Solved! The Sinister Scene at the Shuttered Studio

Dear Reader,

Harlem’s brightest faces had stood before Mr. Corey McNicol’s camera, immortalized by his lens. But on the evening of September 13, 1926, it wasn’t his photographs making headlines—it was his murder. We asked for your insights into who might have taken his life, but the truth was always there, buried beneath lies, misdirection, and rage. Now, we’ve peeled back the layers, revealing the cold, hard facts of a brutal crime that left Mr. McNicol dead in his own studio. Let’s review the case, and then walk through the reasoning that led us to his killer.

Recap of the Case

On the evening of September 13, 1926, Mr. Corey McNicol was found beaten to death in his studio. His body lay beneath a shattered window, with the murder weapon—a tripod—nearby. Three suspects emerged: Mr. Wayne McNicol, the victim’s estranged brother; Miss Michelle Dupont, his former assistant; and Mr. Thaddeus Moore, a novelist and one-time friend.

The Clues

The Blood Message: A chilling message, “All will be exposed,” was hand-written in his blood on the wall, suggesting his death stemmed from a planned exposé on Harlem’s elite. Photos of the message revealed no fingerprints.

The Tripod: The murder weapon bore only the fingerprints of the victim and his assistant.

The Papers on the Desk: The scattered papers on Mr. McNicol’s desk included a parking ticket, a letter from Mr. Moore criticizing Mr. McNicol’s artistic choices, and a receipt from Gimbels department store for a pair of gloves.

The Path of Reasoning

When I approach these cases, I review the evidence and envision what happened. Here is how I saw this one:

The culprit had been growing increasingly frustrated with Mr. Corey McNicol for some time. There had been mounting tensions, and the culprit felt cornered—either by financial desperation or personal betrayal.

On the evening of September 13, 1926, the culprit arrived at Mr. McNicol’s studio, either unannounced or with an excuse to visit. Mr. McNicol, focused on his work, was initially calm but became tense as the conversation escalated. Things quickly spiraled out of control.

The culprit made demands; Mr. McNicol refused to comply. Words turned to action as the culprit grabbed the nearest object—a tripod—and struck Mr. McNicol in a fit of rage. The first blow was fatal, and Mr. McNicol fell to the floor, clutching his camera. Blood pooled around him, his beloved studio now a crime scene.

The culprit panicked and used Mr. McNicol’s blood to scrawl the message “All will be exposed” on the wall. Then the culprit ransacked the studio, leaving papers and photographs scattered, and in a final calculated attempt to stage the scene, smashed the window at the back of the studio.

What does all this mean?

Because of the scrawled message, never proven to be in Mr. McNicol’s handwriting, police assumed that the murder was part of a broader plot to silence Mr. McNicol. The very lack of evidence—compromising photographs—only served to confirm their belief. And so, they pursued this investigation with this singular thought in mind.

Let’s pause here to revisit Mr. Moore’s letter. The letter expressed in no uncertain terms his disappointment with Mr. McNicol for deciding to compromise his artistic integrity to pursue commercial success.

This was a blatant contradiction of the implicit meaning behind the bloody message. If the victim had been chasing commercial success, would he have really been preparing an explosive exposé that threatened the very people crucial to his ambition? It seemed unlikely.

Conclusion?

The “dying clue” message was no dying clue at all, but a red herring left by the killer, meant to mislead. Police found no compromising photos because there were none to be found. The culprit wanted the police to look at the wider social context, rather than focus on personal motives.

Then there was the matter of the ransacked studio and shattered window, both of which implied a robbery. If this was a robbery, then it was one in which nothing was taken, nothing except a man’s life. Not only was none of the expensive equipment missing, the shattered glass lay outside the window, not inside the studio. This meant that the killer entered through the front door (i.e., most likely knew the victim) and may have left that way, too—or may not have left at all.

Miss Dupont had the weakest motive. She’d been fired, and she’d fired back, accusing the victim of stealing her ideas. Sure, she was angry—she admitted to it—but she also pointed out that she’d cut her losses and walked away. Smart move. Her alibi was unverified, but the police didn’t see how she stood to gain from the victim’s death, so she landed at the bottom of the suspect list.

Mr. Moore was also low on the list. His dispute with the victim seemed like a simple falling out between friends. It happens often, but rarely ends in murder. Without a larger, more pressing reason to kill, his motive seemed as weak as Miss Dupont’s. His alibi appeared solid, and except for the letter—which was undated and could’ve been there long before the murder—the police uncovered no physical evidence linking him to the crime.

When it came down to it, the younger McNicol earned the prize. He had the clearest and strongest motive: a failed writer, a gambler deeply in debt, and dependent on his brother’s support. His brother knew he needed him, but had still cut him off—abandoned him—at the worst possible time, with loan sharks breathing down his neck. The anger, the frustration, the desperation. It was more than enough to make a man kill. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, but his murky alibi left him wide open to suspicion.

All in all, he was a great prime suspect, the most obvious: strong motive, weak character, weak alibi, and a history of bad blood with the victim.

Investigators agreed with my conclusions and arrested the killer.

Miss Dupont allowed herself to be brought in without struggle. She did, however, ask: “How did you know?”

It was the bloody message, I told her. The police photographs showed a lack of a fingerprint. How was that possible? If the victim had written it, he would’ve left a fingerprint. The absence of one meant two things: that the killer wrote the message and that the culprit wore gloves.

That’s when I remembered the receipt left on the victim’s desk. Police had dismissed it as irrelevant, but I knew it was the key.

I’d placed a call to Gimbels to get the buyer’s name. The store, however, said it couldn’t immediately trace the sale. It would check and get back to me.

Disappointed but not discouraged, I reviewed the suspect list again—and found what I was looking for.

Miss Dupont’s motive seemed the weakest, but it was, in fact, the strongest. If Wayne McNicol was the most obvious suspect, she was the most cunning. If he’d been driven by financial need, she was driven by both that and a sense of personal betrayal.

It was known that she was bitter about the accolades—and the money—that the victim continued to receive, reaping the benefit of what she believed to be her ideas.

Once she broke away from him, she soon found herself in debt. It takes money to start a business and she had none. Without the victim’s name to back her, she could barely get clients. She suspected, she later admitted, that he’d blacklisted her.

The meeting she alluded to, the one she said he missed, actually occurred—at his studio. She demanded a share of the money from her contribution to his business. He refused. Worse, he tried to offer her a token of “respect”—a pair of gloves he’d bought for her.

That was it.

She picked up the tripod and bashed him over the head, not once or twice, but four or five times. Finally, exhausted, she collapsed in a chair and thought about how to cover up her crime.

She wasn’t worried about her fingerprints being found on the murder weapon. They’d be dismissed because she’d regularly handled the tripod when working for the victim.

By admitting her anger, she appeared open and cooperative. By pointing out that she’d started her own studio, she appeared detached.

But upon close examination, that detachment seemed highly unrealistic.

The most irrefutable evidence against her? The gloves. Police found them tucked away in her home. She’d kept them, unable to part with the only tangible sign of respect Mr. McNicol had ever given her.

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Lanie Price
Society Reporter for The Harlem Chronicle
21 September 1928

(Note: This case is a work of fiction and the characters involved are wholly imaginary.)