CSI: Living Room

Hannah attended CSI camp this week, which was pretty much the perfect camp for her. Friday afternoon, she showed Lily and me what she learned by creating a murder mystery for us to solve. I documented the case in black and white per Hannah’s request. (“Like in old-fashioned detective movies!”)

This was the crime scene. Lily and I were informed that Mrs. Koala had been shot. Here’s a close up of the wound, with the “bullet” visible.

Nearby we found some flour spilled on the floor, complete with suspicious footprints.

We also found a note, apparently left by the killer. The writing on the note was only visible under black light. Luckily, we had a black light flash light handy.

The note said, “Na na a boo boo! You will never find out who I am.” Yes, the koala killer was taunting us.

Luckily, we had a witness. She couldn’t talk, being a monkey, but she gave us a note with a sketch of the killer.

“I saw it happen. This is what he or she looks like.” The monkey is no trained sketch artist, but that looked like a teddy bear to me.

Also nearby were some hairs, helpfully taped to the wall. We broke out another one of our CSI tools, the lint roller, to collect them.

Under the microscope, it was clear that most of these hairs were white, with a few hairs of assorted other colors.

Lily and I reviewed our clues. Flour on the floor. A witness who saw a teddy bear. White hair speckled with other colors. All signs pointed to… Cupcake Bear.

Lily and I soon had Cupcake Bear in custody. A quick look through the microscope at her feet confirmed that she had recently stepped in flour.

That was enough evidence to book the bear.

Not pictured: The interrogation of Cupcake Bear, in which she broke down and confessed to the crime. Also, Cupcake Bear’s trial, featuring me as the defense attorney, Hannah as the judge, and Lily as the district attorney. Cupcake Bear will be off the streets for a long time.

Best of all, it turned out Mrs. Koala wasn’t dead, just wounded!

The charges against Cupcake Bear were reduced to attempted murder, of course.

So proud of my little girl and her creativity…