Clues by Sam Jul 29, 2026 Answer – Full Solution Explained
A1
👩🎨
painter
B1
👨🎨
painter
C1
🕵️♂️
sleuth
D1
👨🌾
farmer
A2
👩💻
coder
B2
👨🎨
painter
C2
👩💻
coder
D2
👨🎨
painter
A3
🕵️♀️
sleuth
B3
👷♀️
builder
C3
👨🍳
cook
D3
👩💻
coder
A4
👨🎤
singer
B4
👷♀️
builder
C4
👩🍳
cook
D4
👩🌾
farmer
A5
👨🏫
teacher
B5
👨🏫
teacher
C5
👩🍳
cook
D5
👨🏫
teacher
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 Jul 29, 2026 — a Tricky solved in 14 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 Clyde (B1), Donald (C1), Nancy (B3), Ollie (C3) and Quita (D3); the remaining 15 suspects are innocent.
The deduction chain, in plain English
01.C3 · Ollie → CRIMINAL
Hazel’s clue says Ollie is one of the exactly 2 criminals in column C. Since Ollie is explicitly named as one of those criminals, his identity is fixed by the clue itself. So Ollie must be criminal.
02.B3 · Nancy → CRIMINAL
Ollie’s clue says column B contains exactly 2 criminals, and exactly 1 of those criminals is between Mary and Quita. In that between group, the only person from column B is Nancy. So the one criminal from column B who has to be between Mary and Quita can only be Nancy. That makes Nancy criminal.
03.C4 · Tina → INNOCENT, C5 · Xola → INNOCENT
Donald and Katie are the only people who are both in column C and also in the part of Luigi's neighborhood counted by Nancy's clue, and that part contains exactly 1 criminal. Hazel's clue says column C contains exactly 2 criminals total, with Ollie already being one of them. So the 2 criminals allowed in column C are already accounted for by Ollie plus the one criminal among Donald and Katie. That leaves no criminal place in column C for Tina or Xola. This leaves Tina and Xola as innocent.
04.B5 · Wally → INNOCENT
Xola’s clue says there are exactly 2 innocents above Wally. In column B, that leaves a total of exactly 3 innocents among Clyde, Igor, Nancy, Stella, and Wally, since Nancy is already a criminal and cannot be one of those innocents. The only person in column B who is not above Wally is Wally himself, so he has to supply that extra innocent. So Wally must be innocent.
05.B4 · Stella → INNOCENT
Wally's clue says exactly 1 of Katie's 5 criminal neighbors is also a neighbor of Alice. Among the people who are both Katie's neighbors and Alice's neighbors, that means the only criminal allowed there is within B1 Clyde and B2 Igor. Ollie's clue says column B has exactly 2 criminals in total, and Nancy is already one of them. So the other criminal in column B must come from B1 Clyde or B2 Igor, which uses up the only remaining criminal spot in that column. The only other unidentified person in column B is B4 Stella, so Stella at B4 must be innocent.
06.D4 · Uma → INNOCENT
Stella’s clue says that Uma is one of Ollie’s 6 innocent neighbors. That directly identifies Uma’s status from the clue itself. So Uma must be innocent.
07.C1 · Donald → CRIMINAL, C2 · Katie → INNOCENT
Hazel’s clue says column C has exactly 2 criminals, and Stella’s clue says Ollie has exactly 6 innocent neighbors. Wally’s clue also says Katie has exactly 5 criminal neighbors, with exactly 1 of those criminals being Alice’s neighbor, namely one of Clyde or Igor. Now test the opposite identities: Donald innocent and Katie criminal. Then the remaining people involved here, Clyde, Ghani, Igor, Luigi, and Quita, would have to satisfy all three of those requirements at the same time, but they cannot. So the opposite assignment is impossible. Donald must be criminal, and Katie must be innocent.
08.D2 · Luigi → INNOCENT
Wally's clue says Katie has exactly 5 criminal neighbors, and exactly 1 of them is Alice's neighbor, so exactly 4 criminal neighbors of Katie are not neighbors of Alice. Those 4 must come from C1 Donald, D1 Ghani, D2 Luigi, B3 Nancy, C3 Ollie, and D3 Quita. Nancy's clue says Luigi has exactly 3 criminal neighbors, with exactly 1 also being Clyde's neighbor. Since Donald is already that one, the other two criminal neighbors of Luigi must be Ghani and Quita. That means among Katie's neighbors who are not neighbors of Alice, the four criminals are already Donald, Ghani, Nancy, Ollie, and Quita's set contributes all the criminal places except the one left outside that smaller group, which is Luigi. So Luigi must be innocent.
09.D5 · Zulu → INNOCENT
Luigi’s clue says column D has exactly 4 innocents, and no other column does. Nancy’s clue also fixes Luigi’s neighborhood at exactly 3 criminals, with exactly 1 of those criminals also being Clyde’s neighbor. If Zulu were criminal, then the remaining unknown people involved here, especially Ghani and Quita in column D along with the other named unknowns, would have to satisfy both of those requirements at the same time. That cannot be done without conflicting with the two clues. So Zulu must be innocent.
10.A1 · Alice → INNOCENT, A4 · Rob → INNOCENT, A5 · Vince → INNOCENT, A3 · Mary → INNOCENT
Uma’s clue says column A has more innocents than column B. Right now column A has only 1 known innocent, while column B already has 2. If Alice, Mary, Rob, and Vince were all criminals, then column A would stay at just that 1 innocent. The only other people involved here are Clyde and Igor in column B, and nothing about them can reduce column B below the 2 innocents it already has. That would make column A unable to have more innocents than column B, so those four cannot be criminals. So Alice, Mary, Rob, and Vince must be innocent.
11.B1 · Clyde → CRIMINAL
Katie says the edge cells contain an odd number of innocents. There are already 10 known innocents on the edge, so the unknown edge people must add an odd number of further innocents. Luigi says column D has exactly 4 innocents. Column D already has 3 known innocents, so between Ghani and Quita there is exactly 1 more innocent. Ghani and Quita are edge cells, so that one innocent in column D already supplies the odd extra innocent the edge needs. If Clyde were also innocent, the unknown edge people would contribute 2 innocents in total, which would be even, not odd. So Clyde must be criminal.
12.B2 · Igor → INNOCENT
Wally’s clue says that among Katie’s five criminal neighbors, exactly one is also a neighbor of Alice. The only people who are both Katie’s neighbors and Alice’s neighbors are Clyde and Igor. Clyde is already a criminal, so that one allowed criminal in the shared group is already used up. That means Igor cannot be a criminal, so Igor must be innocent.
13.D3 · Quita → CRIMINAL
Stella’s clue says Uma is one of Ollie’s exactly 6 innocent neighbors. Among Ollie’s neighbors, the six already known innocents are Igor, Katie, Luigi, Stella, Tina, and Uma, with Nancy criminal and only Quita not yet identified. If Quita were also innocent, Ollie’s neighbors would contain 7 innocents, which conflicts with the clue’s total of exactly 6. So Quita must be criminal.
14.D1 · Ghani → INNOCENT
Luigi says column D is the only column with exactly 4 innocents. In column D, Luigi, Uma, and Zulu are already innocent, and Quita is criminal, so the only undecided person there is Ghani. If Ghani were criminal, then column D would have only 3 innocents, which conflicts with Luigi's clue that column D has exactly 4 innocents. So Ghani must be innocent.