On Sunday night, in the basement of Farinon College Center, there was a murder.

At a dinner party hosted in honor of the Cirque de la Trappe’s famous ringmaster’s retirement after 22 years, the owner of the circus was ruthlessly cut down by an axe while the crowd was distracted. Who would commit such a heinous crime?

This was the question on everyone’s minds at the annual Tabletop Roleplay Appreciation Program’s Murder Mystery Night Formal. Was it the director of the circus ant farm whom the owner refused to give proper funding? Or perhaps the ringmaster, whom the evening was meant to be celebrating, after being forced into early retirement? The mime with a violent past? The monkeys?

This year, Zoey Urbahns ‘26, president of the program, played the victim of the assassination, circus owner Sasha Miller. When the party was forced to flee from the circus leopard set free in the dining room (Leopard Lair), they returned (wearing anti-leopard ponchos, of course) to find an axe in Urbahn’s body.

“The board has been very conscientious about making sure that the murderers are well-connected through different characters, and have different events to publicize different hints and stuff,” said Connor Taillon ‘26, who played a prop master. “They do a pretty good job of making it dispersed, so that a lot of people can try and figure it out.”

While the leopard tamer and the axe-thrower were initially under suspicion, this seemed far too obvious for the attendees. The real key to solving the murder was located in hidden hints throughout the Leopard Lair, providing insight into the connections between characters.

Some characters require intensive costumes, like the clowns, played by Ash Baeck-Hubloux ‘26 and Clare Socolow ‘27, who donned jester hats, pom-poms and full clown makeup.

“We knew more about our role before other people, just because we were a duo act, and they have to coordinate more,” Socolow said.

The executive board for the program starts planning the event as early as the summer.

“Circus was actually unanimous,” said treasurer Kylee Brotz ‘27 about the year’s theme.

Participants in the event are able to select the size of their role and whether they’re willing to be the murderer. Then, the writing process begins.

“We try and, to the best of our ability, write characters that we think the person would enjoy role-playing for the night,” Urbahns said. “Once we have a general idea of most people’s characters, we go through and narrow down who we think a possible murderer could be.”

After being led astray by a red herring — the deceivingly vengeful ant farm director — the party was able to deduce that the real culprit was none other than the living statue, revealed to be from a competitor family circus. After being forced to sell to the slain Miller and seeing the profit-driven, hedonistic way the show was handled by the owner, the act decided it was time to handle her.

“I wanted to become fun, lovable and just someone so ridiculous that it’s, ‘OK, no way that he’s the murderer,’” said Gareth Schuster ‘27, while covered in silver body paint, playing the living statue.

The murderer was revealed to be assisted by two whose musical talent wasn’t appreciated by Miller. In the end, both were caught and arrested with the living statue.

So, as they say in the circus, all’s well that ends well. Although this journalist isn’t convinced it wasn’t the ant guy.