CHAPTER ONE
Death of a Scientist
Beatrice Ainsworth, Montgomery Davenport, Grace Ogden, and Carlton Harley worked together at a laboratory in Vancouver, BC. They all seemed to get along well, until one day the unthinkable happened. PhD student Grace found her supervisor Beatrice dead on Monday morning when she arrived at the lab. The police say that Beatrice was strangled and three pieces of physical evidence were found:
- A collection of hairs on Beatrice’s lab coat;
- A crumpled-up receipt from a nearby coffee shop dated a few days prior, paid in cash, on which there were three distinct fingerprints; and
- A few drops of B+ blood on the floor near the body (Beatrice’s blood type was O-). Unfortunately, after determining blood type, the sample from the scene was mislabeled and accidentally thrown out before DNA could be extracted.
The police suspect that one of Beatrice’s three colleagues is the murderer. Was there a motive to murder in the lab?
Beatrice and Grace seemed to have a good working relationship, and there was never any obvious bad blood between the two. However, over the past six months Grace had been getting increasingly frustrated with Beatrice as she continued to add more and more work to Grace’s plate before she would allow Grace to write and defend her thesis.
Montgomery got along well with Beatrice for the most part, but he was very angry when she didn’t raise his salary at their yearly review meeting last week.
Carlton was a good-natured person, but he was starting to get fed up with Beatrice for never cleaning up after herself.
No particularly strong motives were found, and the detectives turned next to what the science would tell them.
To be continued…
Are you enjoying our Geneskool murder mystery: The Case of the Lethal Lab? Do you want to play Clue with real science?
This summer, students who have completed grade 8 or higher will have the chance to unravel a week-long murder mystery while learning molecular biology concepts and laboratory techniques used by scientists every day. Find out more about our Geneskool Summer Science Program here.
CHAPTER TWO
Suspect #1 – Carlton Harley, Lab Janitor
Carlton provided a small blood sample, which showed that his blood type is B+. The forensics team also conducted a buccal swab. This allowed them to obtain a DNA sample from Carlton’s cheek cells, which they compared to DNA found in the hair follicles on the victim’s lab coat using a technique called DNA fingerprinting. It was not a match. However, Carlton’s fingerprint did match one of the prints on the coffee shop receipt.
To be continued…
Are you enjoying our Geneskool murder mystery: The Case of the Lethal Lab? Do you want to play Clue with real science?
This summer, students who have completed grade 8 or higher will have the chance to unravel a week-long murder mystery while learning molecular biology concepts and laboratory techniques used by scientists every day. Find out more about our Geneskool Summer Science Program here.
CHAPTER THREE
Suspect #2 – Montgomery Davenport, Administrative Assistant
Montgomery provided a small blood sample, which showed that his blood type is AB-. The forensics team also conducted a buccal swab. This allowed them to obtain a DNA sample from Montgomery’s cheek cells, which they compared to DNA found in the hair follicles on the victim’s lab coat using a technique called DNA fingerprinting. It was not a match. However, Montgomery’s fingerprint did match one of the prints on the receipt.
To be continued…
Are you enjoying our Geneskool murder mystery: The Case of the Lethal Lab? Do you want to play Clue with real science?
This summer, students who have completed grade 8 or higher will have the chance to unravel a week-long murder mystery while learning molecular biology concepts and laboratory techniques used by scientists every day. Find out more about our Geneskool Summer Science Program here.
CHAPTER FOUR
Suspect #3 – Grace Odgen, Scientist
Grace provided a small blood sample, which showed that her blood type is B+. The forensics team also conducted a buccal swab. This allowed them to obtain a DNA sample from Grace’s cheek cells, which they compared to DNA found in the hair follicles on the victim’s lab coat using a technique called DNA fingerprinting. It was not a match.
However, while at the crime scene the detectives recalled overhearing Grace talk about having recently had her pet dog Gene’s genome sequenced. They decided to ask Grace if she would provide them with the results, and she agreed. The forensics team compared markers from Gene’s results to the DNA collected from the hair on the victim’s lab coat and determined that it was a match.
Grace’s fingerprints did not match any of the prints found on the receipt.
To be continued…
Are you enjoying our Geneskool murder mystery: The Case of the Lethal Lab? Do you want to play Clue with real science?
This summer, students who have completed grade 8 or higher will have the chance to unravel a week-long murder mystery while learning molecular biology concepts and laboratory techniques used by scientists every day. Find out more about our Geneskool Summer Science Program here.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Cold Blooded Murderer
You guessed it? Carlton is the murderer.
The police determined that two pieces of evidence, while far from conclusive, implicated Carlton. Let’s take a look:
- Blood type match: the sample at the crime scene was the same blood type as Carlton’s;
- Fingerprints: Carlton’s fingerprint was on the receipt found at the crime scene. It turns out that the receipt actually belonged to Montgomery, which was why his fingerprints were on it. Carlton had come into contact with the receipt while cleaning the lab, and it had fallen out while he was taking out the trash moments before Beatrice’s death; and
- Hair sample: did not belong to Carlton.
The physical evidence was inconclusive, but the three suspects were brought in for questioning. During Carlton’s interrogation, he cracked under the pressure and confessed to murdering Beatrice. While part of his job was to clean the lab, he felt that Beatrice should be doing more to tidy up after herself. When he arrived at work that fateful morning and saw Beatrice’s particularly messy work area, he snapped.
In an effort to conceal his guilt, Carlton made a hasty attempt to frame Grace, the lab graduate student. He noticed a bunch of stray hair on Grace’s desk chair, which he assumed belonged to her, and he planted them on Beatrice’s lab coat. He hoped that the detectives would assume that the hair ended up on the coat during a physical struggle between Grace and Beatrice leading up to the murder. Once they determined that the hair belonged to Grace, thought Carlton, this could implicate her as the killer.
Unfortunately for Carlton, the hair actually belonged to Grace’s dog Gene, who she had brought in to work a few days prior. While the detectives did discover that the hair belonged to Gene, they were not swayed by this evidence to suspect Grace. Upon further sleuthing, it turned out that Gene frequently visited the lab (only in the office area of course- lab safety first!). The detectives figured that while there were plenty of opportunities for Gene’s hair to innocently stick to Beatrice’s lab coat, the amount of hair on Beatrice’s otherwise pristine coat was fishy, which led them to think that perhaps they were planted there in a sloppy cover up attempt by the real murderer. This hunch was confirmed during Carlton’s confession.
Case closed!
Did you enjoy our Geneskool murder mystery: The Case of the Lethal Lab? Do you want to play Clue with real science?
This summer, students who have completed grade 8 or higher will have the chance to unravel a week-long murder mystery while learning molecular biology concepts and laboratory techniques used by scientists every day. Find out more about our Geneskool Summer Science Program here.
