These four cases are built like real detective puzzles: several suspects, at least one red herring, and more than one step of reasoning. Each gives you everything you need to solve it, but none of them hands you the answer. They get harder as you go.
How to use them: read a case aloud (or let your detective read it), ask “Who did it, and how do you know?”, and only open the answer once they’ve explained their thinking. The explanation matters more than the guess. Want a paper copy?
Case 1: The Vanishing Pie
Grandma baked two cherry pies. The family ate one at lunch. She left the second on the kitchen counter to cool, and at exactly 3:00 p.m. it disappeared. At 3:00, each of the four relatives was in a different place: the kitchen, the garden, the garage or the attic. Whoever was in the kitchen took the pie.
- Aunt Rosa was not in the garden or the kitchen.
- Whoever was in the attic was reading old family letters, and it wasn’t Omar.
- The garden is the only place outdoors, and Jade was outdoors all afternoon.
- Uncle Tim is afraid of the dark, dusty attic and never goes up there.
- Omar’s hands were black with bike grease, but there wasn’t a speck of grease in the kitchen or on the pie dish.
- Jade had cherry-pie crumbs on her shirt.
Who took the pie?
Reveal the answer
Uncle Tim. Clue 3 puts Jade in the garden. Clue 1 leaves Rosa in the garage or the attic. The attic wasn’t Omar (clue 2), Tim (clue 4) or Jade, so it was Rosa. Clue 5 means Omar wasn’t in the kitchen, so he was in the garage. That leaves Tim in the kitchen.
Red herring: Jade’s crumbs came from the first pie at lunch.
Case 2: The Hamster Ransom Note
Whiskers, the class hamster, vanished from his cage during lunch. In the empty cage, the teacher found this note:
ZKLVNHUV LV VDIH LQ WKH JUHHQ ERAEvery letter has been shifted the same number of places along the alphabet, but the note doesn’t say how many.
- Three rooms have a large green box: the art room (a paint supply box), the gym (a ball bin) and the music room (a drum case).
- All three rooms are locked at lunch. Only each room’s student monitor has a key: Maya for art, Sam for the gym, Leo for music.
- The note was written on a torn-out page. It isn’t blank or lined like normal school paper: it has thin printed lines grouped in fives, with a wide gap between each group.
- Each monitor carries one notebook, and all three notebooks are missing a page: Maya’s sketchbook with blank pages, Sam’s scorekeeping pad printed with a grid of squares, and the spiral notebook Leo uses in band class.
- Maya had green paint on her fingers at lunch.
What does the note say, where is Whiskers, and who took him?
Hint for younger detectives: the note has a three-letter word in it. What’s the most common three-letter word in English?
Reveal the answer
Leo. Whiskers is in the drum case in the music room. “WKH” is probably “THE.” W to T is a shift of 3, so move every letter back three places, and the note reads “WHISKERS IS SAFE IN THE GREEN BOX.” All three rooms have a green box, so decoding alone doesn’t solve it. The paper isn’t from Maya’s blank sketchbook or Sam’s grid pad: lines grouped in fives are music staff paper, the kind used in band, so it came from Leo’s notebook. Only Leo has the music room key.
Red herring: Maya’s green paint came from art class that morning. (Leo admits he only wanted to show Whiskers to the band, and the drum case has air holes.) Want more codes like this? See our guide to secret codes for kids.
Case 3: The Broken Vase
Mom’s blue vase is in pieces on the living-room floor. One of her four kids knocked it over, and each one makes a statement:
- Ava: “Ben did it.”
- Ben: “Dana did it.”
- Cal: “I didn’t do it.”
- Dana: “Ben is lying.”
Mom knows her kids well: exactly one of them is telling the truth.
Who broke the vase, and who is telling the truth?
Reveal the answer
Cal broke the vase, and Dana is the one telling the truth.
Look at Ben and Dana first. Dana says “Ben is lying,” so exactly one of those two is telling the truth, whoever did it: if Ben is telling the truth, Dana is lying, and if Ben is lying, Dana is telling the truth. So the one truth-teller is either Ben or Dana, which means Ava and Cal must both be lying. Cal is lying about “I didn’t do it,” so Cal did it.
Check: Ava’s “Ben did it” is false, Ben’s “Dana did it” is false, Cal’s “I didn’t do it” is false, and Dana’s “Ben is lying” is true. Exactly one truth.
Why not Ava? If Ava did it, both Cal (“I didn’t do it”) and Dana (“Ben is lying”) would be telling the truth. That’s two truths, which breaks the rule.
Case 4: The Library Trophy
The school’s reading-challenge trophy sits in a locked glass case in the library. The librarian saw it there at 12:00. At 12:45 the case was empty. The glass wasn’t broken, so someone opened it with the key.
- The case key is kept on the librarian’s desk. The librarian left the desk only once during lunch, from 12:15 to 12:22, to use the copy machine.
- A hall monitor sat at the library door all lunch and confirms that only the students on the sign-in sheet went in.
- A smear of fresh blue paint was found on the inside of the case door.
- Before lunch, Marcus and Hannah were in art class, painting with blue paint. Priya and Dev were in gym.
| Student | Signed in | Signed out |
|---|---|---|
| Priya | 12:05 | 12:20 |
| Marcus | 12:10 | 12:40 |
| Dev | 12:25 | 12:50 |
| Hannah | 12:30 | 12:35 |
- Hannah told friends that morning, “I wish I could borrow that trophy for our team photo.”
- Zoe was seen outside the library door at 12:40 carrying a big, bulging bag. The lunch monitor says Zoe was in the cafeteria until 12:35.
Who took the trophy?
Reveal the answer
Marcus. The key was only unattended from 12:15 to 12:22, so the thief was in the library during that window. Dev (12:25) and Hannah (12:30) arrived after the librarian was back. Zoe never went in: she isn’t on the sheet and was in the cafeteria until 12:35. That leaves Priya (there until 12:20) and Marcus (there until 12:40). The blue paint rules out Priya, who had gym. Marcus had blue paint from art class.
Red herrings: Hannah had a motive and blue paint too, but she arrived too late. Zoe’s bag held her basketball.
How to make these cases harder (or easier)
- Younger detectives (8–9): read each case twice, let them underline facts, and draw a quick chart of suspects and places. Ask, “Who can we rule out first?”
- Older detectives (10–12): cover the hints and have them write a short “case report” explaining every clue, including why the red herring doesn’t matter.
- Groups: split into teams, give each team one case, and have them present their solution to everyone else.
- Make your own: challenge kids to write a case with four suspects, one red herring and one clue that cracks it. Writing a fair mystery is harder than solving one.
What kids learn from solving mysteries
Each case uses a different detective skill: sorting clues in a logic grid (Case 1), decoding a message and matching physical evidence (Case 2), reasoning about truth and lies (Case 3), and building a timeline to test alibis (Case 4). Those are the same skills teachers call inference, deduction and evidence-based reasoning — kids just call it solving the case.
Liked these? Try a full case file.
The Mystery of the Gold Coin is a 27-page printable detective game for ages 8–12: 10 suspects, 10 clues, ciphers, fingerprints, footprints, case notes, hints and a case-solved certificate. Print it at home and start solving in minutes.
See the Gold Coin case →