Dear Trevor - just a quick note of thanks. I am preparing for my daughters 10th party and your site has provided some useful pointers and guides - especially the names of the characters! I think the overall party will be slightly different but I just wanted to say thanks for the inspiration anyway.
Good luck with everything.
Alex Jackson

Trevor,
I found your murder mystery party while searching the internet for ideas for my daughters 10th birthday party. This looks like great fun for the kids and is much simpler than some of the teenage parties that I've come across on other websites. We live in Cairo, Egypt so party options are extremely limited over here and it is not possible to buy things like this in Egyptian shops. We also have lots of problems using credit cards from Egypt to buy downloadable products from the internet.
I wondered if it would be possible for us to copy your party and for you to send me copies of the invitations that you made so that I can edit them with the names of my daughters friends.
I appreciate that you have put in a lot of effort to create this murder mystery party. Let me know if I can send you money as a contribution towards your efforts.
Regards
Gary Humber

Gary,
Good to hear from you. I'd be delighted if you re-used the materials that Tracey (my wife) and I wrote for Sebastian's party a few years ago.
I will send you source materials (powerpoint, excel and word) under separate cover, so you can edit them yourself. The key thing to remember is the master spreadsheet expects an exact number of participants, so you will have to do some work here if you are inviting more (or less) children.
There's no need for payment, but please don't send on material to anyone else. Rather, direct them to my website and email. I'd appreciate it if I could quote your remarks on my own website, too.
Good luck with the party. Kindest regards, Trevor

I am having a murder mystery party based off of your website and the one thing we are having trouble with is the goodybags. This party is for 13/14 year olds and old little plastic bags won't work. We wanted to have mini magnfying glasses mini notepads and mini flashlights and mini pens and a confidental file with all the info they need for the party. We don't know where they can store all this info. We thought at first a old looking messenger bag would do the trick but for a party of 13 people it is very difficult to find large quantities of bags for a low price. Any suggestions of what to store the items in?
Emily

Emily,
Glad to hear that you are hoping to use my material.
As a suggestion about Goody-bags, how about large brown (Manilla) envelopes? Or perhaps those padded bags used for mailing ("Jiffy bags")? You could mark the outside "Top Secret", or some such, and they should be big enough for all the things you might need. (Think "Mission: Impossible")
Good luck with the event. Regards, Trevor.

Thanks for all the info on hosting a mystery party. I plan to host a mystery party for my 10 year old for up to 20 guests. I have tried to open the spreadsheet and other links on your web page, but have had no success. Don't suppose you could email them to me?
Thanks Carina

Carina,
Glad to hear that you found the information useful, so far.
The stuff on the website is in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format, so you might try downloading the (free) Acrobat reader from www.adobe.com.
In any case, I could send you the spreadsheet and invites in MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint format. Would this be useful to you? (I'll need to get to my other computer at home to do this.)
Kindest regards, Trevor.

Searching online for a murder mystery for our Girl Guide Group. Daunting at best... Local group would have cost $200. Thank you for your kindness in sharing.
Wanda Burden
3rd Goulds Girl Guides of Canada

We had the party on Sunday afternoon (January 25) and it simply was a...SUCCESS! The kids loved the concept and many of them got into the spirit by arriving in costume. My daughter came home from school yesterday and reported that they are still discussing the fun they had and are even calling each other by their character names. Thank YOU!

I made a few minor changes to the script, changed some names (so that real first names were not used) and added additional domestic staff (1 helper assisted 4 guests). My helpers read the parts of the ones who were unable to attend and everything seemed to flow smoothly. My husband played the part of "Mandelbrot Brown - father of Evie Brown" who was the murderer and he was arrested by his Dad who was the "Inspector". What fun! After the party was done, several kids came up to him and arrested him using their finger-cuffs (from the Inheritance bags).

Once again, our thanks to all of you for creating such a fun party theme and making it available to all who are interested. Many parents thought it was a GREAT theme and asked if I had created this. I have been telling them where I got my information from and all who stayed to watch the show made many complimentary remarks. Our success is your success!
April Wilson

I just wanted to let you know that we held our party on Friday night and it was a huge success! All of the kids came in costume and many had even memorized their parts. It was a great time! Thanks so much for allowing access to this script. It was a great resource for a wonderful night!

