#my bets are on Rose Eden Levi and maybe J or Hu

[sobredunia]

One thing I don't understand is that Arei doesn't present any injuries other than in her kneck, which was broken, not strangled. This method of killing you talked about involves a lot of prep for when the killer finally gets Arei, and yet they bounded her wrists but not her mouth? If she had gotten knocked out, wouldn’t she present any injuries in her head? And if she was unconscious why bother with tying the wrists at all? Even if we think that a drug like chloroform was used to set up this whole thing in peace, the wrist thing still wouldn’t make sense

I have two mini theories: the murder was some form of automatic trap that allowed the killer to get an alibi, and though i dont know about specifics I bet an ice cube made with the minifridge in the gym was used, and/or the wrist thing was essential for the murder machine, not just to keep Arei in place

Trying to figure out the DRDT chapter 2 murder method, with evidence! (Theory)

CW: Murder, mentions of suicide, hanging, general brutality.

So, I’ve noticed a lot of people have given their predictions for the second case murderer, the motives and all that. This is obviously what most people care about, and I love reading predictions for it!

However, I am not most people. I also am really curious about the exact murder method.

You see, DRDT has consumed my brain mercilessly, and thus I have decided I can’t wait for the hiatus to end, and want to see if I can figure out the murder mystery with the clues we have. As a warning, this doesn’t actually help much with the culprit, but I will give my thoughts on that at the end.

I think a decent job! It’s not perfect, and I’m fully expecting to get a lot if not most of this wrong. I will be happy regardless of whether I’m right or wrong, so what matters is that I had fun thinking about it! Right? :D

This took me hours.

Spoilers up until Chapter 2 ep 11, and… further? Maybe? It’s just a prediction, but with evidence, so, you decide if you wanna read it.

Where we left off

The cliffhanger currently consuming me, as you may recall, happened just after David started his Tumblr sexyman arc, with Charles cutting in with just a fantastic line (“You’re out of your element!”). He says that, while trying to prove David’s innocence, he realized something bigger, before proclaiming he and Teruko fucked up.

As many have pointed out, Charles cuts in when David mentions the time of death, meaning he’s likely realized something about that.

What Charles has probably noticed is that the note Arei received never mentioned if she was supposed to go to the playground at 7:30 PM, as the characters had assumed because of the fish and the nighttime rule for the Relaxation Room, or AM. The fish could have easily been kept in the water jugs found outside in a trash can, so it’s pretty feasible that the murder actually happened at 7:30 AM. Unfortunately, Nico, the only one keeping track of the fish, likely fed them before David went there, and thus before 7:30 PM, so we can’t tell for sure when they were taken.

(This is because Nico mentions they fed the fish after dinner, and they likely ate before David. Whit mentions having a ‘late dinner’ when he and the gang meet with Suspenders Man in the kitchen and send him to the fish, David even mentioning he wasn’t expecting anyone else to be there. Assuming Nico ate dinner with most of the class, they would have eaten before David went to the Relaxation Room, which we know was around 7:30 PM)

However, if Charles is only bringing the possibility up now, it’s likely the right answer. Also, as you’re gonna see, the murder method I believe was used requires quite a bit of setup that would have been easier to do at nighttime, without potential witnesses showing up out of nowhere.

Now, this is where I’ve seen most people stop. Content with knowing what the cliffhanger itself is about, they don’t think further into the murder method. But I will, because my life is extremely empty.

Let’s get to the evidence!

“Truth Bullets” (let’s pretend)

-First, the layout of the scene.

(Ultimate Artist coming through-)

The exact position of things doesn’t matter, but it helps to visualize. The seesaw, to the dismay of Korekiyo stans, is unimportant and can be disregarded. Here are the takeaways:

•The ground near the entrance is scuffed. This heavily implies something went down in the playground, and we probably aren’t dealing with a crime scene switch.

•The fish, you should be acquainted with.

•The spinny thing will be important.

