THE MYSTERY

It was the eve of the big soccer game in Lake, Minnesota between the Golden Goose High School, Golden Geese and their crosstown rivals SouLakers of South Lake High. As the dawn sun rose, the high schoolers arrived to find the statue of the school mascot Goldie, a four-foot tall golden goose, gone. In its place a giant soccer ball painted in the SouLake colors of South Lake High weighing the same amount as Goldie stood. A committee of students, faculty and parents immediately began an investigation to identify individuals with a potential motive.  The Golden Geese High School and Goldie were the center of North Lake – the northern half of Lake. The Golden Geese soccer team were state champions in their school bracket for several years running and had dominated their cross town rival the South Lake SouLakers for the past 15 years. This year’s team was young and largely untried, which worried their coach Lady Luck, who had sought ways to fire her team up.

While the committee could have stopped their suspicions with the SouLaker team or perhaps even with their own coach Lady Luck, the history of Goldie the Golden Goose statue and recent events in town pointed to other suspects.

Goldie the Golden Goose mascot and Golden Goose High School were a gift from legendary farmer Brown to the community. Farmer Brown had sculpted Goldie the Golden Goose out of a special gold color clay from his farm to honor this favorite goose Goldie and the source of his great wealth. He gave Goldie to the school after the school decided to make Goldie their mascot. Goldie the Golden Goose had laid eggs with gold flecks in the shell enamel. It was assumed that the source of the gold came from her feeding off the bottom of one of Farmer Brown’s marshes, which one was his greatest secret. Farmer Brown had made his fortune collecting and selling Goldie’s eggshells after her ducklings hatched. Jewel makers in town famously decorated the shells for sale to the ultra-wealthy. When Farmer Brown passed away, his will had split the remaining golden eggs shells among his family members along with Goldie’s descendants. He left the remainder of his farm with all of its marshes to the town of Lake for use as a park. The particular marsh where Goldie fed was supposedly lost with Farmer Brown’s passing.

Legend had it that Farmer Brown had hidden a map to the golden marsh in the statue of Goldie the Golden Goose. Two months before the game, a famous treasure hunter, XMark’s TheSpot came to town trying to discover the location of the gold-filled marsh and asked to examine Goldie. The school board declined and installed a special alarm system to prevent theft. In the last month, the town jewelers had announced that they finally exhausted the warehoused supply of golden goose eggs. Leaders of town jewelers union – BeDazzled and Twinkle - approached the town asking to allow a descendant of Goldie to live and feed on each marsh in order to create a new supply of golden eggs to sustain jobs in town. Brown’s great grandson, Ungrateful Brown, demanded that only descendants of Goldie owned by Farmer Brown’s family be allowed to do that. The town commissioned a nature impact study and found that while the impact of one goose pair might be small that the impact of many would devastate the ecosystem. The council authorized the purchase of 20 geese – one pair for each marsh in the park with the funds from any new eggs to support the two high schools in town. Ungrateful Brown refused to sell and through intimidation prevented other descendants from selling.

A week prior to the big game, Ungrateful Brown’s flock was found in the town park marshes. The town judge issued an injunction removing Ungrateful’s geese. At court, the town won significant damages against Ungrateful for his geese’s devastation of the local flora and fauna, and the clean-up of goose feces in the park. 

The crosstown rivalry had taken on a political dimension in the latest mayoral election. Laker Mayor Candidate Tonald Drump from the South Lake side thought to drive up votes with scandal and controversy. Tonald had spread an unfounded rumor that the Golden Geese soccer team had cheated to beat the SouLakers and also cheated in their state championship game. His accusation was that Golden Geese had perfected tripping opponents players while referees were not looking. He distributed faked videos making it look like Golden Geese players had tripped opponents while the referees looked the other way. The Golden Geese boosters exposed the fraud and doctored videos on the eve of the mayoral election causing Tonald’s support in the SouLaker part of the community to collapse. After the election Tonald refused to concede and claimed the Golden Geese had stolen his election and he vowed to get even. The student, faculty and parent committee became examining the known suspects: (1) Tonald, (2) XMark’s TheSpot, (3) SouLaker Soccer Team, (4) Ungrateful Brown, (5) Coach Lady Luck; and (6) BeDazzled and Twinkle.

Your job is to collect the 7 hints – one for each successfully solved location and discover the suspect or suspects who stole Goldie.