R8+Group+2

= = Story Outline Type of Story: Mystery Point of View: 3rd Person

-Finds first series of clues, gets all characters introduced -- Ian - Finds Benoit's passport in hall (and Phillipe's personal info in Phillipe's pocket, explain Phillipe), can't prove he was murderer, saves for later. -- Ian - Starts asking around if anyone saw anything suspicous, everyone agrees it was a guy. -- Ian - Trys to find out if any video cameras in the Eiffle Tower caught anything.-- Corinna - Day after murder, someone finds cellphone in bathroom -- Corinna - Sebastian looks at cellphone, finds video, sees clear image of face, is able to distinguish it as Benoit -- Corinna - Confronts Benoit, Benoit has been feeling guilty, he confesses (including motives) -- Elizabeth - Punishment/Conclusion: 20 years of prison and life-time of community service, co-owner of hospital/orphanage, he is now important to others, like Phillipe was. (learns lesson, etc.) -- Elizabeth

Setting: Paris, France, MURDER takes place near Eiffel Tower. Includes suspense 

Characters and Background: Benoit (killer): Benoit kills Philippe because of Philippe's lifestyle. He owns a multi-million dollar business. Benoit, Philippe's high-school friend, did not turn out so well and is jealous of Philippe and kills him. He was a high school dropout and has never found a well paying job 

Philippe (dude that dies): Philippe was the owner of the multi-million dollar bussieness called "French Enterprise Computers". His long time friend and high-school classmate Benoit, however, did not turn out as sucessful. Sebastian (detective): A detective well known in Paris for solving any case he was presented with, very well educated, and sly. Middle age Way Benoit is found: a girl had been absentmindedly taking video, had turned to talk to her friend and caught the murder in a blur.

Philippe visits Eiffel tower on his work lunch break and while eating a baguette  Benoit planned to kill Philippe at work to make a point but did not have a chance where Philippe was alone. Benoit stalked Philippe to the Eiffel tower and waited until no one was looking to take his shot. The sound of the gunfire rang in the air as Benoit admired his killing and silently walked away. Meanwhile the startled spectators were surrounding Philippe while dialing the police; to blend in Benoit dialed the police as well and explained the story in as little detail as possible. 

