The Story...
There has been
another murder! Local geocaching legend Felicia Flats has been murdered along the W&OD Trail in the Leesburg area.
Just like before, the police haven't been much help. Chief Lee A. Pathette (IC) may just be an Interim Chief, but he's been around the block enough to know to "let those geocacher people be." Apparently, that courtesy extends not just to strange-looking people roaming around the fringes of parks and highways--the hands-off mentality carries all the way up to homicide investigations! A cacher has been murdered on cacher turf, possibly by another cacher, and it's up to us, the caching community, to get to the bottom of it. Who dun' it?
The victim was known for three things: brilliantly creative caches, long distance running, and a rather eclectic taste in music. It's the running that seems most relevant now. Flats frequently trained for marathons on the W&OD, and kept such an impressive pace during her jogs that others often needed to bike or inline skate just to keep up. Earlier this morning she was found dead near the Sycolin Rd. parking area, with the time of death estimated at 7:45am. According to the reports, she ingested Iocane powder, an odorless, tasteless, highly soluble toxin of inconceivable potency that would have killed her within seconds.
You got in touch with Forte Flats, who is the victim's husband and the other half of the famed F-Flats geocaching tandem. Forte was still in shock, but was able to tell you that Felicia left just before dawn on a run with another NoVAGO cacher. He was supposed to go with them but had come down with the flu, and you could tell he was starting to blame himself for what had happened. Consoling him the best you could, you gently pursued the identity of her running partner. He couldn't remember who it was, but knew they left together in her car around a quarter after six. He was able to limit it to three possible cachers: Sengirfoe, Slonstedy, and SoaringSteed. He couldn't say which one for sure, but was positive it was one of those three.
You have them all in your PAF lists, and quickly put your phone to work. They each confirmed they were on the trail that morning, yet all three denied joining Felicia on her run. Suspicious, very suspicious....
Not long after, with Mr. Flats' help, you managed to locate Felicia's vehicle. The silver sedan, pictured to the right just as you found it, was still parked near the W&OD access point by Ashburn Road, a good 10 miles or so southeast of the scene of the crime, and about 20 minutes from the Flats' house.
From there, you decide to work the trail, searching for witnesses and looking for clues. It seems very likely that her wily workout partner offered her a few sips from an Iocane-laced water bottle, and that did her in. It just seems so hard to believe... could one of those cachers really have murdered Felicia Flats?
What now?
Continue your on-scene investigation at these three caches:
Using the information you obtain from those caches, deduce the likely murderer, and piece together the location of the cache. You don't need to find any caches to identify the murderer--you can do that by reading all the cache pages. You probably won't find airtight proof, just very suspicious clues about each suspect's involvement or lack thereof. Then, go to each of their caches to "question the suspects," find the colors of all three containers, then use the colors below to determine the final coordinates.
The final cache is hidden at:
N39 06.
ABC W77 33.
DEF
X = Letters in color of Sengirfoe's cache
Y = Letters in color of Slonstedy's cache
Z = Letters in color of SoaringSteed's cache
M = Letters in color of murderer's cache
A = Z
B = Y
C = M + Z
D = M - Z
E = M
F = X