•Not pictured is a sand pit without sand. This isn’t important, but I do find it funny.

•Then, the swing set. I’d like to point out that the rope attached on one end to Arei has nothing on the other end, and rather remains there via a knot at the top of the swing set. This is important because of:

-Broken Neck: Arei’s neck is broken, alongside:

-Veronika’s Account: Although a hanging can cause someone’s neck to break, it wouldn’t happen to Arei if she were to be hung from that height. She would either need to weigh more, or fall from higher. Because the rope Arei’s corpse hangs from is tied with a knot, it can’t extend further than what we see, meaning she was likely hung from somewhere else (if that’s even her cause of death).

-Bound Wrists: Arei’s wrists were bound with duct tape at some point.

-Duct Tape on Spinny Thing: There is duct tape covering every handlebar the spinny thing has.

-Longer Rope: There was a longer piece of rope bundled up below the spinny thing. Teruko claims it’s a couple yards long. I don’t use that unit of measurement, but it sounds like it’s large.

-Flickering Lights: According to MonoTV, one of the lights in the playground was flickering. The way he acts when inquired implies this had something to do with the murder.

Going away from the playground now, we have the trash can.

-The note: You know this one.

-Eating utensils, food, painting tools. Unimportant.

-Water Jugs: Likely where the fish were kept overnight. Notably, the handles are snapped in the middle.

-Needle and thread?: I’ve seen some people mention there’s a needle with a bit of black thread that none of the characters address when dealing with the trash. Personally, I think this isn’t going to be important, but I do have a place for it if it ends up coming up. That is:

-Ball of clothes: Charles takes this from the dress-up room. It’s apparently held together with starch (not an adhesive, just sticky, but sure), though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually created with the needle and thread. Again, I don’t think it’s important, but you can choose to believe it was used here if you want. It’ll make sense later.

-The gym. I’ll be honest, this is the one thing I don’t know how to fit in. During the investigation, Teruko makes memory to how the gym looked before and after the Nico incident. I’m not great at Spot the Difference, but for the life of me the only thing I could see change was the missing fan and the missing ‘grippy thing’ on the pull-up bar. I don’t know how that would fit with the mystery, so I’ll be glad if anyone can figure something out.

-The motives: Not important for the method, obviously important for other reasons.

So, with the evidence laid out, what can we figure out?

Theory Time

When I said I spent hours thinking about this, I mostly meant running through several theories at once, trying to see which one made the most sense. I went to some weird places: from a crime of passion disguised as a suicide, to drowning her in the Relaxation Room, to somehow getting from the Movie Screening Room to the Playground (MonoTV had mentioned punching through the wall would get you there), to Arei herself being the one originally trying to murder…

But in the end, it was simpler. There are three important facts which help narrow down the options.

-Arei’s neck was broken. This eliminates simpler killing methods such as strangulation. Something happened which broke her neck, yet:

-Her wrists were bound. A broken neck is instant death, but Arei’s bound wrists imply the killer feared she would struggle. This eliminates a crime of passion. This thing was premeditated.

-The murder happened in the playground. The scuffed floor, broken light, duct tape on spinny thing and the other rope all make it clear. There’s no crime scene switching here. This eliminates stuff like the drowning in the Relaxation Room I mentioned.

All of this makes me believe that Arei was hung from somewhere in the playground, likely after the killer bound her wrists to stop her from struggling. The scuffed ground serves as evidence of an initial struggle. It doesn’t quite look like that, but frankly I just don’t know what could have caused the exact shape in the ground, so a struggle it is.

However, how? If Arei’s neck broke from her hanging, as per Veronika’s Account, she would need to be hung from somewhere else first, in a way that she either weighed more or fell from higher. Now, at first, you might assume that she had to be simply hung from higher, since it’s impossible to make Arei weigh more than she does. But what if I told you, there is a way to achieve that?

Enter: the water jugs.

