The Police Report That Inspired ‘Clue’

 

It's a little known fact, but the famous murder-mystery game, Clue, was inspired by real events. Below is the police report from that fateful night.


 
 
 
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POLICE REPORT

JUNE 09, 1954

ELLINGTON POLICE DEPARTMENT

LOCATION: BODDY MANSION OFF ROUTE 41

OFFICERS ON DUTY: OFFICER MICHAEL SHIFF, OFFICER GEORGE

9:37 p.m. - Officer George and I were clanking our police batons on the jail-cell bars when Ellington station received an emergency call from the Boddy Mansion. There was a quick male cry of “Hel-“ and then the phone cut off. Since there’s no Helen in the office, we figured he must have said “Hello” or “Help.” Either way we were bored so went to go check it out because we’d heard great things about Mr. Boddy’s billiard room.

10:15 p.m. - We arrive at the mansion. It is only one floor and has no roof, which seems strange but, hey, who are we to knock mansion construction?

10:20 p.m. - We knock on the door. It was answered by a Professor Plum. Inside stood five other people. All of them had names that had to do with some sort of color, except Mrs. Peacock, who was simply a Jew.

10:30 p.m - The group led us to the lounge, where, laying on the sofa, was the body of Boddy. It was dark so we couldn’t tell how he died. Boddy’s body had obviously been moved as well. So we needed to figure out who killed the guy, in what room, and with what weapon. It may take all night. Good thing we brought a sack of cheeseburgers.

10:40 p.m. - Based on the holes in the body, Officer George and I, the experts that we are, narrowed the cause of death down to either rope, dagger, revolver, candlestick, wrench, or lead pipe. We ruled out belt, kitchen knives, pots, pans, a sharp chair, a pillow, poison, burning fire log, lamp, umbrella, heavy boot, sofa, bed post, a 24-pack of crayons, a telephone, a huge ax, bare hands, and a big thick nail.

10:47 p.m. - Officer George thinks the corpse's holes look like rope holes, but I think they look like candlestick holes. What we both agreed on was that Miss Scarlett was pretty and kind of a bitch. We liked that.

10:55 p.m. - Everyone started making accusations. It was getting out of hand, so we decided to institute some rules: You could only accuse someone in the room where they thought the murder happened. The problem then was we were all in different rooms yelling stuff.

11:03 p.m. - I put a candle in one of Boddy’s body holes, lit it, and said, “Hey look, human candle.” Everyone laughed at that really hard. We had a good time.

11:07 p.m. - This guy named Mustard says he knows who did it and he was ready to make a formal accusation. He says it was the bitch (Miss Scarlett) in the billiard room with the candlestick. He picked up a manila envelope, looked inside, and said that he was right.

11:09 p.m. - All the info we needed was in the manila envelope, apparently. There was a picture of Miss Scarlett, a picture of a candlestick, and a picture of a billiard room — utterly damning evidence. Scarlett crumbled to the ground, knowing she’d been caught. She admitted the whole thing.

11:15 p.m. - We booked her, threw her in the back of the squad car, and threw the body in the garbage. Then we realized we needed that body, so we threw that in the back of the squad car, too. Then we drove back to the station. On the way we all came up with a great board game idea: You put these boats all over a map, then someone guesses where they are with pegs. You’re trying to “sink” the boats. We’re calling it BattlePegs, and we’re all pretty excited about it.