Rieka GILMORE

Later, Rieka is also found drowned head first in her bathtub. What happened?

The case:
At first glance, it may look like Rieka simply drowned, but on a closer look, Conan is able to tell the truth. The fact that her clothes are completely soaked indicates that she was lying in the bathtub when she drowned. Furthermore, combining the fact that Rieka disappeared even before Yuki’s body was found and having rope and tape marks on her body leads to only one conclusion: she must have been tied up and stuck to the bathtub to drown her slowly rather than right away. But who murdered her and Steve?

With only a few suspects left, all evidence points to Donald Hilbler. Most obviously, his sleeves are completely soaked, making it possible that he’s the one who lifted the dead Reika out of the bathtub. Being at bay with this evidence, Donald confesses that he killed both Steve and Rieka to avenge the death of his beloved Sonja. Two years ago, she went to search for Steve and Rieka, who went lost at sea. Not knowing that it was the two of them, she only had one other life jacket with her besides her own. When she found them, Rieka and Steve took both life jackets from Sonja and left her alone at sea where she eventually drowned.

Donald also admits that he made Steve and Rieka confess their guilt before drowning them. He killed Steve right away by pushing him under water with his bare hands. Before that, he overwhelmed Rieka while she changed her clothes to make her the main suspect. He did this by dazing her, then tying her with tape and sticking her to the bathtub that he filled with water to drown her slowly and painfully and to a later time. This gave him the opportunity to be with Richard and the other party guests during the actual point of time of Rieka’s death to divert suspicion from himself. To reinforce the impression of her being the murderer and having run off, he turned off the lights by remotely turning on the air conditioners and the microwave at the same time to break a window in the dark without being noticed.

In the end, Donald believes Steve and Rieka got what they deserved, although his well-planned murder backfired and left obvious traces, at least to Conan, that lead directly to him.