Night Shift at Pine Hollow

The case

Thursday, 13 September 1984. Pine Hollow, Schuylkill County. The owl shift at Hollow Run Coal Company's No. 3 Slope goes underground at eleven. Up top there is a hoist engineer, a lamp man and the night fire boss, Stan Mrazik, 46, alone in the mine office on the gravel rise with the examination books.

At 00:34 he calls his paging service. At 01:53 he is found on the floor of the fire boss room between the desk and the file cabinet, his head broken, his desk chair on its side. A steel mine-car coupling pin lies on the floor near the doorway.

That night the lamp house time clock punched the cards, an answering service in Pottsville logged every page and every call-in, and an all-night gas station on Route 61 wrote down every fill. Six people had a grudge, a debt or a reason. Read the paper and decide.

What is in the file

• Police Reports (5): incident report, scene report and sketch, evidence log, 1986 case summary, 2025 cold case memo
• Forensics (2): coroner's autopsy report, laboratory report
• Witness Statements (7): the six suspects and three further witnesses
• Photographs (2): five scene frames, persons-of-interest sheet
• Records (5): lamp house time cards, paging service operator log, gas station night book and charge slips, hoist log, injury report, ambulance run sheet and telephone subscribers, alibi verification sheet
• Personal Documents (2): the victim's pocket notebook and fire boss book, scrap purchase tickets and the salvage register
• Press (1): a 2025 newspaper feature

What you must do

Read all 24 documents and name the person who killed Stan Mrazik. 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