Who Dunnit?

Mr. Noah Body was found dead in his bedroom at 9:45 last night and witnesses identified

six possible suspects that were seen at the Body residence yesterday. According to the given

information, my team and I were able to accuse the Butler of murdering Mr. Body at 5:07 p.m.

To begin, we were told four facts that were in relation to the crime which we translated

into mathematical variables. The first fact was that Mr. Body was in good health and had not

been sick recently which I translated into his initial temperature being a healthy 98.6 degrees

Fahrenheit. We then knew that Mr. Body’s temperature at 10:07 p.m was 87.1 degrees and one

hour later the temperature was 85.6 degrees which were temperatures were able to use to find our

k value in the equation A= Aoe^kt. Lastly, we knew that the thermostat in his room was set to 75

degrees for several days.

To solve the murder mystery, we used the equation A= Aoe^kt to find the exact time in

which Mr. Body was murdered. I began by giving each of my variables a meaning starting with

A (represents the temperature), Ao (initial temperature), k (rate of change of Mr. Body’s

temperature), and t (the time passed). According to this, my equation which I used to find k was

85.6 = (98.6 - 75)e ^ -k(1) +75. We used 1 in place of t because this equation represents the

change in temperature over the course of one hour, the time between 87.1 degrees body

temperature and 85.5 degrees body temperature. The 75 was used in accordance to Newton’s

Law of Cooling because the temperature in the room was an unchanging 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

After solving this equation I was able to find k to equal -.1323 .

After finding “k”, the next step was to use k in the initial equation to find the time of

death by solving for “t”. The final equation was 87.1 = (23.6)e^-.1323(t) +75 with A being the
initial temperature when they found Mr. Body at 87.1 degrees Fahrenheit, Ao being 23.6 which

is the initial healthy body temperature minus 75 which is the room temperature, k is rate found

from solving above, and the 75 represents the constant room temperature. After solving for t, the

number of hours before 10:07, I found his death to occur 5.04 hours before 10:07 p.m. This

means that Mr. Noah Body was murdered at roughly 5:07 p.m. The only suspects with an

opportunity to be in the house at the time of death were the Butler and the Cook. However, the

Cook was serving dinner from 5 to 5:30, while the Butler only appeared after 5:15 p.m.

Therefore, the Butler is convicted of the death of Mr. Noah Body!

GRAPH OF NOAH BODY’s TIME OF DEATH