It was hard for Benoit to imagine no one had seen the shot, he knew someone probably had seen it, and the person, or people, who had seen the crime were just still in too much shock to say or do anything. As he scrambled from the platform and into the elevator he remembered he still had the revolver in his pocket and his rubber gloves were still on. He was so caught up in his action he had forgotten his plan to simply throw it over the edge of the tower along with the gloves, where someone would throw them away without a second thought. He couldn’t go back now, he would be seen, and once he discarded his weapon he would be mobbed by the people and caught by the police. There wasn’t time for that now, and as the elevator stopped on the ground floor he pulled the gun out of his pocket planning to throw them in the streets. He had just gotten out of the elevator when he saw the security guard by the exit doors looking at him, and his gun. The security guard fired a bullet that Benoit was able to dodge. Benoit wasn’t very smart, but he wasn’t extremely stupid, and he knew that he couldn’t get away with the crime if the security guard had seen him, which he obviously had. Impetuously, Benoit fired his revolver, using four of his five remaining shots to kill the guard. He then placed the revolver in the security guard’s pocket with his still gloved hands, and hurried away. Sebastian received the call exactly 2 hours after the murder. He gathered his gun, notebook and pen, binoculars, camera, chalk, and fingerprint kit, and hurried to the Eiffel Tower. As he walked into the Eiffel Tower, he was met by Sir Vincent Sullivan, the police chief in Paris. Vincent led him up the stairs to the balcony, the cool autumn air swirled around them as Sebastian spotted Philippe's body, lying outlined in chalk. After examining Philippe's body, Sebastian was shown the body of the security guard, and the gun that was in his pocket. Judging by the number of bullets left in the gun and the sizes of the wounds, he was able determine that the same gun had been used for both murders. “Have you found anything else, Vincent?” Sebastian said. “Not a thing, sir. We only can confirm that the same gun was used for each murder.” Sebastian pondered for a minute. “Have you checked Philippe’s pockets for anything?” Vincent replied, “No sir, we were just about to though.” “Well we better go ahead and do that now,” Sebastian stated. As he put on his rubber gloves, Sebastian looked over the body. The sight was just too grim, blood oozing from the chest wound in Philippe. Sebastian looked through some of the victim's pockets. “Vincent, look at this.” Sebastian pulled a business card from a wallet in Philippe’s coat pocket. The police chief looked astonished. “Well that gives one reason to kill him." The card showed a bust of Philippe, above some writing, stating his position as the CEO of French Enterprise Computers. “Well, I suppose we can narrow down the motives,” Sebastian said. “They either wanted his money, or just wanted him dead.” “But why would someone want to kill this man?” Vincent asked. “I’ve seen on the news that FEC is an enormous business. It’s not like he was bad at his job.” “Then it’s most likely someone who killed him because of their feelings toward him,” Sebastian replied. "Vincent, quick! Give me a reason, a motive, to kill someone I know.” Vincent thought for a while. “Well, I guess because I was mad at them. Maybe jealousy.” “Vincent, I think we just found our motive,” Sebastian answered. Sebastian returned to the Eifel Tower later that day. He had uncovered a lot about the case the previous couple of hours, but was even more determined to try and solve the case. As Sebastian shut the door to his car, he looked up at the Eifel Tower. “If I were a murderer…” he said. Sebastian strolled down the sidewalk heading towards the crime scene. He tried to put himself in the personality of a criminal, a stategy he had used previous cases to help him solve them. “What would I feel? What would I do? How would I do it?” he thought. He stopped in his tracks. “Panic!” he said. A murder in any case would feel panicked, trying to find an escape or a hiding place. Sebastian scrambled to the Eifel Tower lobby, when he met with Officer Sullivan again. "Vincent, check the elevators! Check the halls! Check anywhere you would run if you were a killer!” “Sir?” Vincent replied. “No time!” Sebastian yelled. “Let’s go!” For the next 10 minutes officers and detectives scrambled around the halls and passageways of the tower, searching for evidence. Sebastian knew from experience that a killer would lose something in the heat of escape. He just didn’t know what. “Boss, I found something! Have a look at this!” One of Vincent’s colleges, Jacque Parsons, brought him a small, wallet sized object. Sebastian was not far behind him. “What is it?” asked Sebastian. Vincent looked up with a smile stretched across his face. “It’s a passport.” “Well we at least have something to go on.” Sullivan stated. The passport depicted a young man by the name of Benoit. Sebastian looked at the picture. Benoit’s face was scraggly, with an unkempt beard and a prominent nose. “Jacque, where did you find this?” Sebastian asked. “It was in the first floor trashcan, next to the elevator,” he replied. “Last time I checked people don’t throw away their passports.” “Then why would he, this Benoit guy, do it?” Vincent asked. A look of inspiration shot across Sebastian’s face. “Perhaps if he was trying to hide his identity?” “You could be on to something,” Vincent stated. “It’s getting late. Maybe you should get some rest.” Sebastian did what he was told, walking out the double doors of the lobby. Even though Sebastian had left the crime scene in person, his thoughts could not. When Sebastian arrived promptly at eleven the next morning Vincent was already waiting for him at the door. “I went to all the cameras in the tower this morning,” Vincent informed Sebastian as they walked inside, “and the tape in all the cameras was empty.” Vincent waited for Sebastian’s startled expression to change before he continued. “So then I went to head of security and he said the tape hadn’t been replaced for several months. The guard led me into the operating room where all the controls are, and all the cameras were turned off. We turned them back on and checked for dents in the door and unusual finger prints on the switches and doorknob but nothing seemed to be harmed or even out of place.” “No finger prints at all?” Sebastian questioned; “Only ours.” Vincent corroborated “It doesn’t seem like someone would be able to break into the control room though,” Vincent continued, “Not with the finger print activated sensor on the door, the different security numbers and keys, and the alarm that must be deactivated within ten seconds of entry. In addition to this the last tape we have from the cameras was June.” “Not even the stupidest criminal would wait three months from the time they deactivated the cameras to the date of their crime,” Sebastian stated. “The cameras and the criminal are not related”. As the day drowned on nothing more was found to help the case. Sebastian was about to disseminate flyers and emails to the masses asking for help with the case when found a cell phone in the bathroom. His hopes returned when he found there were fingerprints on the phone, lots of fingerprints. He found it odd that the murderer would leave a cell phone behind with fingerprints on instead of wearing gloves like he had for the rest of the crime. As Sebastian looked at the finger prints he had found on the cell phone and tried to match them to one of the finger prints he had access to online Vincent was playing around with the phone. “You should look at these pictures” Vincent told Sebastian flipping through the pictures on the phone, “This guy doesn’t look like a murderer.” “Looks can be deceiving.” Sebastian looked back at the phone. “He probably planned to leave the phone, most likely someone else’s phone with someone else’s fingerprints on it, and most likely it’s a red herring.” “Maybe not,” said Vincent, pausing the video the phone was playing. “Look at this.” Vincent said as he took rewound the video. The video showed a most peculiar scene, at first it was nothing but chatter and nonsense, a guy taking video of his friends messing around with his friends. Then as the camera turned and the boy operating it lost interest you could hear a boom in the air and just barely see a man who might be the murderer facing the camera. “Play it again” Sebastian commanded. This time Sebastian was looking for the man and the gunshot, and as the clip played he saw the man more clearly, with a curious looking object in his hand. After playing the video a third time Sebastian saw that the criminal’s face was visible in the video, as was the gun being pointed at the victim and being fired. Sebastian blew up the video on the large screen in his office and paused it on the criminals face. After flipping through many pictures of the French males, all of which he had access to; he was able to clearly identify one man who met the face on the video, a single male by the name of Benoit, the same man whose passport had been found in the trashcan.

