Who killed Jimmy?

Logic Level 1

Three suspects appeared in court for the crime of murdering Jimmy. Exactly one of them is the murderer.

The judge asked the following question: "Did the murderer currently have black or brown hair?"

Alice (Female with black hair): "She has black hair."
Andrew (Male with black hair): "Alice is lying! She has brown hair."
Anna (Female with brown hair): "I speak the truth! He has brown hair."

Given that only one of them is telling the truth, any sentence a liar states is a lie, and no one accuses themselves, who is telling the truth?

Alice Andrew Anna

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7 solutions

Théo Campoamor
Feb 27, 2017

Step by step: Alice is saying: "She had black hair." Remark that only SHE has black hair, and in the note it's said: "that no one accuses themselves". So she's lying. Andrew is saying: "Alice is lying! She had brown hair." Ok, nothing wrong here, Alice is lying and Anna have brown hair, so it's possible. Anna is saying: "I speak the truth! He had brown hair." Well "HE" must be Andrew but he has black hair. So she's lying as well, Andrew is telling the truth and the murderer is probably Anna. Note: The question is asking for who is telling the truth, not who is the murderer.

Moderator note:

This solution was done with a version of the problem that omitted the condition that any sentence a liar states is a lie. We have since fixed this to remove the ambiguity, but the original version of the problem has an interesting issue:

The solution here first determined was that Alice is lying, which means the statement of Andrew accusing Alice of lying is Andrew telling the truth.

Without that sentence it's arguable that just that piece of information is enough to determine Andrew is a truthteller. The issue is that he spoke two separate sentences: does lying mean that it's possible one sentence is false and one sentence is true, or does lying imply any sentence they speak is false? (Again, with the fixed version of the problem this ambiguity no longer exists; it's possible now to know Andrew is the truth-teller just from one of his sentences being the truth.)

Judge asked about the "criminal", instead of the "killer" or "murderer" or "person who murdered Jimmy". For that reason the problem statement is ambiguous because it is possible that the judge referred to Jimmy who might have been a "criminal". So the question was not about the hair color of the murderer but the Jimmy's hair color. In such a case Anna spoke the truth since she was the only one who used "he" when referring to Jimmy who was the criminal in this alternative scenario.

Bogdan Kosanovic - 4 years, 3 months ago

Interesting alternative story, but there's some points how do not come together. First, "Three suspects appeared in court for the crime of murdering Jimmy.", so we are speaking about the crime of murder against Jimmy: the criminal is referred as the one who killed Jimmy. Then the only possibility in your scenario is that Jimmy killed himself (so we can say "in your theory" that he can be the criminal); Second, even if he's the criminal, look at the answers: If Anna is telling the truth, then by application of the note, the 2 others MUST be saying something wrong. But if Alice is wrong, then it's not possible that Andrew is saying: "Alice is lying! ..." I think the whole problem is turning around this little sentence.

Théo Campoamor - 4 years, 3 months ago

The problem still remains--the assignment conflates (socially-defined) gender with (biological) sex.

The reality, of course, is that anyone reading this will assume the "male" and "female" references imply the gender of the accused (unless, of course, they have testimony attesting to their biological traits--or their selection of clothing is ESPECIALLY unorthodox for court).

This bias, while commonplace in everyday discourse, is actually quite problematic here, for a very basic reason: this is a site focused on analytical thought and rigour of proof--assumptions that have (well-known) counterexamples [no matter one's personal beliefs, one cannot deny the existence of trans-persons] cannot be assumed to hold without supporting evidence.

Unless I missed something?

Joshua Nesseth - 4 years, 2 months ago
Peter /Dalby
Feb 27, 2017

If I read it correctly, though it maybe implied, the question doesn't explicitly specify that one of the three suspects is the guilty party. Any one of the three could be telling the truth if they are refering to a guilty 4th party.

You are right. @Ameilia Ryan , could you update the problem statement?

Christopher Boo - 4 years, 3 months ago

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Thanks. We've added in "Exactly one of them is the killer".

Calvin Lin Staff - 4 years, 3 months ago

I agree with you Peter/Dalby. The exercise is unclear, because it does not state the one of the three suspects is the guilty party.

Jaclyn Palmer - 4 years, 3 months ago

Very true. I honestly thought it was Anna simply because she said "He had brown hair", with Anna being the only person with brown hair and the only male having black hair.

Marc Douglas - 4 years, 3 months ago

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Anna cannot be telling the truth because there's no male with brown hair. Or are you referring that Anna might be accusing someone other than the three suspects?

Christopher Boo - 4 years, 3 months ago

I think so too.