I don’t know about you, but the way those handles are broken looks to me like they were snapped too cleanly for human hands. It almost looks… like someone tied a knot around them, then exerted a bunch of force on the rope.

(WARNING: Geometric depiction of a hanging a bit below)

We know for a fact there are at least two pieces of rope: one longer, one shorter. It would be possible to tie the two ends of the shorter one around the handles of the water jugs, then tie the middle around Arei. Water’s pretty heavy, so the extra pull of the water jugs would exert an additional force to her body once she stopped falling, one which could serve as one of the reasons her neck broke.

…Now’s probably a good time to mention, I have no idea why the killer did half the shit they did. I cannot explain to you why they would do this with water jugs. I’m just telling you how my brain’s interpreting this evidence.

However, this doesn’t exactly solve the height problem. You still can’t hang Arei from the swing set directly, as the jugs would hit the ground. It’s still necessary to hang her from higher up, although thankfully it’s easy to see where that would happen.

Yeah, the railings of the playground. The problem, naturally, is how to get there. Or rather, how to get the rope there.

Well, here’s a question. How would you do something like that if it was lower down, but still unreachable? One answer is to try to throw the rope over the railing, so that one end stays near you, and the other, on the other side of the railing. Of course, that’s impossible with a rope of this length and a railing of this height, but the concept can still be used in conjunction with something else. Thinking about the other pieces of evidence we have, there is one that stands out as particularly strange, doesn’t it?

Exactly. The ball of clothes. Because throwing a ball, especially one as light as this one would be, is much easier than throwing a rope, you can set up the hanging spot by tying one end of the rope to the ball, and throwing that over the railing.

You might think it’s still too far up, but think of it like this. How far can you throw a basketball straight up? Probably enough to clear two floors, at least given enough attempts. The ball of clothes would have more drag, yes, but it would be lighter. Keep in mind the killer had all night to get this right, and they could have even climbed on the swing set if they needed a bit more height. It’d be awkward, but possible.

There is one more piece of evidence that makes me think this is the case. That is, the flickering lights.

The lights weren’t broken, but they did get fucked up. This is by far the clue which gave me the most trouble when thinking about this, since it just seemed so impossible to achieve. However, this ‘ball of clothes’ theory gives us a solid answer. On the way up, the ball of clothes may have hit the lights:

This wouldn’t break the light, but it could displace it, causing it to flicker… or something like that. I’m sorta banking on J giving a proper explanation with her pre-established expertise, since I’m no electrical engineer. However, I see no other way this could have happened, so it’s the answer I’m giving for now.

So now we have the long rope on both ends, all that’s left is actually pulling Arei up. Except, that’s still quite complicated, isn’t it? Already pulling her up would take quite a bit of strength, but the main problem is the ‘going down’ part.

For Arei’s neck to break, she needs to enter free fall, then abruptly stop halfway. That would mean you need to stop the rope from moving on the way down, but how? Just using your hands is impossible, because you’d get burnt.

Enter: spinny thing.

The duct tape tipped me off that this thing was important, and once the use of rope is factored in, my first instinct was to use it for a sort of pulley system.

Weave the rope through a few of the handlebars, then tie a knot around one of them. That way, if you make the thing spin, it will drag the rope with it, sort of like a roll of film in reverse.

Then, once Arei reaches an appropriate height, you spin the thing the other way, letting her fall at full speed for a bit. When you want to stop her, you would just need to stop the carousel from spinning, which may take a bit of strength, but it’s perfectly doable.

Now, this explains how the murder could have been done, but where does the duct tape come into play?

…

Yeah, good question. My best answer is that the rope somehow burnt a friction mark into the spinny thing, which the killer feared would give away their trick. After all, even if the duct tape is more noticeable, it’s harder to make a connection between that and the murder than a friction burn, which while harder to notice, would point more directly to the pulley idea.

Yeah, it’s not a great answer, and it’s frankly the part which still puzzles me the most, but it’s an answer, so I’m going with it for now. Open to change, though.

