Final Boarding

The case

Thursday, 15 November 2012. Joelle Rademacher, 36, co-owner of a bridal boutique on South Broadway, spends the evening alone in her house in Montbello, ten minutes from the airport. Her husband is booked on the 20:20 Summitline Airways flight to Chicago Midway. On Monday she intends to file for divorce.

At 21:19 she texts her sister that the garage door has just gone up. At 08:40 on Friday her business partner finds her on the kitchen floor. The patio door is smashed, the jewelry box is empty, and the handyman who fixed that door in October is on parole for burglary.

An airline, an airport parking lot, a wireless carrier, a parole monitor and a hospital kept records that night. Six people had a reason, a key or a story. Read the records and decide.

What is in the file

• Police Reports (5): incident report, scene report and sketch, evidence log, 2013 case summary, 2025 cold case memo
• Forensics (2): medical examiner's report, digital evidence report (phones)
• Witness Statements (7): the six suspects and two further witnesses
• Photographs (2): five scene frames, persons-of-interest sheet
• Records (5): airline passenger, gate and crew records, airport parking tickets and shuttle log, wireless text and cell-site records, parole GPS, hospital and expo dock logs, alibi verification sheet
• Personal Documents (2): the divorce attorney's letter and the victim's list, the insurance letter and a card from the suitcase
• Press (1): a 2025 newspaper feature

What you must do

Read all 24 documents and name the person who killed Joelle Rademacher. One accusation. Right or wrong, the solution file opens and shows every document that convicts. There are no hints and nothing is marked.

Play it with friends

Press play and choose Create a room. Up to eight of you read the file on your own phones, see what the others have opened, vote in secret and let the host reveal. Only the host needs to own the case; guests play free.

▶ Play this case