Freddie Zhang - 2 years, 5 months ago
Fun Mathis
Feb 27, 2017

To those saying Alice could be telling the truth, no, that is not possible. " She had black hair" cannot be true, since "she" cannot refer to Andrew, and "black hair" cannot refer to Anna, and the speaker never refers to him/herself. So the question is fine as stated, with a unique answer.

If gender and biological sex do not consistently map, your proof falls apart.

As they are merely correlated and not causally linked, your inference is questionable at best.

Joshua Nesseth - 4 years, 2 months ago

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No. Generally this would be fine.

Zoe Codrington - 2 years, 9 months ago

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How so?

I could be addressing someone who may be biologically male but identifies as a woman--thus, "she" would be the appropriate pronoun. Furthermore, while Andrew may not be a standard woman's name, but it would not be outside of the realm of plausible reality.

In other words, have I misstated the objection, or is there a logic that I am missing in the proof?

Joshua Nesseth - 2 years, 8 months ago

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@Joshua Nesseth I think it is just assumptions. But yes, you are right

Zoe Codrington - 2 years, 7 months ago

Yep. Besides, even without the note: Alice, WHY ARE YOU ACCUSING YOURSELF? In some countries you could get the death sentence for it. Honestly, ever say the truth (if innocent) or, probably, lie if guilty. We know Anna is lying. So only one person can be telling the truth, as Andrew/Alice's statements contradict. Alice referring to herself is questionable, while Andrew's is sensible. If you say 'Alice did it' and give her a seperate trial, she will plead innocent, probably. Therefore, Andrew is telling the truth, possibly. But evidence shows he most likely is...

Zoe Codrington - 2 years, 9 months ago
Lance Fernando
Mar 4, 2017

Presume that the first statement is true -- the suspect is a female with a black hair. However, the condition says that none of them accused themselves, so the first statement isn't true.

Presume that the second statement is true -- the first statement's a lie and that the female suspect had brown hair. This is a potential statement that can tell the only truth.

Presume that the third statement is true -- the suspect is a male with a brown hair. However, the only male suspect's hair color is black, not brown, therefore making her statement a lie.

Therefore, only ANDREW told the truth in this particular case.

Yup, this is a systematic way to dealing with knight/knave scenarios. Well done~

Pi Han Goh - 4 years, 3 months ago
Ameilia Ryan
Aug 5, 2019

I originally wrote this problem more or less two years ago, I left it up here without checking the comments, which was a bad idea because there was a couple problems with it people had that I didn't notice. The original problem was very flawed and thank god a moderator fixed it, this is the fixed version but there may still be some ambiguity in parts for people. Here's a full explanation and solution that hopefully covers some of the problems people might have had:

The only three suspects for the crime are Alice, Andrew and Anna, as stated in the problem. The murderer has to be exactly one of these, as also stated. There is no male with brown hair in this group, so Anna has to be lying. Alice says it was a female with black hair, no one accuses themselves and the only Female with black hair here is Alice meaning she was lying because she was referring to someone not in this group, and at the start it stated the murderer had to be in this group. Alice is indeed lying and there is also a female with brown hair in the group therefore Andrew is the only one telling the truth. We know that none of the people here are transgender because their names tell us their gender identity (All names listed are one gendered, Anna is a girls' name, etc.) and in all cases that identity is the same as the sex they are stated to be.

There is also a possible discrepancy if Andrew's second sentence is meant to say Alice use to have brown hair, rather than stating the killer had black hair at the time of the murder and still does.

I thnk what Andrew is saying should be broken down into

Alice is lying! The murderer is Female and The Murderer had brown hair.

How do you think we should reflect this in the problem statement? Suggestions are welcome

Agnishom Chattopadhyay - 4 years, 3 months ago

Thanks. I've edited the problem to reflect that it's the current hair color.

Calvin Lin Staff - 4 years, 3 months ago
Linkin Duck
Feb 26, 2017

Either Andrew or Anna could not tell the truth, since if Andrew/Anna did, Anna/Andrew (respectively) would tell the truth too, that contradicted with given assumption. Hence, Andrew and Anna told the lie, and Alice told the truth, showing that the murder had black hair and was not Alice, that would be Andrew.

Lot of confusion created by adding He/She

Ankit Thummar - 4 years, 3 months ago

Agree, so we should just concentrate on the names and hair colours.

Linkin Duck - 4 years, 3 months ago

I do not understand your solution. Can you explain the flow of logic here?

Agnishom Chattopadhyay - 4 years, 3 months ago

and the question states: who is telling the truth? So the correct answer should be Alice ??

Steffen Dannemann - 4 years, 3 months ago

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