Welcome back, agent. As always, our work piles up: seems we have a brand new case to open up and analyze. Think you can figure this one out on your own? Feel free to directly question the involved parties to your heart's content. The NTMA is counting on you, good luck!

OBJECTIVES:

Was the husband truly the murderer? Why/why not?
If not, who was it?
What motive did they have to kill Lindsay?
What inconsistensies or suspicious things can be found in this story?

Facts previous to the crime:

- Johnattan had had a relationship with Melaine many years ago, which ended badly and with them cutting contact completely.

- Jason was well-known in the neighborhood for hanging out with shady groups of people and engaging in misdemeanor and substance abuse.

- Melaine was already deceased at the time of the crime, but was rumored to have connections with an underground criminal group. Her two children, Michael and Thalissa, had unknown but assuredly different fathers. 

- Johnattan was 23 and Lindsay was 22 when they begun dating, as they got married at 25/24. They had the twins a year later, and Mark was born a decade later, when Lindsay was 35.

- Jennifer's school grades had recently been dropping to brand new lows with no apparent reason.

- Johnattan had had a bad habit of drinking for at least six years before the murder. He reported trying to quit.

- Johnattan always kept a pistol locked away in a drawer near his bed. It had a symbol engraved into it, slightly worn-out: a simplistic logo of a large bird with the letters 'SE' engraved into it. The night of the murder, the lock was found open and the gun besides the corpse.

- Juniper, Johnattan's younger sister, had apparently been estranged from the family for years. When questioned about her, the twins could only recall a vague memory of her and their father fighting about six years earlier, never having seen her before or after the fact.

Interviewing:

- Mark Collins was too young and shaken to give any proper testimony. He seemed distant through the entire process and could only ask for his parents.

- Jason Collins stated that he and his mother argued badly the night before, claiming she broke his guitar in half during the fight. He says to have spent the day and night at a friend's house, and was only notified of his mother's passing in the morning. The questioning didn't go very far as he was deep in sobs and muttering apologies, saying there was somewhere he needed to get to quickly. The team thought it'd be best to allow him space to grieve. 

- Jennifer Collins stated that the relationship between her brother and mother had always been rocky, as she never took it easy with him and he lashed out for her attention. She mentioned the same fight that her brother did, insisting that a friend of theirs offered them to stay over for the night, which they did. She also skimmed over her father's drinking habits, and how young she was when it started, noting that the suddenness makes it seems like it was due to a specific event, but the topic was never freely discussed in their home. However, she claims the drinking had greatly diminished since Mark's birth, causing the fights between them to mostly die down, albeit they'd still argue badly. She behaved in a very distant manner, as if trying to keep herself together for the sake of the interview, however that composure was slipping towards the end, where the team stopped the questioning to allow her time to grieve.

- Johnattan Collins, the prime suspect, seemed anxious and volatile through the questioning. He screamed about letting him go, about being innocent and about their children needing him. Once assured he could see them if he was honest with his answers, he promised through tears that he loved "Linds" more than anything in the world, and he might have been a faulty husband but he would never actively hurt her. He claims to have been set up, but refused to answer any question about who would've had a reason to do so. He states to have been putting their youngest son to bed and reading him a book, when noise was heard from downstairs where he rushed to.

- Juniper Silva was questioned separately, and mentioned feeling sorry for the victim but not being surprised in the slightest. She claimed her brother had never been quite stable since the death of their parents, and that his wife would often get on his nerves. She expressed heavy concern for the children, and then got distracted on a tangent about how avoidant and distant from family her brother had always been at home when they were children.

- The neighbors claim they could often hear angry screaming from the house, in equal amounts from a man and a woman, but each time the family was seen outside they seemed to deeply care for each other. Some raised concerns about the son, others had only praise to speak of the daughter. Both Lindsay and Johnattan were referred to as remarkably well-meaning individuals who could sometimes act out on the principle of "tough love". One of them recalls having seen Jason smoking outside the house while talking to someone else the night before the crime, though they couldn't recall who. An older couple of neighbors says that many years ago the house was broken into while they were asleep, and a single gunshot was heard, but no one was harmed and nothing was taken. The couple claimed to have scared off the intruders.

The body:

- There weren't any additional bruises on the body asides from two gunshots in her chest; one of which perforated her lungs; and a considerably long cut across her right thigh. The victim seems to have died from a mixture of lack of oxygen from the perforated lungs and blood clogging her throat, however the dried tears on her face and position of the body indicate it was not immediately fatal. Directly besides the corpse was Johnattan's gun, which he was caught holding while standing above the victim when authorities arrived. 

The environment:

- Lindsay died in the kitchen, which was located on the first floor of their two-story house. The window leading towards the backyard was shattered and broken, but nothing else seemed out of place. The stairs leading downwards had footprints of dirty boots of the same type Johnattan was found to have in his room. There were also many emptied and half-filled alcohol containers, ranging from beer to vodka to wine and, abnormally, tea packets, hidden across crevices in the house, the first two usually found in the cupboards or backyard and the second two in the couple's wardrobe or bathroom.

Notable objects:

- There were few out-of-the-ordinary things inside the house besides the hidden alcohol, but amidst them stood out a guitar, broken roughly in half and set aside against a wall, a children's storybook, left opened on the floor of Mark's bedroom, and a sixth toothbrush sitting in the bathroom besides there only being five family members.

Aftermath:

- The authorities were contacted anonymously, tipped off about a potential murder by a mysterious caller with a manly voice who claimed to be a concerned passerby and wished to not be identified. Upon arriving, they made sure to handcuff Johnattan and made sure the twins knew what'd happened. Upon learning of the murder, they both rushed back home in shock, which is when the questioning started.

- The court ruled Johnattan Silva Collins guilty of the murder of Lindsay Collins, his wife, on the grounds of plausible motive, reported psychological instability, alcohol dependence and direct connection to the scene of the crime (the footprints, the gun, etc.). Johnattan, despite the tears, did not seem to care much for trying to change his own sentence, instead inquiring the court as to what would happen to his children.

- The twins moved away to Brazil to work under a music contract, in an attempt to prove to the court that despite not being of age, they were perfectly suitable to sustain themselves, as claimed by Jennifer. Mark was placed under the care of Juniper Silva, his aunt, a process that would be accompanied by a social worker.

- The murder case of Lindsay Collins was silently archived by the National Threat Monitoring Agency.

Who Murdered Lindsay Collins - An Interactive Murder Game!