WHO KILLED CARL JENKINS?

Okay, Mystery Sleuths, here’s your case. For purposes of clarity, I’ll be using Jessie Kensington and Zach Gerard as my detectives. Don’t forget to add your comments at the bottom by clicking on the pencil and tell me who you think the killer is and why you think that person did it. The winner will be the person who has the strongest case and will receive an autographed copy of Deadly Obsessions. I know who the killer is, but if your idea is better than reality, you might just turn out to be the winner.

A call to a 911 dispatcher by the wife of a popular teacher at 2:00 o’clock in the morning is received. The victim is Carl Jenkins, a unique English teacher from the local high school who is known for teaching his students grammatical rules by writing them into a song to help them remember them.

The wife is still in her nightgown and bathrobe when Gerard and Jessie arrive. Both garments are covered in blood, as is her face, arms and hands. Wife claims she was awakened when she heard yelling in the spare bedroom where her husband was sleeping off his inebriated state after being out at a karaoke bar.  Asked about the state of their marriage, she says they have a good marriage and love each other.

Wife doesn’t understand why anyone would do this to her husband when everyone loved him. When asked how she became so covered in blood, she said she held her husband in her arms when she found him.

Locked in the bedroom where the body is located is the owner’s large dog who is barking because of the commotion in the house. Jessie goes into the room and tries to calm the dog down, but he’s ready to attack her. She rushes out.

Back at the precinct, the pair learn they found fingerprints that match a teenager, whose prints have been found at other homes throughout the city where ‘the creeper’ was written on the wall. They learn ‘The Creeper’ is a game the kids play by sneaking into a house for the thrill of it and stealing a souvenir to prove they were there. The fingerprints lead them to Willie Gaffes. Also during their search, they learn that Tom Peno is Willie’s best friend and they want to talk to him too.

Gerard and Jessie leave to question Willie and find out he’s at a band party, where they head over to only to find out the party which was intended to be a celebration has turned into a grieving session after the students learn about the teacher’s death. Walking around, Jessie questions at random asking for Willie, but runs into Tom instead. Jessie asks if the victim was his teacher and he tells her he was not, but he knows him from the park where they used to walk their dogs. He confirms he and Willie are best friends. Jessie notices he’s nervous and calls him on it. He says he’s just upset about the teacher. He points them to where Willie is, but as they’re walking toward Willie, he happens to approach them first. He offers them information about being at the park near the teacher’s home the night he was killed and claims he saw a black van that took off like a shot causing him to jam on his breaks. He didn’t have a license plate number for them nor the name of who it might belong to, but claims the driver was Russian. When asked how he knows that, he says, he looked like a Russian. Willie then asks if he’ll get a reward for his information. Detectives tell him to write down his name and address and label it ‘reward’ because if it pans out, he will get money. They also ask about ‘The Creeper’ game and he denies knowing anything about it.

Zach thinks he’s guilty, but Jessie says Willie’s a ‘stoner’, not a killer, and wants to question Tom. They leave for Tom’s house and while Jessie and Zach are talking to the parents, Tom walks in. He tells them Willie was inside the teacher’s home that night and he really thinks Willie killed him.

The team does a search at Willie’s house and they find a trophy with blood on it under his bed. They head to the school to arrest him and he’s taken into custody.

Searching the wife’s financials, they come upon a check that was paid to a Nikolay Antiopiv, a Russian immigrant, and asks the wife about him. She claims he works at her job and they’ve become friends. Jessie picks up on her nervousness and asks her how long she’s been sleeping with him? The wife denies it at first, but ultimately tells them she and Nikolay were having sex while her husband was being killed. She reiterates that she really does love her husband.

Nikolay Antiopiv: When questioned, he tells the detectives they’ve been having an affair ever since he began working at the shop where she works, six months earlier.  He’s only in the US on a visa, although he’d love to remain in New York forever.

While Jess and Zach are at a baseball game, there’s a dog tied to the fence and he’s barking which has her thinking about the victim’s dog and how much he barked at her, but the wife told her she didn’t hear the dog barking that night.  

 

NOW, it’s your turn. Who killed Carl Jenkins? The wife who’s cheating on her husband; the Russian, who wants to remain in the United States; Willie, whose fingerprints are on the windowpane, or Tom? Or did someone else come into the home?