Clues by Sam Oct 18, 2026 Answer – Full Solution Explained
A1
👨🎨
painter
B1
👨🏫
teacher
C1
🕵️♂️
sleuth
D1
🕵️♂️
sleuth
A2
👮♀️
cop
B2
👩🏫
teacher
C2
👨🎨
painter
D2
💂♀️
guard
A3
👷♀️
builder
B3
👩🏫
teacher
C3
🕵️♀️
sleuth
D3
💂♀️
guard
A4
👩💼
clerk
B4
👩💼
clerk
C4
👮♂️
cop
D4
💂♂️
guard
A5
👨⚖️
judge
B5
👨⚖️
judge
C5
👨⚖️
judge
D5
👷♀️
builder
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 — 15 criminals.
Clues by Sam answer for Oct 18, 2026 — a Hard solved in 16 steps
Today's Clues by Sam puzzle is rated Hard and resolves with 15 criminals on a 20-cell, 4-column × 5-row grid. The criminals are Alex (A1), Ben (B1), Denis (D1), Emma (A2), Gabe (C2), Joyce (A3), Karen (B3), Megan (D3), Olivia (A4), Pam (B4), Rob (C4), Steve (D4), Wally (B5), Xavi (C5) and Zoe (D5); the remaining 5 suspects are innocent.
The deduction chain, in plain English
01.A2 · Emma → CRIMINAL, C2 · Gabe → CRIMINAL
Flora says there are more criminals than innocents to the left of Hilda. Among those people, that means there must be at least 2 criminals and at most 1 innocent. But to Hilda’s left, Flora is already the 1 known innocent, and the only people there whose status is not fixed yet are Emma and Gabe. So neither of those remaining people can be innocent. That makes Emma and Gabe criminals.
02.D1 · Denis → CRIMINAL
Row 1 has exactly 3 criminals, and exactly 2 of those row 1 criminals are Flora's neighbors: Alex, Ben, and Chad. That means exactly 1 criminal in row 1 must be someone who is not Flora's neighbor. The only person in row 1 who is not Flora's neighbor is Denis, and that group currently has 0 known criminals, so its required 1 criminal has to be Denis. So Denis must be criminal.
03.A1 · Alex → CRIMINAL
Row 1 has exactly 3 criminals, and exactly 2 of those row 1 criminals are Flora's neighbors. If Alex were innocent, then the only row 1 people who could fill those 2 neighboring-criminal spots would be Ben and Chad, so Ben and Chad would both have to be criminals. Denis's clue says an odd number of the people in row 1 who neighbor Gabe are innocent. That shared group is Ben, Chad, and Denis. But with Ben and Chad criminal and Denis already criminal, that group would contain 0 innocents, which is not odd. So the assumption fails, and Alex must be criminal.
04.B3 · Karen → CRIMINAL
Alex’s clue says exactly 1 sleuth has an innocent directly to the left, and the relevant “left of a sleuth” people here are Ben, Chad, and Karen. Among those three, exactly 2 are criminals. Emma’s clue fixes row 1 as having exactly 3 criminals in total, and with Alex and Denis already criminal, that means exactly 1 of Ben and Chad is criminal. So in the larger group Ben, Chad, and Karen, the two criminals required by Alex’s clue cannot both come from Ben and Chad, because that pair contains only 1 criminal. The remaining person, Karen, has to supply the difference, so Karen must be criminal.
05.D2 · Hilda → INNOCENT
If Hilda were criminal, then row 2 would have only one innocent, Flora, and no unknowns left in that row. Karen’s clue says row 2 must have more innocents than any other row. But Emma’s clue fixes row 1 at exactly three criminals, and exactly two of those row 1 criminals are Flora’s neighbors. In row 1, Denis is the one criminal who is not Flora’s neighbor, so the other two row 1 criminals must be the neighboring spots Ben and Chad. That makes Ben and Chad criminals, so row 1 has no innocents at all. With row 2 stuck at only one innocent under the assumption about Hilda, that clashes with the required row comparison. So Hilda at D2 must be innocent.
06.D4 · Steve → CRIMINAL
Hilda's clue says Steve is one of Rob's 7 criminal neighbors. That directly places Steve among the neighbors who are criminal, so Steve at D4 must be criminal.