Notably, this is also the part of the crime where I feel the gym may come into play. Again, I have no idea what the relevance is, but if it has something to do with this crime and not just the Ace - Nico incident, perhaps the grippy strap of the pull up bar was somehow used to better grip the spinny thing’s handlebars for the pulley trick? Again, this is one piece of evidence where I could use the help.

And so, we’re done! Practically all of the important evidence was used, and I can’t find any contradictions in the reasoning!

Closing Argument

The killer first put water from the Relaxation Room, fish and all, in some water jugs before nighttime.

At nighttime, they stuck together Teruko’s and Hu’s old clothes with either starch or the black string. Going to the playground, they tied a long rope they got from storage around the ball of clothes. They repeatedly threw it up, until they managed to get the rope over one of the railings in the playground. However, on the way up, the ball of clothes hit a light and displaced it, causing it to flicker. MonoTV would later remove this light.

After that, they tied one of the ends of the rope to one of the carousel’s handlebars, possibly looping it around some of the other handlebars to make sure it would work as a pulley. The killer left the water jugs in the room, first tying a shorter piece of rope around their handles, and took the ball of clothes back to the dressing room.

After that, the killer wrote a note. They had overheard the Eden-Arturo-Arei situation, and used that to lure Arei out to the playground at 7:30 AM. She potentially arrived just before the killer, based on the scuffed ground being a bit far from the door, but the killer got there just a moment after, before Arei could understand the situation.

The killer overpowered Arei, scuffing the ground near the seesaw in the process. They eventually bound her wrists together, and wrapped the middle of the rope attached to the water jugs to Arei’s lower body. Possibly around her waist, as to prevent rope burn injuries from giving the trick away.

After that, they tied the unused end of the longer rope around Arei’s neck, and moved to the spinny thing. Using the grippy strap they got from the gym (maybe), they grabbed one of the handlebars and spun the spinny thing so that the rope was pulled in and around its handlebars. This also had the effect of pulling Arei up towards the ceiling.

Once Arei was high enough, the killer quickly spun the carousel the opposite way, then abruptly stopped it just a few moments later. This caused Arei to free fall shortly, before suddenly stopping. The force of that stopping broke both Arei’s neck and the handles of the water jugs. Arei died here, if she hadn’t already asphyxiated beforehand.

All that was left for the killer to do was cleanup. Retrieve the longer rope and hide it under the spinny thing; set up Arei’s body to look vaguely like a suicide; empty the water jugs on the ground; throw them away, alongside the duct tape and the note. The killer’s trick had also left marks on the carousel, which they decided to cover up with duct tape. Finally, the killer reconvened with everyone at around 8 AM for the motive announcement.

And with that, all questions are answered. Well, except for:

What the fuck

Like, why would the killer do this? It’s so unnecessary cruel, when they could have just hung her. I was honestly worried, as I thought about the method, that the killer would end up being Veronika, just because it’s so fucked I genuinely can’t see anyone else doing this. But Veronika doesn’t have a motive to do this: she’s talked about wanting to enjoy the trials for as long as possible, and it’s been set up if she murders, it would be of boredom. Doing that before a motive announcement which would make things interesting doesn’t fit her at all. Or maybe I’m coping.

The answer to the question of why the killer chose this method is only part of a larger question, though. So, knowing the method, how does that change the final question?

Who did it?

Let me start by saying that I can’t definitively say anything about anyone, even knowing the murder method. However, this *does* paint some of the theories in a different light.

Smaller theories

I’ve seen a few people suggest everyone from Charles to J or even Arturo. A lot of these theories are decent, but some rely too much on certain assumptions which may or may not be disproven if this method is accurate.

Charles is ruled out. The murder required moving the corpse around postmortem, and while there wasn’t any blood around, Charles’ necrophobia would make it impossible for him.

