Solved the "illustrated crime" that has hooked thousands of people on Twitter

A man lies dead on the floor of a hotel room. Beneath his head is a glimpse of blood and his left hand is holding a pistol. A few centimeters from the corpse lie the pieces of a broken bottle and other objects are distributed throughout the rest of the room. "Did he commit suicide or was he killed?" This is how the writer and graphic designer Modesto García invited to solve this “image mystery”, the first in a series titled #Crimenesilustrados that he published on Twitter on March 25. Three days later and after accumulating more than 23,000 retweets and thousands of comments with different hypotheses, the author has revealed the solution to this mystery. [You can find out at the end of this article] .

Welcome to # Crimenesilustrados1, a series of image mysteries created by me and illustrated by @javi_decastro.

In the image there are labeled accounts that will lead you to more details of the crime scene. Can you solve the mystery? The solution, in 6 days. pic.twitter.com/KiR3vBPDvG

Unlike other García stories published in the form of a thread on Twitter, in this one he has condensed the entire narrative into a single image, illustrated by Javi de Castro, and has added associated accounts that allow him to interact with it. For example, you can visit the @AbreElArmario account to find out what's inside, @Coge_elTelefono to hear who's calling, or @MiraElMovil to review the victim's latest conversation on their mobile phone. “I thought it was funny that people started to follow the closet, the mobile or the laptop, but they are single-use accounts. For the rest of the riddles we will create more ”, García clarifies to Verne in a telephone conversation, although he still cannot reveal how many mysteries the series will contain.

As the author says, it took just a week to create this puzzle. “I had been wanting to do something like this for a while and confinement accelerated everything,” says García. Malagueño, a resident of Madrid, put together this story around a character who –by the clues he gives– seems to work in the security service of the vice-president of the Spanish government and is in Argentina at the time of his death.

Then he created a model with a Google image of a hotel, pasted the relevant objects and details, and sent it to illustrator Javi de Castro. "We worked pretty fast, but the fact that it was just a tweet and not a thread with multiple images and videos, like other times, made things a lot easier," he says. García was the winner of the first edition of the Hilo Fair, a literary contest organized by Twitter, and author along with Manuel Bartual, of El Gran Secuestro, a virtual escape room.

De Castro knew the solution to the mystery when he received the commission, but he was discovering details of the plot until the last days before its publication. "Modesto was incorporating new things into the story, such as the associated accounts, and we were making several modifications along the way," says the illustrator who joked on his Twitter account about the repercussion of the riddle (in less than 24 hours, more than 20,000 times).

In that short period of time, there were also those who had collected all the data and created a research map. "I flipped with the response of people, see that I have created stories on Twitter that have taken me longer, and yet this is the one that has had the most repercussion," says García, who believes that confinement may have had something to do with it. . "What made me most excited, given the circumstances, was knowing that people were entertaining themselves with this," he adds.

Suicide or murder?

On the first day, there were many people who solved the mystery about the dead man in the hotel room, as Garcia himself reveals, and the demand of that public caused the author to advance to this Saturday the solution to the enigma. His initial idea was to reveal it on Tuesday. García has done so through various tweets that explain the clues. [Be careful, from here there are spoilers].

The key to this mystery resides in the wife of the deceased, who is in Madrid, with whom he has a conversation on WhatsApp, which can be seen in the associated account @ MiraElMovil, and in which he also sends a selfie at 17: 54. We already knew from clues such as the television on which a local news show shows that the alleged bodyguard of the vice president is in Argentina, so the time difference between the two countries makes it quite difficult to believe that the woman could have taken that photo in full light of the day as it appears. "That is the definitive proof that lets you know that the woman is lying," García reveals to Verne.

pic.twitter.com/3YTxUsosob

But why is he lying? The author also clarifies that there are other relevant clues such as the email that can be read in the @MiraElPortatil account and that confirms that the deceased had a lover (a man) who threatens to tell his wife. Given the man's fateful end, it seems that she has finally told him and she has traveled to Argentina to kill her husband as revenge for infidelity.

🔍 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐔𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐎

As you are great detectives, and since 3 days in quarantine seem like 6, I advance the resolution of the first of # Crimenesilustrados1. If you haven't solved it yet and would like to do it yourself, don't read on!

Let's go step by step:

1️⃣ The victim died of a bullet to the head, executed with his own pistol.
2️⃣ He owned a pistol because he worked as an escort for the Spanish vice president.
3️⃣ He carried it with him because they were on a work trip.
4️⃣ He has a wife, who confirms it. pic.twitter.com/I65UlUKXHG

5️⃣ The note states that it was suicide.
6️⃣ Objects to the left of the table indicate that you are left-handed.
7️⃣ Also a left-handed person would change the place lamp, so that the light would hit the opposite side of the writing.
8️⃣ And grab the gun with your left. It could have been suicide. pic.twitter.com/fQfbGNWM43

9️⃣ But if we compare the calligraphy of the note with that of the suitcase, we will see that the “q” are different.

1️⃣0️⃣ Also, the note is written in blue but in the room we only see a pencil.

The note has been written by someone else. We suspect that it is not suicide. pic.twitter.com/K4ZkZP9hWv

1️⃣1️⃣ When translating the email we found an abandonment message.

1️⃣2️⃣ But we realize that it is in the sent items folder.

1️⃣3️⃣ The shipping address matches your initials.

So her lover is a man and it is Jakob, the victim, who wanted to leave the relationship. pic.twitter.com/kgT64pOApy

We also conclude that:

1️⃣4️⃣ They had seen those days.

1️⃣5️⃣ Condoms confirm this.

1️⃣6️⃣ But it seems that they didn't see each other that night. The bed is only unmade on one side.

1️⃣7️⃣ The lover had repeatedly threatened to tell the tale and Jakob asked him not to. pic.twitter.com/BxSxVL4NTY

Other details on the computer rule out suicide.

1️⃣8️⃣ We see a theater ticket that has just been purchased and that is dated March 26.

1️⃣9️⃣ We know that today is March 25. Who would buy a ticket to a future show if they plan to commit suicide? pic.twitter.com/MpC19DzAq9

In case of murder:

2️⃣0️⃣ We know that everything happened in a hotel room.

2️⃣1️⃣ She must have been a murderer, since women's voices had been heard.

2️⃣2️⃣ We discarded his lover: he was a man.

2️⃣3️⃣ The killer had to be there at 6:45 p.m. But where is that hotel? pic.twitter.com/XkNHyCU11Q

2️⃣4️⃣ We know that they are abroad due to some matter of international politics.

2️⃣5️⃣ The plugs are not Spanish.

2️⃣6️⃣ The building in the window is the same as that seen on TV.

2️⃣7️⃣ It is a local newscast and the Argentine flag appears.

The hotel is in Argentina. pic.twitter.com/yAtYJLyyaU

And where was Laura, his wife?

2️⃣8️⃣ We know that they live in Spain, from the address of the suitcase.

2️⃣9️⃣ She claims to be at home, in the gardens of her urbanization.

3️⃣0️⃣ The conversation occurred at 17:54 Argentine time.

With this, we know that she lies. pic.twitter.com/DX2dgSKMVY

3️⃣1️⃣ When she sends her husband the selfie (at 5:54 pm) we observe behind her a daytime sky.

3️⃣2️⃣ But if you sent it at 17:54 Argentine time, in Spain it was 21:54 (there is a time difference of 4 hours), so it would be at night. It is clear that she is lying: she is in Argentina. pic.twitter.com/mZTFv4QbU0

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