ESL Speaking Lesson Level: Intermediate + Topic: Murder mystery story lesson, using crime vocabulary and set phrases for deduction.

1. S_ _ _ _ _ _ _
H _ _ _ _ _

2.  Sherlock Holmes is a detective. His job is to solve
crimes and find out who is the killer in a murder
mystery.
 He needs to think about:
Match the crime words to their correct definitions.
Crime word
The crime scene
The evidence
The murder weapon
The witnesses
The suspects
The motive
Definition
The people we think did the crime.
The place where the crime happened.
The people who saw the crime.
The object used to kill someone: gun, knife etc
The reason the killer killed someone.
The things that help us find out who the killer is.

3. Crime word
The crime scene
The evidence
The murder weapon
The witnesses
The suspects
The motive
Definition
The place where the crime happened.
The things that help us find out who the killer is.
The object used to kill someone: gun, knife etc
The people who saw the crime.
The people we think did the crime.
The reason the killer killed someone.
What other crime words do you know?
Who is the victim in a crime?
What is a murder mystery?

4. How did the victim die? Were there any witnesses?

5. What was the murder weapon?
What was the killer’s motive?
Where did the killer go?

6. Who was the killer? What evidence do you have?

7. What extra evidence do you see?

8.  Case Study
Alec Crabtree was found dead at his desk in his study last night.
He was sat at the desk writing a letter when he was killed.
He was found by his wife, when she went in to bring him tea at
11:15pm, but his watch, which broke during the crime, stopped
at 11:05pm.

9. People who were in the house at the time:
Mrs Crabtree (the victim’s wife)
Daniel Crabtree (the victim’s brother)
Mr and Mrs Fairfax (their friends)
Susie (the maid).
Mrs Crabtree Daniel Crabtree MR + MRS Fairfax Susie

10. Notes : Murder
Weapon
Motive

13. 1 A pair of scissors was missing from the room. 2 The window was open.
3 A cigarette-end was found by the body. 4 Everybody smokes except Alec Crabtree and the
maid.
5 A piece of red material was found on the window. 6 The scissors were found in a flowerbed.
7 Mrs Crabtree, Mrs Fairfax, and Daniel were all
wearing something red.
8 A note was found in Mrs Crabtree’s handbag. It said:
Alec, meet me in the garden at 11 o’clock, Alice.
9 Everyone was playing cards until 11pm, except
Susie, who was washing dishes in the kitchen
between 10.30 and 11.15.
10 At 11 o’clock Mr Crabtree got up and said he had a
letter to write. He went into the study.
11 Mrs Crabtree’s name is not Alice. 12 Mrs Fairfax went outside at 11 o’clock, saying she
was hot and needed fresh air.
13 In the drawer of the desk was a will.
The will left 10,000 pounds to Daniel.
14 The maid heard footsteps in the hall and the study
door opening at just after 11 o’clock.
15 Daniel has debts of about 9,000 pounds. 16 At about 11:05pm, the maid heard the front door
opening and footsteps in the hall. It was Mrs Fairfax,
coming in from the garden. She went straight into the
living room.
17 Daniel and Mr Fairfax started to watch a TV
programme after the game of cards finished at 11
o’clock. They were still watching it at 11:05pm when
Alice Fairfax came in and joined them.
18 Alec Crabtree had been writing a letter. It began:
Dear Anne, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I am
leaving you. Alice and I…
19 At about 11:10pm, the maid heard the front door
opening again. This time it was Mrs Crabtree, who
came into the kitchen and started to make tea for
herself and her husband.
20 Mrs Crabtree’s name is Anne.

15.  Solution
Mrs Crabtree was the murderer. She went into
the study at just after 11pm, when the maid heard
her footsteps in the hall. She left by the window,
and threw the murder weapon, the scissors, into
the flowerbed. Then she came back into the
house through the front door, made some tea in
the kitchen and took it into the study. Her motive
was jealousy: She had found a letter from her
husband to Alice Fairfax and when she went to
talk to him about it, she found him writing a
letter telling her that he was leaving her.