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North East Somerset Police Service

Turning the Page on Crime in Partnership with The B&NES Beacon

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Department:
Exceptional Cases

CRIME:
MURDER

Case Officer:
Detective Inspector

Permission:
Public view

CASE IDENTIFIER: 42/7A/LIBRARY AKA:

Murder Mystery: Body in the (mobile) Library

The Case
The Case

We’ve got a case here as twisty as an acrobatic snake. We need your help.

Yesterday morning a young Librarian was murdered on the Mobile Library. If you put it in a book no-one would believe it! Poisoned, no less. Unfortunately, our poisons expert is currently away on a rare-frog spotting holiday in the Amazon, so we don’t yet know how the poison got into the Librarian’s system – it could have been swallowed, inhaled, or even sprayed onto his skin.

My people have been under every stone and turned every page in the place, and we’ve narrowed it down to 6 Suspects. A rum bunch they are too, more rum than a shipful of pirates. Now we need you to go through the evidence and find out which one of them committed the crime!

Good Luck!

Use the tabs to view the files on the victim and the suspects, hidden within are the clues you need to work out who committed murder! (And who didn’t.) For a conviction, we need to know: who the murderer is, and what their motive was.

Apparently it’s National Crime Reading Month, so the Library has also put together a list of recommended reads containing Historical, Cosy, and Classic Crime, as well as their favourite modern fiction. If you like that sort of thing.

the victim
the victim
silhouette of man

Name: Ashley ‘Ash’ Ashwell

Age: 22

Family: Father is a songwriter/musician who used to manage rock stars. Most famous client was Sykes in the 1990s.

Qualifications: Degree in Library and Information Studies (Police Note: finished of top of class)

Job: Mobile Library Librarian (Police Note: got the job 11 months ago against fierce competition, including several of his university classmates)

Hobbies: Enjoys collaging, particularly using newspaper and magazine cuttings.

Health: Asthma (Police Note: regularly lets his inhaler run out).  Has been on a health kick since Christmas and is now teetotal (Police Note: but still enjoys an occasional slice of cake).

Police Record: Was brought in for questioning in a case of crop damage in 2022, but released without charge

the suspects
the suspects

Click a suspect to see their file

silhouette of a man with guitar with Sykes underneath
silhouette of a woman sat with camera with Verity Vantini underneath
silhouette of a woman with Mrs Chorlton underneath
silhouette of a man with Silas Small underneath
silhouette of a man with Dion DeTamble underneath
silhouette of a woman with Bibi Butler underneath
the timeline
the timeline

09:15

The Victim – Ashley ‘Ash’ Ashwell – and the Driver, Sal, leave the depot in the Mobile Library.

09:44

Mobile Library arrives in Keynsham.

10.00

Sykes Public Appearance. Press and all other people are kept outside the Mobile due to space. Only Ash and Sykes onboard.

10:19

Verity Vantini arrives as the press are leaving.

10:24

Sykes gets off the Mobile Library.

10:30

Verity Vantini gets off the Mobile and Ash and Sal depart Keynsham.

10:58

The Mobile Library arrives in Midsomer Norton. Mrs Chorlton is waiting and gets straight on.

11:14

Silas Small gets on the Mobile Library.

11:22

Mrs Chorlton gets off the Mobile.

11:28

Silas Small gets off the Mobile.

11:36

Ash and Sal depart Midsomer Norton.

12:16

The Mobile Library arrives in Bath.

12:32

Both Dion DeTamble and Bibi Butler get on around the same time.

12:43

Dion DeTamble gets off the Mobile Library.

12:50

Bibi Butler gets off the Mobile Library.

13:00

The Mobile Library departs Bath and drives straight back to the depot for lunch.

13:37

The Mobile Library arrives at the depot and when Sal opens the door she finds the body of the Ash on the floor – dead.

The Solution

Think you know whodunnit?

Welcome, all of you. I’ve gathered you, all six suspects in this case, back on the Mobile Library – the scene of the crime. I’ve been through all the evidence and I’ve pieced it all together. All of you had a motive, all of you had a possible chance, but only one of you managed to take it!

I know who murdered the Librarian, Ashley ‘Ash’ Ashwell!

Click on a suspect to read my thoughts…

silhouette of a woman with Bibi Butler underneath
silhouette of a man with Dion DeTamble underneath
silhouette of a man with Silas Small underneath
silhouette of a woman with Mrs Chorlton underneath
silhouette of a woman sat with camera with Verity Vantini underneath
silhouette of a man with guitar with Sykes underneath
Downloads
Downloads

Click an image to download the physical files to print at home: for best results print on A4 paper, two-sided on the short edge, then fold in half. You can download everything in one file here.

The case file
silhouette of a man with guitar with Sykes underneath
silhouette of a woman sat with camera with Verity Vantini underneath
silhouette of a woman with Mrs Chorlton underneath
silhouette of a man with Silas Small underneath
silhouette of a man with Dion DeTamble underneath
silhouette of a woman with Bibi Butler underneath

Bibi Butler

Where did it all go wrong for you, Bibi Butler? A Financial Advisor mired in debt, your company going under, your personal finances in array. You were desperate for MONEY! And then you found out that Sykes was giving the Mobile Library £10,000 in cash and you saw a lifeline! You figured out that the money would be in a safe on the Mobile and your only obstacle was getting the key off the Librarian! When he had an asthma attack, that was your chance, you could have given him anything in that inhaler.

