Clutch Cold Case Files
Play the case. Learn the craft.
Fictional cold cases built on real investigative methods. Work the file, test every witness and timestamp, and write findings you can defend. Then use the same skills on real records.
Most mystery games teach you how to solve their mystery. Clutch Cold Case Files teaches you how to investigate anything.The cases teach transferable research methods, not professional credentials.
FREE SAMPLE: 6 exhibits, 3 questions, no signup
The Vanishing at Blackwater Lake
Fictional case file. Every person, place, and agency is invented.
How it works
A real investigation, start to finish
Each case is a standalone investigation with everything you need to reach a defensible answer. The lessons live inside the case, so you learn each method at the moment you need it.
Open the file
Start with the official record: reports, interviews, and the conclusion someone already reached.
Follow the evidence
Witness statements, photos, phone logs, and fictional websites you discover through clues in the file.
Write your findings
Every conclusion cites the evidence, states its confidence, and names what the record cannot prove.
Score your reasoning
The solution traces every answer to the record, and the Report Card grades how you got there.
Featured case
CASE 001FILE 25-04417AGENCY Corliss County Sheriff’s OfficeLESSON Timelines and witness contradictions
Case 001
The Vanishing at Blackwater Lake
A woman paddles away from a lake association fish fry at sunset and never reaches the other shore. The sheriff’s office calls it an accidental drowning and closes the file. A year later, her sister hands you everything: the official reports, statements a private investigator gathered, photographs, a doorbell clip, and a repair shop work order nobody was supposed to see.
Your job is to tell her what actually happened, and who has not been honest about it.
Founding-player price: $19.99 for everyone during the launch window.
After the founding window, Clutch Confidential members pay $19.99.
Play time 3 to 5 hours solo, or one or two sessions for a group of 2 to 5. Level 1: no experience needed.
Get notified when it opensFully solvable in the kit. No other purchase required.
The Clutch Investigator Report Card
Graded on how you reasoned, not on a lucky guess
Naming the right person earns very little on its own. At the end of every case you score your written findings across five dimensions. Points come from conclusions you can defend with the record, including an honest statement of what the record cannot prove.
Each of the five dimensions is worth 20 points, 100 in all. The scores below are an example, not a real player’s results.
Five ratings
Badges for specific skills, like Calibrated and Not by Opinion, carry across Season One.
Free sample case
The Missing Atlas
The Hollin Township Library owns one irreplaceable thing: an 1873 county atlas, hand-colored, kept in a glass-walled map room that opens only with a staff keycard. On Saturday afternoon the atlas was on display. By 5:20 PM, twenty minutes after closing, it was gone.
Three staff members used their keycards on the map room door that afternoon. The library director has asked you one question: who was the last person in the map room while the atlas was still there?
One tip: not every clock in a file is telling the truth.
The evidence
Open each exhibit. Read all six before you answer.EXHIBIT M1Incident note
Prepared by: Marisol Duarte, Director
The library closed at 5:00 PM. At 5:20 PM, archivist Theo Lindgren discovered that the 1873 county atlas was missing from the center table in the map room. The map room door is locked at all times and opens only with a staff keycard. Each entry is logged by the door reader. Facilities manager Wes Darrow pulled the log at 5:30 PM. No one else has a keycard.
EXHIBIT M2Door log, as printed
| Time | Badge | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 4:44 PM | 12 | T. Lindgren |
| 4:58 PM | 07 | M. Duarte |
| 5:09 PM | 03 | W. Darrow |
| 5:20 PM | 12 | T. Lindgren |
EXHIBIT M3Fire alarm test
Monitoring company certificate, from the monitoring center’s synchronized clock: Test alarm initiated 3:00:00 PM. All doors released by the alarm system at that moment.
Map room door reader system log, same day: 3:12:00 PM. ALARM RELEASE. DOOR UNLOCKED BY FIRE SYSTEM.
EXHIBIT M4Facilities work order
Work order 0419. Door reader for map room replaced in April. Clock set by hand at installation by W. Darrow. No network connection.
EXHIBIT M5Volunteer photo log
Photographer: Hannah Osei, volunteer. Original file from her phone.
Photo IMG_8810.jpg. Capture time: Saturday 4:52:10 PM.
