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Sunday Times Teaser 3122 – Bank Robbery

by BRG on July 22, 2022

by Angela Newing

Published Sunday July 24 2022 (link)

Five witnesses were interviewed following a robbery at the bank in the High Street. Each was asked to give a description of the robber and his actions. The details given were: height, hair colour, eye colour, weapon carried, escape method.

\[\begin{array}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|}\hline \mathbf{Witness} & \mathbf{Height} & \mathbf{Hair\;Colour} & \mathbf{Eye\;colour} & \mathbf{Weapon}& \mathbf{Escape}\\
\hline \mathbf{one} & short & fair & brown & cricket\;bat & motorbike \\
\hline \mathbf{two} & tall & fair & grey & gun & car \\
\hline \mathbf{three} & tall & dark & brown & crowbar & motorbike \\
\hline \mathbf{four} & short & ginger & blue & knife & car \\
\hline \mathbf{five} & tall & dark & blue & stick & pusbike \\
\hline \end{array}\]

When the police caught up with the perpetrator, they found that each of the five witnesses had been correct in exactly two of these characteristics.

What was the robber carrying, and how did he get away?

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5 Comments Leave one →
  1. Brian Gladman permalink

  2. Frits permalink

  3. Frits permalink

    This program prints multiple solutions as the robber could have carried more than one weapon. This is probably not intended by the puzzle designer but not unlikely in real life. The robber carrying all five weapons is a bit of stretch.

    • Brian Gladman permalink

      Very interesting. Maybe the robber would prefer the second condition in line 29 to be ‘!= 1’ in order to be sure he escapes!

    • @Frits: He could have different coloured eyes as well. (But probably not more than two).

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