A movie palace owner, a spiral stair, and a nine-pound reel of film.
Saturday night, 1 November 1975. The Orpheum, a 1,400-seat movie palace on Third Street in Dayton, runs its midnight show as it has since 1929. Leonard Voss, 58, has owned it for twenty-two years and has refused four offers to sell. He is in the booth for the last reel, as he always is.
At 01:05 the night cleaner finds him at the bottom of the steel spiral stair with his skull broken. A nine-pound reel of "The Towering Inferno" lies on the landing above him. The police call it a fall for three days, until the coroner measures two separate wounds and the spatter on the corridor wall.
Six people were in or near the Orpheum after the house emptied: the wife who wanted it sold, the daughter who ran the front of house, the projectionist fired a week earlier, the chain owner with a standing offer, the usher caught stealing tickets, and the organist who had played there since 1946. On Monday at ten, Voss was to sign the building into a trust that would have put it beyond sale forever. The Dayton Police worked it for two years and wrote that the documents admit of one explanation.
Read all 24 documents and name the person who killed Leonard Voss. One accusation. Right or wrong, the solution file opens and shows every document that convicts. There are no hints and nothing is marked.
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.