After doing more research, Sebastian had found Benoit’s address, and had decided to go and confront him and get him to confess if at all possible. As he slowly walked up to the door of Benoit’s house, he was thinking quickly about exactly what he was going to say, and trying to decide if this really was a good idea after all. Sebastian let his mind wander and thought, ‘Actually, if Benoit was in fact the murderer, then wouldn’t he just kill me on the spot?’ He brushed aside his uneasiness as he reached the door and rang the doorbell. As he waited, he couldn’t help but wonder how Benoit would react once he realized that he had been discovered. Sebastian heard footsteps approaching the door, and the handle turned. Sebastian immediately recognized the man that opened the door as the man in the video, who he now knew to be Benoit. Sebastian watched as Benoit’s face raced through emotions; surprise, fear, and finally despair as he recognized that it was Sebastian at his door. He started to close the door, but Sebastian stuck his foot in the door and said, “It will go better for you if you do not try to resist me”. As though realizing the truth in his words, Benoit slowly opened the door. Benoit took that opportunity, and ran out the door, knocking Sebastian to the ground. Sebastian ran to the area he last saw Benoit run. Sebastian looked around for that one face he had come much acquainted with. As Sebastian looked, he heard the hard footsteps of someone running. While he turned around to find the source of the running, he locked eyes with him. Benoit shot a hard look, and turned to run some more. Sebastian took off; he would not let him escape again. For 5 minutes they had been running, cutting through streets and building alleyways, as they knocked down trashcans and other pedestrians. “Someone, stop him!” Sebastian screamed. Everyone looked around, asking to themselves if they thought he meant them. People did not bother to stop the fleeing criminal, but rather back away as he ran. Sebastian thought to himself. “This is enough, I’m sick of running. He reached into him pocket for his gun, but only found some lint. Now what would he do? Sebastian was becoming very weak. He did not have that much energy to run. However, Benoit was running like there was no tomorrow, not showing any signs of fatigue. It was clear that Benoit was used to running from the law before. His only hope was for Benoit to trip or fall. Sebastian yelled at Benoit, trying to get some hope of him stopping, but only getting negative replies. As Benoit cut into an passage to another side of an office, Sebastian heard a crash. As he turned into the street, Sebastian found Benoit lying in a heap of trash spilled from a dumpster, like a sack of potatoes. Sebastian pounced on Benoit like an animal, finally catching him. “I gotcha, old friend,” Sebastian declared, half panting. Benoit said nothing, hiding his shame in his arms. Benoit sat on the edge of his chair in the courtroom, knowing that as the jury discussed their decision his life hung in the balance. He had been advised by his lawyers to plead guilty, so he had, and explained his motives as well as making it clear that he regretted what he had done. He knew that this still did not accuse him from the blame, and he felt utterly powerless, for he knew that what would happen to the rest of his life, or lack thereof, was in the hands of the court. He tried to calm himself as the judge prepared to announce the verdict. The judge looked down at Benoit, and saw the fear on his face as he began to read the verdict. “The verdict is guilty, and the punishment,” he paused, and saw the whole room hold their breath, “is 20 years in prison, and a life-time of community-service.” He coughed, trying to compose himself as he saw the look of pure joy on the convicted murderers face. Benoit was overjoyed. He couldn’t believe that he had gotten off relatively easily, and though the next twenty years would not be easy, he knew that it could have been much, much worse. Many years later, Benoit was the owner of a successful orphanage, and a thousand times more happy than he had been ever before. When people asked him about this sudden transformation, he would say, “Being looked up to and seen as someone important instead of just a nobody is the most important thing in the world."