This one's pretty simple, just continue adding the numbers together to figure out the sum at the top. The pyramid should result in an answer of 87.

Answer: EIGHTYSEVEN

Clue: Inside you find a sticky note reminder for Big Bird that today is also The Count's mother's birthday. He was visiting her out of town this morning.

This one requires some pop culture knowledge, but I like adding puzzles that don't always favor logically minded people. Someone up on their celebrity gossip would know this is just the list of the women Justin Bieber has dated. The missing blank in none other than Selena Gomez.

Answer: Selena Gomez

Clue: The Count Venmo'd Big Bird for sharing an Uber on the way home last night. He thanks Big Bird for letting them go to his place first. The Uber driver confirms Big Bird was totally alive when he dropped him off.

Tracing the routes of Big Bird's road trips reveals a passcode: 312. Spell that out and you've got your answer.

Answer: THREEONETWO

Clue: Bert, Oscar, and Big Bird are friends on an exercise app. They've each pledged to run a mile each day of the month. Bert hadn't done it in a while and ran 10 miles this afternoon to catch up. The location data proves him innocent.

The atom pictured is that of the element of Californium. This was kind of a curveball compared to some of the other puzzles, but I wanted to broaden the skills necessary to solve them and there's a way to figure it out by counting the electrons.

Answer: CALIFORNIUM

Clue: Big Bird's Facebook is open to a Facebook event for a protest that occurred this morning. Abby Cadabby and Bert accepted yes and are pictured in the feed.

This is a pretty simple unscramble. The underlined letters in each line spell out our answer: tomato sauce.

Answer: TOMATOSAUCE

Clue: You find a voicemail on Big Bird's landline (wow, he still has a landline!). The dentist called after Ernie's appointment this morning with an opening for this afternoon. She can vouch that Ernie was definitely there this morning.

This puzzle's for all of my geography and vexillology folks. This puzzle literally just requires you to identify the flag of Burkina Faso. If you recognize it right away, you'v got a leg up on completing these the fastest.

Answer: BURKINAFASO

Clue: You find a Facebook Messenger chat where Snuffleupagus was gathering people to play Among Us. Looks like he was playing all night.

I quite liked this poetry riddle I came up with. Once you figure out it's about Elvis, all that's left to do is find out how he died.

I'd like to apologize for the people who thought the answer to this was "on the toilet." That's a great answer, just not really what I was thinking for this one. But I love where your heads at.

Answer: HEARTATTACK

Clue: Big Bird handles Cookie Monster's finances and you can see a charge on his card late last night at Goodwill. Big Bird has this marked as a purchase for Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch's morning charity work. They're accounted for this morning and the Goodwill Cookie Monster was at is miles away from Big Bird's house.

I'm a huge fan of word searches and love when you can hide a secret phrase inside. I don't think anyone struggled with this puzzle in the moment, but it certainly can take a long time. The leftover letters spell out the question "Who wrote the comedy of errors?"

Answer: SHAKESPEARE

Clue: Oscar tweeted out a link to his new single on Soundcloud. His location services puts him at the landfill on the other side of Sesame Street late last night.

This was probably the puzzle that tripped up the most people. And I had actually made it easier based on some feedback from some friends who were testing these puzzles. Funny enough, I think the Sesame Street theme made this harder because "C. M." looks like Cookie Monster instead of the Three Men in a Tub rhyme.

Answer: CANDLESTICK

Clue: Elmo and Abby spent the entire night together last night. Messages from Abby indicate things got serious. Hubba hubba!

I think the references to being blind and Helen Keller make it pretty obvious this is meant to be interpreted as Braille once the logic puzzle is completed. Apparently there's another kind of Braille alphabet that I'd never seen and unfortunately that confused people for a while. I guess just a word of warning for any future Braille based puzzles.

Answer: TOASTEROVEN

Clue: The Count messaged Big Bird venting about the online class he teaches. He mentioned no one participates and only Elmo showed up to the Zoom office hours. They both vouch for each other's innocence past noon.

This was meant to be a pretty easy puzzle, and it was one of the last I created just to fill in the remaining clues. One search for the list of Jesus's apostles and you can pretty easily find who's missing. I know there are several alternate spellings of Bartholomew, but none of them are 11 letters so they aren't valid clues.

Answer: BARTHOLOMEW

Clue: Snuffleupagus live streamed sunrise yoga on Instagram for several hours this morning. Even though it had 0 viewers, it's a pretty good alibi.

Before and afters are one of my favorite kinds of puzzles, going back to watching Wheel of Fortune with my grandparents. I also think they're fairly simple puzzles to solve as it's mostly word association, no complex logical thinking required.

Answer: SNOWLEOPARD

Clue: An email sits read in Big Bird's inbox from the local salon. They're apologizing because they can no longer take him tomorrow. Abby Cadabby and Snuffleupagus have booked the salon to themselves. Several people saw them there all afternoon.

This might be my favorite puzzle of the whole set. The code at the bottom is a Spotify Code, a QR-style scannable code that prompts Spotify to play a certain song. This code plays Africa by Toto and if you listen to the song at 2:05 (like shown in the puzzle) they sing the word "Kilimanjaro." It's a nice 11 letter word, but in cade it's not recognizable, I included the triangle mountain shape in the puzzle too. I'd never seen a Spotify Code used in a puzzle so I was pretty proud of this one.

Answer: KILIMANJARO

Clue: Ernie and Oscar the Grouch ran into each other at the Wine Source. They both texted Big Bird angry because they each thought THEY were the one bringing charcuterie to the party. Despite the mix-up, this absolves them from murdering in the afternoon.

Along with the packet of puzzles came a deck of cards. On first glance it was unaltered but if you rifled through it, one card was missing. That's pretty much it... I liked having a puzzle that wasn't just paper and pencil, so I didn't mind that this one was pretty straightforward.

Answer: SIXOFSPADES

Clue: Bert and Big Bird TA for The Count's online Calculus class and students were supposed to submit assignments by midnight last night. Bert was answering student's comments pretty quickly. He'd have been at his computer that night, not murdering Big Bird.

This puzzle consisted of 12 index cards with the following pairs of letters written on them, and one card with a J and a firework. The top letters are the months of the year (firework hinting at July) and the bottom letters spell out the answer. Another physical puzzle I was happy with, and it was fun to watch people rearrange letters on the table in front of them instead of in their heads.

Answer: PILLOWFIGHT

Clue: Recently Cookie Monster and Big Bird have been collabing on a screenplay idea of Cookie Monster's. The Google Doc history indicates Cookie Monster was editing it all afternoon.

This puzzle consisted of just two blank playing cards; one with letters on one side, and another with holes. The hole-punched card has an eye on both sides that when laid over the other card reveal two words which can be combined into an answer. This was my favorite of the nonstandard puzzles and it's a pretty neat keepsake from the event.

Answer: LADIESFIRST

Clue: Late last night news broke that Trump contracted COVID-19 again. Only 2 hours after the news broke Ernie released a live reaction Podcast. Based on when the news broke and the length of Ernie's podcast there's no way he could have killed Big Bird last night.

In the end it was Elmo! That red bastard killed Big Bird in cold blood the morning before the party.