A theory I saw was that J may have used her remote to open secret trapdoors and move around rooms, taking advantage of the placement of the playground in relation to the Movie Screening Room. However, while that theory is interesting, the murder is perfectly possible without these trapdoors, so the main argument kinda goes out the window. Although I guess it’s possible her remote could be used to make the carousel go spin, but that’s kinda ridiculous if you ask me.

Arturo was ruled out from the beginning because the handwriting in the note is too pretty to be a doctor’s. That’s a joke, and Arturo would actually be quite capable of the crime. In fact, he’s sort of become my second most likely culprit, even if he was accused early in the trial.

Hu / David manipulation, in shambles

A popular theory states that the killer was manipulated by David to do the deed. The most common victim of this manipulation theory seems to be Hu Jing. However, in my opinion, the sheer brutality of the method pretty much rules this out. David may be a good enough manipulator to get somehow to kill Arei, but I really doubt he’d be able to convince them to do… all this.

Especially since he has no reason to order the specific method, which would imply it was born from the killer’s own mind. So, even if David actually told them to kill Arei, they decided to use this insanely elaborate method all on their own. And, listen, I don’t care how you feel about Hu, she wouldn’t do this.

Is it still possible? Sure, I guess. Does it look a lot weaker under this method? Absolutely.

The surprisingly strong Whit/Eden allegations

I didn’t make this theory considering these two the killer, I really didn’t. I still don’t think they are. And yet, they are the only ones who could benefit from this method. How? The BDA.

You see that loophole, right? I noticed the moment I saw the rule. The way it’s written seems to imply the BDA only plays when three ‘spotless’ see the body, ruling them out as the murderer. Except, that’s not how it’s worded. It doesn’t say ‘three non-murderers’, it says ‘three people who didn’t witness the murder’.

So, pray tell, what happens if the culprit has their back to the victim when they die? Simple; they didn’t witness the murder, so their eyes count for the BDA.

How does this help? Well, imagine if Teruko had been the one to kill Arei. By making a contraption where she can be sure Arei dies instantly upon something happening (in this case, abruptly stopping the spin of the carousel), she can make sure her back is turned the moment Arei dies. Of course, the moment she turns around, the count for the BDA goes up to one, but it doesn’t trigger, since you need three.

Then, when Teruko ‘discovers’ the body alongside Eden and Whit, the BDA plays; one person (Teruko) had already ‘discovered the body’, so Eden and Whit seeing it would increase the BDA count by two. That makes three, BDA plays.

And yet, during the trial, if the murder method hasn’t been found out, Teruko could claim she isn’t the murderer because of the trickily worded BDA rule.

Now, we obviously know Teruko didn’t do it, but Eden and especially Whit are common theories. This could be used as evidence, except…

There’s a pretty obvious problem there. It’s not them, but Teruko who asks to team up in a group of three for the BDA, and it’s also her who suggests going to the second floor. Then, the playground is the last place they check, and Whit even questions Teruko when she suggests going there (the infamous ‘hanging out there’ line).

I wouldn’t rule out Teruko’s bad luck making her pick the absolute worst possible partner possible, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that neither Eden nor Whit were proactive in the search method, which goes against this potential ‘BDA alibi’ plan.

As for the rest of the theories, I don’t quite believe them. Yes, Whit definitely has more issues than he lets on, but he has no motive to do this (remember; he asked an entire group of people to reveal his secret if they had it, so the only reason his secret lasted until the trial was Rose throwing it away). Eden even less so.

And in the end, it really is the motives which points us to what I believe to be the killer.

Yeah, it’s Levi

As does what I believe is most of the fandom by this point, I think Levi is probably the killer.

Many have already theorized about the remaining motives, so I’ll spare you the ordeal and tell you: Just with the information all the characters have access to, it’s possible to narrow down Levi’s secret to ‘murdered someone’, ‘poisoned competition’ and ‘dead family’ (I know the last one’s Xander’s, but the characters don’t really have access to the Bonus Episode).

