20 Detective Riddles For Little Investigators

Rajnandini Roychoudhury
Dec 07, 2024 By Rajnandini Roychoudhury
Originally Published on Dec 18, 2020
Edited by Monisha Kochhar
Male detective looking through magnifying glass

If you love fun mysteries, then this list of mysterious riddles is perfect for you.

Everyone loves to solve a mystery every once in a while. This can either be due to the intrigue behind a story or innate curiosity.

You don't need to have professional detective skills to solve these mysteries, all you need is the right bent of mind and a little bit of madness. These mystery riddles for kids have been crafted with a lot of care, so we hope you enjoy them.

Murder riddles for kids don't just serve a single function, they do many things, such as engage the child's critical skillset, make them think divergently, and increase their awareness about the world. From this viewpoint, story riddles serve a multifaceted function.

We've also made sure to not leave you hanging by providing answers to each of the riddles within the article! These murder mystery riddles with answers will be a breeze to read and easy to solve.

There are also many great detective questions hidden in the list below.

This article includes a variety of riddles for detectives, crime riddles, murder riddles with answers, and story riddles for kids. Without further ado, here's a list of some great detective riddles for kids.

If you want to check out more articles about riddles, you can head on over to Summer Riddles and What Am I Riddles.

Detective Puzzles For Kids

Kids who're looking for detective cases to solve with answers or just looking to solve mysteries with their parents can stop their search right here! If you solve the mystery behind a detective riddle or find the murderer in a murder mystery, you're already on the path to becoming a great investigator!

For people that are on the lookout for quick murder mysteries to solve, here is a list of detective puzzles and other mysteries for you to unravel.

1. Two pills, a safe one and a dangerous one, were given to a group of victims to take. All of them died even though they took their pills in a random order. How did they die? Answer: The water was poisoned.

2. A detective was locked in a room that had a dirt floor, with a shovel and an open window too high for him to climb out of. How did he escape? Answer: He climbed on top of a dirt mound he made and escaped!

3. A mailman found a woman murdered with a copy of Monday's newspaper when he went to deliver Friday's newspaper. Who killed her? Answer: The mailman, because he didn't deliver any papers after Monday.

4. Jerry was killed by someone who used a sharp item; his friends said they couldn't have killed him because they only had a water bottle, a music player, and some papers in their possession.

How did the detective know they were lying? Answer: One of the friends put a broken piece of ice in the water bottle, which melted after they had killed him.

5. A man had returned his cup of tea because a fly was in the cup.

He got angry when he realized the waitress had just given him back his old cup of tea thinking he wouldn't know. How did he know it wasn't changed? Answer: The tea was sweet because he added sugar; if it was a new cup, it would have been bitter.

6. A man was shot while sitting in a car, but no evidence of gunpowder residue or bullet holes was found in the locked car. How did he get killed? The man was sitting in a convertible, so the killer shot him and subsequently closed the hood of the car.

7. A detective was only given one chance to live. He could live on the condition that he managed to open a chest. To open the chest, there was a golden key, a bronze key, or a silver key, and a note that spelled TGKHOEELYDEN.

Only one key would work and the detective was only given one attempt. How did he live? Answer: He deciphered the note, which when rearranged spells out 'the golden key', and attained his freedom.

8. A woman came back from a hiking trip and said that her husband had died by accidentally falling off a cliff. The detective knew she was lying right after he spoke to the travel agent. How did he know she lied to him? Answer: She had only booked a one-way ticket for her husband.

9. James was living with his two siblings at the time of his murder.

Both of his siblings stated that they couldn't have killed him because they were in the pool for hours, but that theory was disproven when the detective checked their hands. How did he know? Answer: They didn't have any wrinkles on their hands, so they weren't in the pool for as long as they stated.

10.  The police discovered a man lying on the floor with a tape recorder next to him, which automatically played his suicide note the first time they pressed play. How did the detective know it wasn't suicide? Answer: The killer had rewinded the tape after getting the recording.

11. Two women drank the same poisoned drink at different paces, yet only one died. How did they die? The poison was in the ice, not in the drink, so the woman who took longer ended up dead.

12. A woman met a great man at her mother's funeral and then only met him again at her sister's funeral. Who killed the woman's sister? Answer: She killed her own sister because she thought she would meet the man there.

13. An old man told a detective a story about how he fought during the first world war and received a medal that said 'Award for Courage and Valor: World War 1'.

The detective automatically knew he was lying. How did he know? Answer: They didn't know there was going to be a second world war at the time, so it wouldn't have said World War 1.

14. A man who crossed the border daily on a motorbike with two bags of sand was said to be smuggling goods, but when the detective checked his bags, he found nothing. Why did the police arrest him? Answer: He was transporting stolen motorbikes.

15. A woman wasn't punished by the court even though her sister had ample proof that she murdered her own husband. Why wasn't she jailed? Answer: Both the women were siamese twins.

16. A man killed his wife and carefully erased all the evidence, yet when he arrived at the crime scene upon the police's request, they arrested him. How did the detective know he killed his wife? Answer: They didn't tell him the location of the crime scene, he knew where it was because he had killed his wife

Funny Detective Riddles For Kids

This list of riddles might not be as tricky to solve but will make you chuckle when you figure out the answer! Have a go at some of these amusing and perhaps eye-roll worthy detective riddles.

17. A killer told the detective that he was going to kill someone in the one place in Paris where you couldn't see the Eiffel tower. How did the detective catch him? Answer: The detective caught him hiding inside the Eiffel tower.

18. Why did the detective's wife get mad when he arrived at home at 9:30, just liked he'd said? Answer: He had told her he would be home at 9:30 pm, but he arrived at 9:30 am.

19. Mark automatically recognized a detective he'd heard about but didn't know a physical description of and had never met in real life. How did he know who he was? He was good friends with the detective's twin brother.

20. A woman who opened the door after she heard knocking was greeted by a man who automatically apologized for thinking the woman's room was his. The woman decided to call the police. Why did she call them? Answer: If it was his room, he wouldn't have knocked in the first place.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of great family-friendly riddles for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 20 detective riddles then why not take a look at Classic riddles, 36 Christmas Riddles To Get Kids Thinking On Christmas Day or 30 Impossible Riddles For Kids Who Are Riddle Experts.

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Written by Rajnandini Roychoudhury

Bachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English

Rajnandini Roychoudhury picture

Rajnandini RoychoudhuryBachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English

With a Master of Arts in English, Rajnandini has pursued her passion for the arts and has become an experienced content writer. She has worked with companies such as Writer's Zone and has had her writing skills recognized by publications such as The Telegraph. Rajnandini is also trilingual and enjoys various hobbies such as music, movies, travel, philanthropy, writing her blog, and reading classic British literature. 

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