Who Did It: Murder in A Family of 4

Answer:

These are the things we know for sure:

1. The witness and the one who helped the murderer were not of the same sex.
2. The oldest person and the witness were not of the same sex.
3. The youngest person and the victim were not of the same sex.
4. The one who helped the murderer was older than the victim.
5. The father was the oldest member of the family.
6. The murderer was not the youngest member of the family.

We know from statement no.3 that the youngest person was not the victim, and from statement 4, that the youngest person was not the helper and from statement no.6, that the youngest person was not the killer.

The youngest person can only have been the witness therefore.

We can work out from (5) that the father was the oldest, from (2) that the youngest person must have been the daughter.

So the Daughter was the witness, which leaves us with 3 members of the family.

From the statements we can sort out the members as per age.

• Father is the oldest.
• Mother is elder than their children.
• Son is elder than their daughter and
• Daughter is youngest member

From the statement 3 and 4 we can comfortably say that the father cannot be the victim.

From 3 the victim has to be a male member so the victim is the son.

So from the only possibility that remains now we can deduct the following;

Mother – Murderer.

Father – Helper.

Son – Victim.

Daughter – Witness.