How to solve a murder sudoku, step by step

In The Scene you get the floor plan of a house, a few suspects and a handful of clues. You place everyone where they stood, and whoever ends up alone with the body is guilty. Here are the rules and a real case, solved all the way through.

The rules

• Every suspect stands on one square of the plan. Plans run from five by five up to twelve by twelve.
• One per row, one per column and one per room. With five suspects on a five-by-five plan, every row, every column and every room holds exactly one person.
• Furniture takes up its square, and big pieces take several: nobody stands on them. Seats are the exception: chairs, sofas and beds can have someone sitting on them. Every object belongs in its room, and in the app you can tap one to see what it is.
• The body is not on the plan until you have placed everyone. Its square counts like any other.
• The killer is whoever was alone with the victim: the only person in the room with the body. You do not name them: once the plan is full, the button becomes Solve the case and the app checks the whole plan.

What the clues mean

• "Was in the Sleeper Car" or "was not in the Mail Car" is about the whole room.
• "Was in the same row as the lantern" is that row, not counting the furniture's own square.
• "Was near the chest" means the squares next to it, but only inside its room: walls cut it off.
• "Was somewhere in column D" is exactly that.

In the app, tap a clue and the plan lights up the squares it talks about.

A real case: the night of the harvest

The daily case from 21 September 2026, rated easy. Harvest night at the Solana estate ends with the presses still running and the estate owner Amelia dead among the barrels.

• B3 stove
• D3 desk
• E3 candelabra
• E4 olive tree
• A5 barrel

The suspects:

• Tom, the driver
• Amy, the grape picker
• Rupert, the nephew
• Ben, the winemaker
• Iris, the sommelier

The clues:

1. Amy was somewhere in column E.
2. Iris was in the same column as the desk.
3. Amy was somewhere in row 2.
4. Ben was in the same row as the olive tree.
5. Ben was in the Bottling Hall.
6. Rupert was in the same row as the candelabra.
7. Tom was somewhere in column B.
8. Rupert was somewhere in row 3.

Step by step

1. Start where two clues cross. Amy was in column E and in row 2. Amy is on E2, in the Chapel. That closes row 2, column E and the whole Chapel to everyone else.
2. Ben was in the same row as the olive tree, on E4, and in the Bottling Hall. Of that room, only A4 and B4 are in row 4: those two are left for him.
3. Rupert was in row 3, the candelabra's row. B3 is the stove, D3 the desk and E3 the candelabra itself, which leaves A3 and C3. But A3 is in the Bottling Hall, which is Ben's. Rupert is on C3, in the Estate Office.
4. Iris was in the desk's column, D. D1 and D2 are Chapel, which is Amy's, and D3 is the desk. D4 is Estate Office, which is Rupert's. Iris is on D5, in the Vine Rows.
5. Tom was in column B. B2 is in Amy's row, B3 is the stove, B4 is in Ben's row and B5 in Iris's. Tom is on B1, in the Kitchen.
6. With column B taken, Ben is on A4, in the Bottling Hall.

With everyone placed the body appears: the estate owner, Amelia, on D1, in the Chapel. Only Amy, the grape picker, was there. Guilty.

Did you notice Rupert's two clues? "In the same row as the candelabra" and "somewhere in row 3" say the same thing in different words. That happens: not every clue adds something new, and you do not need to use them all. When you are stuck, go back to the ones you have not used yet.

Without knowing where the body is

Every case is generated and checked to have exactly one solution without seeing the body. You never have to guess where the crime happened: placing everyone is enough. At the end the body appears and tells you who was with it.

Tips

• Start with clues that say where someone was, not where they were not.
• Count the gaps: if a row, a column or a room has only one square left for someone, it is theirs.
• Take notes: pick a suspect and, with Notes, pencil their initial where they might be. Crosses rules a square out for everyone. Drag a finger to mark several at once.
• When you place someone, the rest of their row, column and room is crossed out for you.
• The daily gives you three free tries at naming the killer, and every three days of streak earns a free hint.

Play today's case

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Keep playing

Play murder sudoku online10 free cases in your browser, from easy to extreme.Every clue, explainedWhat each clue means and which squares it rules out.What is a murder sudoku?How it works, and how it differs from sudoku.How to solve The InterrogationWho did it, where and why, clue by clue.