The map room seen through its glass wall from the reading room. The room is empty. The atlas lies open on the center table.
EXHIBIT M6Staff statements
THEO LINDGREN, archivist: “I went in about quarter to five to switch off the display lights. The atlas was on the table. I came back at 5:20 to put it away for the night, and it was gone.”
MARISOL DUARTE, director: “I checked the map room before closing, a little before five, and made sure the window latch was set. I didn’t look closely at the table. I was in and out in a minute or two.”
WES DARROW, facilities: “I went in after we closed, about ten after five, to check the thermostat. The log shows it. The atlas was already gone when I got there. Whoever was in before me took it.”
Your three questions
Pick an answer to see feedback.1. Is the door reader’s clock accurate?
2. Correct the door log. Who was the last person in the map room while the atlas was still there?
3. Which staff statement does the corrected record contradict?
Show the full solution
The clock. The alarm released every door at exactly 3:00:00 PM by the monitoring center’s synchronized clock, and the reader logged it at 3:12:00 (M3). The reader runs 12 minutes fast because it was set by hand with no network connection (M4).
| Printed | True time | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 4:44 PM | 4:32 PM | T. Lindgren |
| 4:58 PM | 4:46 PM | M. Duarte |
| 5:09 PM | 4:57 PM | W. Darrow |
| 5:20 PM | 5:08 PM | T. Lindgren |
The answer. At 4:52 PM, after Marisol had come and gone, the room was empty and the atlas was on the table (M5). The only entry after that is Wes Darrow’s, at about 4:57. His statement that he went in after closing and found the atlas gone is contradicted by the calibrated log and the time-stamped photo.
One more correction. Theo returned at about 5:08 true time, not 5:20, so the discovery happened twelve minutes earlier than the incident note says. Calibrate every record a bad clock touches, not just the one you care about.
What the record does not show. It shows who was in the room and when. It does not show where the atlas went. The next step is to hand the calibrated log, the alarm certificate, and the photo to the police.
You just calibrated a clock
You found one moment recorded by a trusted clock and an untrusted one, measured the difference, and corrected every record it touched. That is a real investigative technique, and it is the first lesson of Case 001, where a single uncorrected timestamp carried a man’s alibi through an official investigation.
Season One
Six cases, six skills
Each case builds on the last and gets harder as it goes.
The Vanishing at Blackwater Lake
SkillTimelines and witness contradictions
The Last Call
SkillEvidence evaluation and corroboration
The Missing $400,000
SkillPublic spending and financial records
The Evidence Locker
SkillChain of custody and forensic limits
The Digital Ghost
SkillOpen-source research and digital provenance
The Silence Protocol
SkillHypothesis testing and investigative synthesis
For classrooms and trainings
Built to teach
Every case includes a Facilitator Guide with session plans for a single workshop or three class periods, group roles, discussion questions, accommodations, and a grading rubric that maps to three measurable learning objectives. A skills assessment works as a pre-test and a post-test.
Criminal justice, paralegal, journalism, and research methods courses, analyst onboarding, and library programs can use a case with a group license. Ask about group licensing at hello@clutchjustice.com.
Questions
Before you open the file
Do I need to buy anything else to solve a case?
No. Every case is fully solvable with what comes in the kit. Clutch Field Kit products are optional next steps for applying the methods to real records.
Is this a real case?
No. Every person, place, agency, and document is fictional. No real victim or family is depicted. The investigative methods are real.
Do I need internet to play?
It helps. Part of Case 001’s evidence lives on fictional websites you discover through clues. A sealed Offline Archive in the download reproduces every online exhibit, so you can finish without them.
Is it graphic?
No. Case 001 is a missing person case with no violence on the page and no injury descriptions.
Does finishing a case make me a certified investigator?
No. The cases teach transferable research methods. They are not professional credentials or licenses.
Can I use a case in my classroom or training?
Yes, with a group license. Each case includes a Facilitator Guide with session plans, roles, discussion questions, and grading guidance.
Clutch Cold Case Files are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, agencies, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental. The investigative methods are real. Photographs on this page are illustrations, not case exhibits.
Continue Your Investigation
If this raised more questions, use the Clutch Justice ecosystem to keep going.