But you didn’t. Sal the Driver told us that you heard her tell Ash that the money had been banked, so the safe was empty before you even had the chance to try and steal the key. You had no reason to hurt Ash after that. And we have no evidence to suggest your inhaler was anything other than a normal asthma inhaler. You were doing a good turn in helping him, the same as you’ve done a good turn by helping all the donkeys in Sunshine Sanctuary, bankrupting yourself and your company in the process.

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

Dion DeTamble

You had history with Ash. You started Librarian training together at university and studied together for years. You were friends. You even got accused of creating crop circles together, charges which you both denied. But while Ash excelled at his studies and passed his final exams top of the class, you failed and had to repeat a year. What’s more, you both went for the same job – your dream job as Mobile Librarian – and again, where you failed, he succeeded. Now you’re on the verge of failing your course for a second time, and the final straw was your tutor telling you to use Ash’s work as an example of excellence. Consumed by JEALOUSY, you’ve turned your studies to researching poisons, and you gave Ash a deadly concoction hidden in a bottle of beer!

What you didn’t know, because you haven’t spoken to Ash in nearly a year, is that he’s now teetotal – he’s sworn off all alcohol and would never have drunk the beer that you gave him. We know that from the Case File. So even though you tried...

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

Silas Small

You also had history with Ash – he, along with Dion DeTamble, is one of the students you accused of making crop circles in your fields. Those crop circles have cost you thousands of pounds over the years, and when the police failed to charge them you swore REVENGE, no matter how long it took. Mrs Chorlton said that she told you a week ago that one of those students was now working on the Mobile Library. We know you have access to toxic chemicals through pesticides, and Sal the Driver saw you with Ash’s thermos of tea on the day he was killed.

But Mrs Chorlton also told us that you’ve had an ‘experience with little green men’ since then, and you were found last summer with memory loss and strange marks on your skin. You’ve been reading up on it and you now think you were abducted by aliens – you don’t blame the students anymore. Even if that weren’t the case, Mrs Chorlton saw that you never even managed to get the thermos open because it was stuck fast, so you couldn’t have put any poison inside.

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

Verity Vantini

The modern success. You’ve built a whole brand around your children and you make good money and get a lot of freebies from your social media presence. But you, madam, are a liar! The children you use are not yours, but different children you’re babysitting, cleverly disguised to look roughly the same. Ash recognised you from babysitting his little sister – he knew you were lying and he was about to call you out on your shameful secret, which would have ruined you and your REPUTATION for good! Then you pushed your way onto the Mobile and sprayed him all over with some noxious liquid on the day he died!

But we have no evidence that you knew Ash had seen through your lies. Or that you know anything about poisons. And it wasn’t only Ash you sprayed from that bottle, Sykes told us you covered him in it, as well as his PA and everyone else, and nobody else died. Therefore...

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

Mrs Chorlton

Our harmless little old lady, Mrs Chorlton. You’re the only suspect who had no reason to want Ash dead – but you nearly murdered him anyway – by accident! You were about to be ousted as Chair of the Bakers Dozen baking group after over 20 years of POWER, and you didn’t like that at all. So, using your in-depth knowledge of poisonous plants, all grown in your own garden, you laced a ginger cake with a deadly ingredient.

But you also made a non-poisoned ginger cake for the Librarian and Driver of the Mobile Library, and when you handed it over you got the cake tins muddled up. A near fatal mistake! But Sal the Driver told us that you realised your mistake and came back just in time! Neither of them ate the cake, so, on this occasion...

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

Sykes

Which brings me – finally – to you, Sykes! You were being BLACKMAILED! You didn’t write Oktober (Revolution) – your reading matter shows us that you’re only just starting to learn guitar, and your blackmailer suggests that the real writer was your old manager. But you’ve made a fortune from that song and lived off it ever since – if that secret was revealed you’d lose everything. You’d already paid the blackmailer some money, and they were back for more, so you had to stop them once and for all!

Then you saw a picture taken in the run up to your publicity stunt on the Mobile – a picture showing cut up letters, just like the ones used on the blackmail demand. You realised the Mobile Librarian was the son of your old manager and you put two and two together and came up with seven!

You know about poisons from helping your dad with his pest control job when you were a teenager. Verity Vantini saw you acting suspiciously with a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne and two glasses. Sal the Driver told us that you gave Ash a glass of champagne and made very sure that he drank every last drop! It was a slow working poison – you knew it wouldn’t take effect for hours and you figured you would be long gone and nobody could suspect you of administering it. But you didn’t count on me, Sykes, or should I say Derek Dodds.

YOU ARE THE MURDERER!

Detective Inspector's Note:

The real blackmailer was Bibi Butler – Dion DeTamble saw the cut up letters falling out of her handbag, Ash was just doing some collaging on the Mobile. Sykes’ money was actually helping fund the Sunshine Sanctuary for Needy Donkeys, and they were very grateful. I have advised my superiors that we should not take that matter any further.

Police Note:

Mrs Chorlton is currently helping police with their enquiries regarding a sudden case of upset tummy amongst the Bakers Dozen, and a serious incident following a Church Flower Arrangers summer picnic several years ago.