Puzzle Pack #2 Puzzle 30 Answer

Noah’s clue says Zoe is one of the exactly 2 criminals in column D. That directly tells us Zoe is a criminal.

Zoe’s clue says row 5 has exactly 2 innocents, and exactly 1 of those innocents is in a corner. In row 5, the corner cells are A5 Vince and D5 Zoe. Zoe is already known to be a criminal, so the row-5 corner group still needs 1 innocent, and Vince is the only unknown person left in that group. So Vince must be innocent.

Vince’s clue says exactly one cop has an innocent directly above them. We already have Paul at C4 as a cop position with Lisa at C3 directly above him. Since that one required cop case has to be provided there, the person above Paul must be innocent. So Lisa must be innocent.

Lisa’s clue says the pilot profession contains exactly one innocent. That one innocent pilot is already known: Lisa. Xavi is the only pilot left with unknown status, so he cannot also be innocent. So Xavi must be criminal.

Zoe’s clue says row 5 has exactly 2 innocents, and exactly 1 of those innocents is in a corner. In row 5, the corner cells are A5 Vince and D5 Zoe, and among them only Vince is an innocent, so the other innocent in row 5 must be in a non-corner cell. The non-corner people in row 5 are B5 Wanda and C5 Xavi, and Xavi is already criminal. So Wanda must be innocent.

The clue says the two innocents in column C must be orthogonally connected. Lisa at C3 is already known to be one of those innocents, so the other innocent in that column has to be directly next to Lisa in the column, which narrows it to Hope at C2 or Paul at C4. David at C1 is not next to Lisa in that line, so he cannot be that other innocent person. So David must be criminal.

David’s clue says exactly 2 innocents are in the overlap of the people below Ben and the people neighboring Noah. That shared group is just Jane and Vince. Vince is already known to be innocent, so that group still needs 1 more innocent, and Jane is the only unknown left in it. So Jane must be innocent.

Jane's clue says there is exactly 1 innocent among the people who are both below Eve and neighboring Xavi. That shared group is only Uma and Zoe, and Zoe is already known to be a criminal. So the one innocent in that group has to be Uma. That makes Uma innocent.

Hope’s clue applies to the people who are both edge cells and neighbors of Hope: Clyde, David, Eve, Isaac, and Maria. It says an odd number of that group are innocent, and David is already known to be criminal. Noah’s clue also limits column D to exactly 2 criminals, with Zoe already one of them, so Eve, Isaac, and Maria have to fit that column-D limit at the same time. If Clyde were criminal, then Eve, Isaac, and Maria would be the only undecided people left to satisfy both clues together, and they cannot do that. So Clyde cannot be criminal. That makes Clyde innocent.

Between Eve and Zoe, the people in between are Isaac, Maria, and Uma, and that group has exactly 2 innocents. In column D, there are exactly 3 innocents total. The only person who is in column D but not in the between-Eve-and-Zoe group is Eve, so she has to provide the extra innocent needed to bring that count from 2 up to 3. So Eve must be innocent.

Eve’s clue says rows 1 and 5 must have the same number of criminals. Row 5 already has 2 criminals, while row 1 currently has only 1 known criminal, and the only unknown person left in row 1 is Ben. So Ben must be criminal.

Ben’s clue says column D is the only column with exactly 3 innocents, so no other column can finish with exactly 3 innocents. Column A already has 3 known innocents, and the only unknown person left in that column is Freya. Since column A cannot end with exactly 3 innocents, Freya has to be innocent so that column A does not stay at 3. So Freya must be innocent.

In column C, the two innocents have to be connected. With David at C1 and Xavi at C5 already criminals and Lisa at C3 already innocent, the only connected innocent pair in that column is either Hope with Lisa or Lisa with Paul. That means among Hope, Lisa, and Paul there is exactly 1 criminal. Maria’s neighbors are Hope, Isaac, Lisa, Paul, and Uma, and Uma is innocent. So the criminal count among Maria’s neighbors is exactly the 1 criminal from Hope, Lisa, and Paul, plus Isaac. Freya’s clue says Maria has an odd number of criminal neighbors, so Isaac cannot add another criminal to that total. That makes Isaac innocent.

Noah's clue says that Zoe is one of exactly 2 criminals in column D. In that column, Eve, Isaac, and Uma are already innocent, Zoe is already a criminal, and the only person there still unknown is Maria. So Maria has to be the second criminal in column D. That makes Maria criminal.

Maria’s clue says her neighbors must contain more criminals than Vince’s neighbors. Right now both groups have 0 known criminals, so if Oscar were criminal, Vince’s neighbors would already have 1 criminal. That would force Maria’s side to have more than 1 criminal, so both open neighbors there, Hope and Paul, would have to be criminals. But then column C would have David and Xavi as criminals, Lisa as the only innocent, and both Hope and Paul also criminal, so the two innocents required in column C could not be formed as a connected pair. So Oscar cannot be criminal. That makes Oscar innocent.

Oscar’s clue says his neighbors must contain more innocents than any other comparable group. Oscar already has 5 known innocent neighbors, and the only unknown neighbors there are Karen and Paul. If Hope were innocent, Gus were innocent, and Karen were criminal, those same open people would also have to satisfy all the comparable neighbor counts at once, but they cannot. That means that combination is impossible under Oscar’s clue. So Hope and Gus cannot be innocent, and Karen cannot be criminal. Therefore Hope and Gus must be criminal, and Karen must be innocent.

The clue says there are exactly 2 innocents in column C, and those two must be connected. In column C, David, Hope, and Xavi are already criminals, and Lisa is already innocent. The only unknown person in that column is Paul, so he has to be the second innocent needed by the clue, and that puts the two innocents together in the column. So Paul must be innocent.