Clues by Sam May 07, 2026 Answer – Full Solution Explained
A1
💂♂️
guard
B1
👩🌾
farmer
C1
👩🔧
mech
D1
👮♂️
cop
A2
💂♂️
guard
B2
👷♀️
builder
C2
👨🎨
painter
D2
👨🌾
farmer
A3
👩✈️
pilot
B3
👩🏫
teacher
C3
👨🎨
painter
D3
👩✈️
pilot
A4
👮♀️
cop
B4
👨✈️
pilot
C4
👩🎨
painter
D4
👷♂️
builder
A5
👩🔬
scientist
B5
👨🔧
mech
C5
👩🏫
teacher
D5
👨🔧
mech
Final Board State
This puzzle is fully solved.
All characters have been identified as innocent or criminal based on today's clues.
See how each clue leads to the final result
Skip the reasoning — 5 criminals.
Clues by Sam answer for May 07, 2026 — a Tricky solved in 15 steps
Today's Clues by Sam puzzle is rated Tricky and resolves with 5 criminals on a 20-cell, 4-column × 5-row grid. The criminals are Betty (B1), Celia (C1), Helen (B2), Laura (A3) and Petra (D3); the remaining 15 suspects are innocent.
The deduction chain, in plain English
01.A2 · Gus → INNOCENT, D2 · Kumar → INNOCENT
Umar’s clue says exactly 2 corner people have an innocent directly below them. There must be 2 more such cases to satisfy that clue, and the only direct-below people still relevant to this clue are Gus and Kumar. So those two have to supply the needed innocent-below cases. That makes Gus and Kumar innocent.
02.A4 · Quita → INNOCENT, A5 · Vera → INNOCENT
Gus says exactly 2 people below him have an innocent directly below them. Two such cases are still needed, and the only remaining direct-below pair that can supply them is Quita and Vera. So both of those positions have to be innocent for Gus's clue to be satisfied. That makes Quita and Vera innocent.
03.B2 · Helen → CRIMINAL
Mary, Nick, and Petra are the three people to the right of Laura, and that group contains exactly 2 innocents. Among Ike's neighbors who are not in row 1, there must be exactly 3 innocents: Kumar plus those same three people to the right of Laura, with Helen as the only additional person in that larger group. Since Mary, Nick, and Petra already account for the 2 innocents allowed there, adding Kumar makes the full non-row-1 neighbor group's 3 innocents completely used up. That leaves no innocent place for Helen, so Helen must be criminal.
04.B1 · Betty → CRIMINAL
Helen’s clue says Betty is one of the exactly 2 criminals in row 1. That directly identifies Betty’s status from the clue itself. So Betty must be criminal.
05.A1 · Alex → INNOCENT
Ike’s row 1 neighbors are Betty, Celia, and Eric, and that group contains exactly 2 criminals. Row 1 as a whole also contains exactly 2 criminals: Alex, Betty, Celia, and Eric. Since the smaller group inside row 1 already accounts for both criminals allowed in the whole row, the only row 1 person outside that group, Alex, cannot be a criminal. So Alex must be innocent.
06.C3 · Nick → INNOCENT
Alex says all innocents in row 3 are connected, so the innocents there have to form one single block. Quita says exactly two of the people to the right of Laura are innocents, so among Mary, Nick, and Petra there must be exactly two innocents. The only connected innocent blocks in row 3 that fit that are Mary and Nick, Laura-Mary-Nick, or Nick and Petra. Every one of those includes Nick, so Nick must be innocent.
07.C2 · Ike → INNOCENT
Nick’s clue says Ike is one of Helen’s 5 innocent neighbors. That directly identifies Ike as an innocent neighbor of Helen. So Ike must be innocent.
08.A3 · Laura → CRIMINAL
Nick’s clue says Helen has exactly 5 innocent neighbors. Among Helen’s neighbors, Alex, Gus, Ike, and Nick are already innocent, so there is room for exactly one more innocent among Celia, Laura, and Mary. Alex’s clue says all innocents in row 3 are connected, and in row 3 the only known innocent is Nick. That means the extra innocent in Helen’s neighboring part of row 3 must be Mary, not Laura, because Laura and Nick would not give a connected group of innocents in that row. So Laura must be criminal.
09.B4 · Steve → INNOCENT, C4 · Tina → INNOCENT
Nick’s clue says Nick has more innocent neighbors than Helen. Right now Nick’s neighbors have 3 known innocents, while Helen’s neighbors have 4 known innocents, so the remaining unknown people tied to these clues have to make Nick’s side finish higher than Helen’s. If Steve and Tina were both criminals, then only Celia, Mary, and Petra would be left to supply the needed innocents for these clue facts. That cannot satisfy everything at once, so Steve and Tina cannot both have the opposite identity. So Steve and Tina must be innocent.
10.B5 · Wally → INNOCENT
Ike's row 1 neighbors are Betty, Celia, and Eric, and exactly 2 of them are criminals. The edge cells that are not Umar's neighbors also must contain exactly 3 criminals, and that larger group is Alex, Betty, Celia, Eric, Gus, Kumar, Laura, Quita, Umar, Vera, and Wally. Within that larger group, Betty and Laura are already known criminals, so it needs exactly one more criminal. But among Betty, Celia, and Eric, exactly two are criminals, and since Betty is one of them, that means exactly one of Celia or Eric is also a criminal. So the needed third criminal in the larger group is already accounted for by Betty together with one of Celia or Eric, leaving no room for Wally to be a criminal. So Wally must be innocent.
11.C5 · Xia → INNOCENT
Below Eric there must be exactly 3 innocents, and Kumar and Umar already account for 2 of them. So among the two unknown people below Eric, Petra and Zach, exactly 1 is innocent. Among the edge criminals, exactly 1 is Umar's neighbor, so within Umar's edge-cell neighbors Petra, Xia, and Zach, there must be exactly 2 innocents. Since Petra and Zach together provide only 1 innocent, the remaining person in that group has to provide the other one. That remaining person is Xia, so Xia must be innocent.
12.C1 · Celia → CRIMINAL, D1 · Eric → INNOCENT
Tina’s clue says the edge has exactly four criminals, and exactly one of those edge criminals is Umar’s neighbor. Xia’s clue says exactly one innocent in column C has a criminal directly to the right, and the known innocents in column C are Ike, Nick, Tina, and Xia. If Celia were innocent and Eric were criminal, then D3 Petra and D5 Zach would have to make both clues true at the same time, but they cannot. That means Celia and Eric cannot have those opposite identities. So Celia must be criminal and Eric must be innocent.
13.B3 · Mary → INNOCENT
Nick’s clue says Ike is one of Helen’s exactly 5 innocent neighbors. Among Helen’s neighbors, Alex, Gus, Ike, and Nick are already innocent, while Betty, Celia, and Laura are criminal, and Mary is the only neighbor there not yet identified. If Mary were criminal, Helen would have only 4 innocent neighbors, not 5. So Mary must be innocent.
14.D3 · Petra → CRIMINAL
Quita’s clue says the people to the right of Laura contain exactly 2 innocents. That group already has 2 known innocents, Mary and Nick. The only person there whose identity is not yet known is Petra, so Petra cannot also be innocent without making more than 2 innocents to Laura’s right. So Petra must be criminal.
15.D5 · Zach → INNOCENT
Tina's clue says there are exactly 4 criminals on the edge, and exactly 1 of those edge criminals is Umar's neighbor. Among the edge people who are Umar's neighbors, Petra is already a known criminal, while Xia is innocent and Zach is the only unknown. That means the one criminal allowed in that shared group is already Petra, so Zach cannot also be a criminal. So Zach is innocent.