07.B4 · Pam → CRIMINAL
If Pam were innocent, then Rob’s neighbors would have to contain exactly 7 criminals, and Steve is one of them. In that neighbor group, Karen and Steve are already criminals, so Linda, Megan, Wally, Xavi, and Zoe also have to be criminals to reach 7, leaving Pam as the only non-criminal there. Row 2 already has exactly 2 innocents, and it must have more innocents than any other row. That means row 4 cannot also reach 2 innocents, so with Pam innocent, Olivia in row 4 has to be criminal. Gabe’s clue says an odd number of the people who are both below Chad and neighbors of Steve are innocent. That shared group is Linda, Rob, and Xavi, but Linda and Xavi are already criminals, so Rob would have to be criminal too, making that group have 0 innocents, not an odd number. So Pam must be criminal.
08.D3 · Megan → CRIMINAL
Pam’s clue says Megan is one of the 11 criminals on the edge. That directly identifies Megan’s status. So Megan must be criminal.
09.C5 · Xavi → CRIMINAL, D5 · Zoe → CRIMINAL
Pam’s clue says there are exactly 11 criminals on the edges. Since the edge has 14 people total and Hilda is already known innocent, that means the edge contains exactly 2 innocents altogether. Those 2 edge innocents are already confined to Ben, Chad, Joyce, Olivia, Vince, and Wally. So Xavi and Zoe cannot be either of the 2 innocent edge people. That makes Xavi and Zoe criminal.
10.A3 · Joyce → CRIMINAL
Assume Joyce were innocent. Then row 3 would already have two innocents, Joyce and Linda, because Rob's clue says Steve is one of Rob's seven criminal neighbors, so among Rob's two unknown neighbors only one can be innocent, which makes Linda criminal and Wally innocent. Row 2 has exactly two innocents, and it must have more innocents than any other row. So if Joyce were innocent, row 3 could not have any other innocent besides her, but Linda is already fixed as the other person in that row who is not criminal, which clashes with that row count. Megan's clue also makes Olivia's neighbors and Steve's neighbors have the same number of innocent neighbors; with Joyce innocent and Wally innocent, Olivia's side would force Vince to be criminal, and this setup is impossible. So Joyce must be criminal.
11.B5 · Wally → CRIMINAL
Row 2 has exactly 2 innocents, and it must have more innocents than any other row. If Wally were innocent, then row 5 would already contain an innocent at B5 while Xavi and Zoe are criminals at C5 and D5. Joyce’s clue says all criminals in row 5 must be connected. With Wally innocent, the only way to keep the criminals in row 5 connected is for Vince at A5 to be criminal, giving A5, C5, and D5 as the criminals there with B5 breaking the row. But that makes the row 5 criminals fail the connected requirement, so Wally cannot be innocent. So Wally must be criminal.
12.C4 · Rob → CRIMINAL, A5 · Vince → INNOCENT
Olivia's neighbors and Steve's neighbors have to contain the same number of innocent people. Right now both groups have 0 known innocents, so any innocents added among the remaining people have to keep those two totals equal. If Rob were innocent and Vince were criminal, then Steve's neighbors would gain an innocent from Rob while Olivia's neighbors would gain none from Vince. Linda is the only other unknown person touched by these clue counts, and that does not fix the mismatch between Olivia's side and Steve's side. So Rob must be criminal and Vince must be innocent.
13.C3 · Linda → INNOCENT
Hilda’s clue says Steve is one of the exactly 7 criminal neighbors of Rob. Rob’s neighbors are Karen, Linda, Megan, Pam, Steve, Wally, Xavi, and Zoe, and among them Karen, Megan, Pam, Steve, Wally, Xavi, and Zoe are already criminal. That already fills all 7 criminal neighbor spots named by the clue, so Linda cannot also be criminal. So Linda must be innocent.
14.B1 · Ben → CRIMINAL
Rob’s clue says Alex’s neighbors contain exactly one innocent. Alex’s neighbors already include one known innocent, and the only unknown person left among those neighbors is Ben. Since that one innocent is already accounted for, Ben cannot be innocent. So Ben must be criminal.
15.C1 · Chad → INNOCENT
Row 1 has exactly 3 criminals in total. The clue says exactly 2 of those row 1 criminals are Flora's neighbors, and among the row 1 people who are Flora's neighbors, Alex and Ben are already those 2 known criminals. Chad is the only remaining unknown in that same row 1 neighbor group, so he cannot also be a criminal. So Chad must be innocent.
16.A4 · Olivia → CRIMINAL
Pam’s clue says Megan is one of exactly 11 criminals on the edge. In the edge cells, there are already 10 known criminals: Alex, Ben, Denis, Emma, Joyce, Megan, Steve, Wally, Xavi, and Zoe. The only edge cell whose identity is not yet known is Olivia at A4, so she has to supply the 11th edge criminal. So Olivia must be criminal.