The case
April 2003. An eighty-four-dollar-a-week motel on the Gulf coast of Florida, the kind that takes cash and does not take names. A woman checks in as "K. Miller", walks to the Publix for hair dye, writes in a small notebook, and speaks to almost nobody. Ten days later the housekeeper opens Room 14 and finds her on the floor.
No purse. No car. No identification. The cash is still on the dresser. A plastic case for floppy disks is empty. The Sheriff's Office works her as a Jane Doe for a year, circulates a sketch and a dental chart, checks two missing-person entries, and files her under inactive.
Sixteen years later a retired detective in Georgia mails the state of Florida a missing-person file and a note: "I think this is your girl." Both files are in your hands now. Nobody has yet put them together.
Two questions, in order. Who was she? And who killed her?
What is in the file
- Police Reports — Manatee incident and scene reports, property inventory, Jane Doe summary, 2019 review memo, and a Savannah missing-person report
- Forensics — autopsy, odontology chart, DNA and trace report, a dentist's records from Georgia
- Witness Statements — eight, from two states and two investigations
- Photographs — six scene frames, persons-of-interest sheet
- Records — motel registration cards, PBX log, an NCIC query, two sets of phone records, travel records subpoenaed in 2019, an alibi verification sheet
- Personal Documents — the note she left under her mother's door
- Press — 2019 feature
Persons of interest
Six people across the two investigations, Florida and Georgia:
- Vernon Lairdmotel owner
- Tasha Greenenight clerk
- Dale Hoopertrucker staying in Room 12
- Grant NevinsSavannah port worker
- Curtis Baneprivate investigator in Savannah
- Martin SayerSavannah attorney
What makes it hard
Jane Doe, Room 14 is rated 4 out of 5, and the reason is structural rather than cruel. Most case files start with a name. This one starts without one, so half the work is identification, across two investigations in two states that never spoke to each other. Only once you know who she was does the question of who killed her start to make sense.
Give it about three hours and a large sheet of paper. It is a satisfying file for one patient reader, and a very good one for two people who like to split the reading, one taking the Florida documents and one the Georgia papers, before comparing notes. Larger groups enjoy it most in a room, where everyone can see what the others have opened. If you have not played a case before, try the free Bluebird file first; this one assumes you have already closed a case.
What you must decide
Name the killer. To get there you will have to identify the victim from two files that were never compared. Every conclusion in the solution rests on at least two documents. There are no hints anywhere on this site.
