The Dead of Night in Shadows of Doubt throws you straight into your first murder case. Do you have what it takes to solve it before the killer strikes again?
All cases in Shadows of Doubt are procedurally generated, meaning that no two cases are the same. While the concept of The Dead of Night case remains the same—including the case type and main leads—your victim and killer will be different from ours.
Three playthroughs, three killers, let’s go over everything we’ve learned about The Dead of Night tutorial murder case, so you can solve it easily in Shadows of Doubt.
Shadows of Doubt The Dead of Night: Full walkthrough
The Dead of Night case actually follows a strict criterion with its killer, making it incredibly easy to solve if you know what to look out for. The perpetrator is always a hired killer. The aim of this case is to teach you the fundamentals of solving murder cases. If you don’t react and solve this case quickly enough (within a six-hour timeframe), they will claim their next victim.
Shadows of Doubt The Dead of Night demonstrates how to investigate a crime scene. Here are the investigative steps you must remember for every murder case:
- Fingerprints and footprints: Use the fingerprint scanner on fingerprints picked up by the UV light. Scan any footprints to get their size. The main places to check are the safe, the front door, and the counters. You can take the victim fingerprint without the scanner by interacting with their hands.
- Check the last dialed number: Use the number provided (normally 541-0000) to find the last one that was dialed or called.
- Check the address book: After checking the phone, check the address book to find who the phone number links to.
- Search victim’s body: Hold search while looking at the body for details on the type of murder that occurred (it will likely be a gunshot wound).
- Find photo ID of victim: Locate the victim’s ID (usually inside the kitchen). This will tell you their place of work and confirm their identity.
- Search the trash can: This will give you a diner receipt from a few hours earlier, indicating that whoever they met is likely the last person who saw them alive.
- Find hte weapons dealer note: Search the kitchen, bedroom, and living room for a note detailing the Black Market weapons dealer. This is a clue to the murder weapon. Make sure you pin this clue so you have the password on hand.
There is enough basic information here to build your profile on the victim and killer. To complete these profiles, you can visit the City Hall and access the Government Database. Input the victim’s name to complete their profile. For this specific case, you can input the killer’s name from the Address Book. This gives you their face, blood type, and fingerprint that you can link back to the crime scene without further investigating leads.
Be mindful that this method won’t work with every case, as a crime scene may only offer a fingerprint to work with.
The Dead of Night leads
Your investigation will give you the starting points you need to locate the killer. Be sure to pin all of these clues to your board. That way, you have easy access and can’t forget them. With these leads, you must select one to visit first. It’s likely you won’t have enough time to check all four, so we recommend you visit a maximum of three locations to be sure of the killer’s identity. A victim’s workplace is harder to investigate due to its high security, so you need to factor in this risk. These are the leads:
| Lead | Description | Difficulty | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Workplace | Visit the victim’s place of work and locate their Micro Cruncher (PC) for clues on their VMail. | Medium | This can point you to the next target or the killer through searching VMail. Use this new information at the City Directory. |
| Diner | Visit the diner and access the Surveillance Cameras in the back to see who the victim met last. | Easy | The last person to see the victim alive is the next target if you don’t arrest the killer in time. |
| Weapons dealer | Find and enter the Black Market weapons dealer using the password. | Medium | Leads you to the murder weapon. |
| Phone call | Go to the address of the person that last called the victim (address found in Address Book). | Easy | You learn that the killer lives at this address. |
If you want to immerse yourself in this case properly, then we recommend completing leads in this order: Workplace, diner, weapons dealer, and phone call. Investigating the weapons dealer is the hardest to achieve as Black Markets aren’t visible on the map unless you’ve already visited the shop before. A good place to start however is the basements of apartment complexes.
How to identify The Dead of Night killer
The easiest way to identify the killer is to investigate the phone call. In fact, in every playthrough we did for The Dead of Night case, the killer was the last person to call the victim. This makes the case incredibly easy to solve once you learn this, but you won’t have everything you need to complete all optional objectives in the Case Resolution Form. Instead, you would have only gathered the killer’s basic information (name and address) at the crime scene.
Use the Detective Notebook to plan your route to the suspect’s apartment. You can do this by pinning their address when you discovered it, later selecting it to plan your route, or you can use the drop pin icon in your Notebook to input the first line of their address. The suspect will always be in.
The killer will try to shoot you if you go to the apartment and trespass rather than knock at the door. You can use this as a tactic to find the murder weapon. Flee the scene until the Pursued icon disappears. Return to the apartment, this time barging down the door when the killer comes to it (run at the door and hit the barge button when it appears on your screen). Arrest the target using your handcuffs. Finally, search the killer for the murder weapon to complete all optional objectives for the Case Resolution Form. You can hand in the case to the City Hall and archive it once your results are in,
Warning for spoilers below if you are playing on Charlotte Heights pre-made city.
Who is The Dead of Night killer?
If you don’t generate a new city, the killer will always be Violet Diaz in Charlotte Heights. You can easily find and complete all five objectives by checking the phone and Address Book in the victim’s apartment, infiltrating the primary suspect’s home, and arresting the killer.
