-.)(.)(.)  (—)(-.)(.)   (..)  (-)(.-.)(..-)(…)(-)   (-.–)(—)(..-)

 

(I)(g)(n)(o)(r)(e)(e) (o)(n)(e) (I) (t)(r)(u)(s)(t) (y)(o)(u)

 

Ignoree one, I trust you

 

Now if you remember this is the same code that was written on the hiking medallion that we received back in box 2. The code written on the back of it is:

 

.-.

(.-.)

(R)

 

Conclusions: The person who wrote the code on the back of the medallion wrote the code on the Protocols. By the decoded letter on the back of the Medallion was written by Rusty, hence the R. Now who he was sending the code? That is a mystery to solve at a latter day, but my money is on Emma. (The extra e?)

 

Storyboard drawing (2 pages): written by Lillian Walker

Written and drawn by Lillian Walker, tells a different story then asked by the University. Shows romantic feelings between Rusty & Emma while also showing conflict between Rusty & Toby. There are even some handwritten notes that matched Toby’s handwriting asked about the direction of the segment and offering help in locating wildlife shots instead.

 

A loose page of Toby’s notebook: written by Toby just a week before death

Records daily thoughts of Toby’s, including his, getting a job from a magazine he wrote to before coming. He was even offered money on any wildlife photos he took in Alaska. He was excited but the person coded (t/1.4), which I believe to be Emma, found out and freaked out on him. She was extremely agitated about Toby selling photos of the Ghost Lynx to the magazine while Toby tried to explain that he wouldn’t give up those photos because of the non-disclosure agreement with the school. (Motive?)

 

Wifi & laptop record:Confirming Ricci’s alibi

The supply lists given to us in box 1 mentioned 6 laptops and 1 wifi modem. The modem doesn’t reach out past the camp. The wifi list shows which laptop was on, when and how long it was on. 

On the night in question:

• DR. Ricci’s laptop was online between 8:23pm – 10:52pm
• Toby’s laptop was also online between 10:47pm – 10:59pm

 

This tells us the Ricci was telling the truth in his original statement when he said he was in the lab tent after he finished eating.

 

Physical Evidence:

 

• Moon Summit Beanie- Blue in color, found in lab tent by Beth Fleming. Written on tag: “teatime2492” (could be password into Ricci’s account)

• Signal Mirror- found .5mil east from Toby’s body. (helps decoded postcard code)

 

 

Virtual Evidence: Reading the email chain we can get Nigel Ricci’s university username. Now we just have to figure out his password. Well the blue beanie found in the lab tent had the phrase “teatime2492” we can definitely try it….

It works: Now we have access to two Whitlock university accounts:

1. Ami’s: UN: atakahashi   PW: orcinus92
2. Ricci’s UN: NRicci           PW: teatime2492

 

Once you have access to Ricci’s portal, the only documents available are 3 pages of code notes and an article. The code notes were Ricci’s attempts (failed) to decode writing he found on an early version of Conrad’s dissertation. This code in fact looks just like the code on the postcard. (If ur doubtful, you can see that Ricci tried other methods to break the code and failed) so applying the postcard decoding method:

 

BWC IBWXAZ SKWWE

VG CZVG PKWBA

CZI AZWGC JHBL ZVG CW UI KIYJ

 

Not enough proof

Is this wrong

The Ghost Lynx has to be real

 

The article is a interview with Conrad for Whitlock. It was conducted in 1992, right after his dissertation was released. He goes in detail about the Ghost Lynx and his desire to find it again.

 

Conclusions: 

The goal of this box was to eliminate a suspect…That suspect is:

• Nigel Ricci: 
  • The Wifi log confirms his laptop was in use during the time of the murder and since the laptop can’t be taken out of the camp without losing wifi and he submitted the weekly report during the same time period. We can confirm he was at the camp.

 

Don’t forget to complete your assignment from Michelle. It is located on the desktop. Hopefully Ami will be able to send us more info so we can solve this once for all.