However, Eden can eliminate the ‘dead family’ one, as Levi has talked about his family with her, and they’re not dead (He also mentioned having brothers in the present tense during the trial, but just in case).

Min’s Bonus Episode makes it likely her secret is the ‘poison competition’ one, though how the characters are gonna figure that one out is beyond me. The point is, Levi’s secret is the ‘murdered someone’ one, the one Arei had. And, listen, in-game logic aside, you don’t just give that secret to the victim of the case and then have it mean nothing for the murder.

Other suspicious behavior has been noted, such as him wanting to start voting time quickly when David did his thing, him quickly checking the motives when they became public (keep in mind, as some characters mentioned, it’s possible the killer thought just killing someone before the motive reveal would be enough to prevent it), etc. Also possible foreshadowing such as Ace claiming Levi could ‘snap [his] neck with his bare hands’ and Levi promising to protect Eden in the trial, which is exactly what Arei did before dying.

However, something I feel people overlook is that not only did Arei get Levi’s secret, but it was also Levi who got Arei’s secret. A secret which, keep in mind, wasn’t public knowledge until the trial, when Levi finally revealed it. Sure, David and Teruko knew, maybe Eden at best, but other than that, only Levi knew of that secret.

And this is where the murder method may come in. I’m still unsure. Because the only reason I can find for this amount of elaborate planning and brutality, beyond the BDA thing which I mentioned likely isn’t important, is the killer having a deep grudge against Arei.

Levi is a guy who cares about his family. Sure, he was disowned, but he claims it was good, because he and his family were ‘bad influences on each other’. He seems like he genuinely wants the best for his brothers, it just so happened that the best thing was going their separate ways.

So, how do you think he feels when he learns that Arei, someone who had already insulted and belittled him, calling him a pushover and stuff, did horrible things to her sisters? If he doesn’t have the full picture, it’s not impossible to see how that may make him angry at her, especially with his already established anger issues.

Not to mention, keep in mind the setup for the crime was done one night after the Nico - Ace incident, one which ends with Levi grumbling ‘why do I even bother?’ as he locks himself in his room. This could imply a complete loss of faith in the group in general, which could lead to him deciding to kill.

Of course, that theory has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Levi’s outbursts of anger don’t really last long enough for it to explain such a long and elaborate murder scheme. Not to mention, if he really did react negatively to the motive, he’d have done it the moment he received it, not several days later. He has murdered without remorse before, if his secret is to be believed, but until we get the specifics, we can’t know for sure how okay he’d be doing something like this.

However, the important question Levi as the culprit answers isn’t the ‘why?’, but the ‘how?’.

I’ve sorta glossed over it until now, but it would take quite a bit of strength to stop the spinny thing in the trick. I don’t think Levi’s the only one capable of it, but he’s certainly the most capable, if that makes sense. Not to mention, actually overpowering Arei in the first place wouldn’t exactly be easy. Plus, the ball of clothes being involved implicates him in a meta-sense, as it could technically count as his talent being involved in the murder.

The problem, of course, is that I have no definitive evidence. His custom weapon, brass knuckles, wasn’t involved at all, and there’s no way to place him at any of the important scenes. No one has an alibi for nighttime, no one has an alibi for 7:30 AM, and pretty much no one has an alibi for the Eden - Arturo - Arei incident (afternoon of the day of Nico’s attempted murder, when for now we only know Hu, David, Nico and Teruko where talking in the Relaxation Room. Though of course, the exact time is impossible to know).

I suspect he’s going to be suspected for the motive and the strength thing, and either someone will come up with something incriminating, or he’ll make a slip-up a la Mondo. I have no idea.

So… what did we learn?

Kinda nothing. As you can see, the murder method doesn’t really point to a killer in any definitive way, so we’re just back where we started, basically. But hey! It was fun! I guess.

Now, back to crying over the hiatus. See you!