Allison

Thanks very much for the editable party materials.
After making a few changes to suit our guests and my daughter we went and had the party on Saturday. What a success, kids all loved it, had all entered into the spirit of things and we all had a ball. Never had so many texts telling me how much a child has loved a party as I received on Saturday night.
So thanks once again for allowing your hard work to be used by others. I may even have a go writing my own script sometime!!!
Thank you from a happy mum and 20 happy girls.
Shona

We had a very succesful evening using your murder mystery although I think 36 children is too many!! It just happened that way as it was a leaving school party for my daughter and she wanted to ask everyone. I managed to write the extra parts which did take longer than I expected but was great fun.
If I was doing it again I think I would try and give them less rather than more lines as it did go on rather a long time - however they did all seem to enjoy it. I changed the murderer to be one of the children and was rather pleased than none of them guessed apart from the murderer herself!
Thank you again for your generosity in sharing all your hard work - it was great fun and so much more interesting than yet another disco!
Eleanor

Hi Trevor,
Just got back from Guide camp, where your Murder Mystery party played a major part. The girls were given their character two weeks before. The party was spread over a day, which the gilrs really enjoyed and got into, again lots of noise. Your hard work certainly made my job a lot easier.
Thanks very much,
Sue, Amersham Guides UK.

Hey Trevor,
I wanted to get back to you on how the Murder Mystery Party went with the campers. There was some problems with say the props (objects and such) but over all it was a blast. The kids loved getting into characters more than anything. I would definitely recommend it to future counselors, it's a lot of work but entirely worth it!
Thank you so much for all the help!
Marina

Dear Trevor
I ran my daughter's Murder Mystery party yesterday and want to thank you for a highly entertaining afternoon. It was a monumental success!
Ten girls, dressed up to the nines! I had to change the plot and characters a little to suit the guests. We had Marauder Plunder the antique dealer/counterfeiter, Martini Bond, PI, Hermione Blackjack, gambler and card sharp... You must have a slightly criminal mind to have thought this up in the first place - so glad you do!
Lots of parents have been interested in how this came into being and I will be happy to pass on your website address.
How on earth to follow this for next year's party is my only problem...
Kind regards, Rebecca

Dear Trevor
Many thanks for all your help on this - went off very well!
I made a couple of changes to things, basically because there weren't that many adults (me as lawyer and my wife as maid) so the murderess had to be one of the characters, as did the long lost daughter.
Kept 16 9 year olds occupied for two and a half hours, so can't be bad. Most really got into it and a number said it was the best party they'd been to.
Worth all the effort - on your part and mine!
Thanks again. Best regards, Jason

Jason,
Thanks very much for letting me know how it all went. Glad you managed to cut down the plot in the spreadsheet for fewer characters - and presumably all female characters too!
A favour: would you consider letting me add your few kinds words to my citations page?
Kindest regards, Trevor

Hello Trevor
Just wanted to email and say a big thank you for putting your murder mystery party on line, we had a fantastic evening yesterday, my daughter and 11 of her friends (age 10) had a brilliant time. I edited the script and rewrote parts of it to fit 12 female characters and changed the ending so that one of the girls (Madame Foo Foo - she was so desperate to get her hands on the clock that she resorted to murder!!) was actually the murderer. If it would be helpful to you I am happy to send over the edited script and guest instructions should anyone approach you and say they are doing it for this number of children, but a huge thank you from this family!

Hi
I am a school teacher for junior students in Newmarket Ontario. I would love to do your murder mystery as an end of the year activity. Can you e-mail me a copy of the invitation so I can change it to suit my needs. Thanks and it looks like a blast. Have a great day!
Donna
.....
Hi Trevor,
We have just finished our Murder Mystery Luncheon. We changed the name to CSI Luncheon. Thanks a million for access to the invitations, scripts and the plot. It was an amazing hit! Have a super day!
Donna