Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Riddle me dee

This is topic Riddle me dee in forum Grist for the Mill at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

I asked Reagansgame's character a riddle in the character interview thread. She got it wrong so I am inviting all to take a crack at it.

quote:
Sue met a man at her mothers funeral. After talking to him for quite awhile she concluded that he was her 'soul mate'. She felt that he was the man for her however they didn't exchange numbers, she didn't ask for his name, and has no idea on how to contact him.
Three days later Sue murdered her sister.
Why?

Now this riddle has all the info you need to solve it. I will only let you know what the answer is once someone solves it (there is a reason for it).
Take as many shots at it as you like but only like minded people are capable of coming up with the answer.
Good luck

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited September 08, 2008).]

Posted by philocinemas (Member # 8108) on :

Snapper -
What if someone gets it too soon and ruins it for everyone else? - It would kill me.
Well, then, maybe we could contact you some other way - how about email? Is that OK?

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

I don't have the solution, but I know the funeral is an important characteristic...

Just can't remember why. I know I've seen this one or one like it before.

Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :

You'd have to be a psychopath to figure that one out.

Tracy

Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

I have gotten two emails this morning. At least one is correct. Would you like me to post the answers and who wrote them?

Posted by darklight (Member # 5213) on :

I've gotten an answer, so maybe wait a while, let some other people have a go first. I'll e-mail mine to you when I get a minute.

Posted by Reagansgame (Member # 8149) on :

Hey! I didn't get it wrong! Sam Kent did.

(Yes, I have considered that maybe I'm taking this too far.)

Give me a sec. Don't post answers for at least a day or so, please.

Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

Okay. I got four emails with answers (one from KDW herself, glad to see you participate

)
I will post the answers tommorow. So have at it if you have a guess.

Posted by philocinemas (Member # 8108) on :

Sorry, I misunderstood your previous post.

[This message has been edited by philocinemas (edited September 10, 2008).]

Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

I will post thye answer in three or so hours so send me your answer by then if you have one

Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

Time's up!

The riddle is more of a logic puzzle, the answer is a simple one. So simple that if it took time for you to solve it, you are wrong even if you answered it right. First let me post some of the wrong answers.

Aspirit

quote:
I think the answer to the riddle on Hatrack is: Sue's brother-in-law

nope

Darklight

quote:
Many years earlier, Sue and her sister had a huge fight, and they never saw each other again. Years later, their mother dies, and at the funeral Sue gets talking to a man who she believes to be her soul mate. Later, she finds out this man is her sister’s husband, and in order for them to be together, Sue kills her sister.

Wow. A lot of thought into that one but it's wrong as well.

Annepin

quote:
The man was the funeral director or a mortician? She killed her sister so she could go to another funeral and meet him again.

On the right track but wrong. If he was the funeral director all Sue would have needed to do is knock on the funeral home door.

Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury

quote:
She killed her sister so there would be another funeral and she would see him again?

He wasn't the undertaker/mortician or the minister because she wouldn't need to have a funeral to find him.

He may have been the gravedigger or the coffin maker because he would only show up if there actually were a funeral, or he may have been the cremator if there were no coffin.

Very good, KDW, however you found it important to identify the man. That wasn't important but yours was the second email I got. So I am going to qualify yours as correct.

Then there was my first email.

WouldBe

quote:
So he'd come to her sister's funeral and meet up with him

Absolutely correct.

Now Johnny, tell them what they won.

Congratulations! You have shown to have a similar trait associated with serial killers! A test much like this was developed by criminal psychologist to test the pathological behavior of suspected people.
Most people would attempt to think of a motive involving the man in the story and how he was related to others in the riddle (he was involved with his sister, was in co-hoots with his sister to kill her mother, had some other past involving the family) all which were irrelevant to this puzzle.
However a serial killer that looks at life cheaply and thinks of murder as a logical solution to get what they want come up with that answer as easily as why did the man open his umbrella when it started to rain?

So, even though Annepin answered it correct, she is off the hook for qualifing her answer (but were still going to keep an eye on you).

As far as for the other two free thinkers, I would like say that even though WouldBe's answer came to me 45 minutes after I posted it, I don't believe that either you or KDW have such pathological tendencies, your just a little smarter than the rest of us.

But I would like to say that WouldBe is the very best writer on hatrack and we should congratulate him and Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury or as she is also-known-as SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED!
or else!

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited September 10, 2008).]

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited September 11, 2008).]

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited September 12, 2008).]

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

Aw, shucks.

I've just read a lot about serial killers (including books by the guys like John Douglas and Richard Rennsler who helped develop FBI profiling and such). Heck, I've even read the FBI's crime classification manual.

Posted by darklight (Member # 5213) on :

Snapper, the one you atribitued to LAJD was my answer. I'm admitting that even though the answer was wrong!

Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

Whoops!

So it was, sorry a few people didn't give me their hatrack name in their emails. Fixed it.

Posted by WouldBe (Member # 5682) on :

Maybe writers are just chicken-s* serial killers. Mr. King?

Anywho, it's a lot easier winning an honor than deserving it.

Posted by philocinemas (Member # 8108) on :

There goes my guess. I thought she had been "talking to" a dead man whom she had decided was her "soul mate." They couldn't have exchanged numbers because his number was up. I had assumed she killed her sister to get him to call on her. I must be especially warped.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Risky conclusion---the "soul mate" might've been a friend of the mother, but not necessarily a friend of the sister or the family---and if he was friendly enough to go to Sue's mother's funeral, why wouldn't Sue know of him, if not know him?

Posted by philocinemas (Member # 8108) on :

I thought she had fallen in love with a man who was already dead, who happened to be lying in his coffin at the same funeral parlor as her mother. The words snapper used were ambiguous enough to suggest to me that the man was not alive.
Since she was obviously disturbed, I thought she was using her sister as a "go between."

Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :

Wow, glad I didn't get that right