Connie Alden

**Connie Alden** was the business representative of Hampton BioTech, a biotechnological company founded by Jason Hampton. She was murdered in the episode "A Slaying In Singapore" (S06E07).

Connie was known to be arrogant and sly, she had a very bad relationship with her co-workers. Connie was a gossip and eavesdropper; she was the eyes and ears of the business. Combined with her sly attitude, she blackmailed anyone who hid a secret.

Connie managed to uncover illegal company secrets — Jason Hampton was using biotechnological projects to transport cocaine from soluble chemicals. Connie found out through embezzlement scam in the company — the money paid income from the drug dealers (posing as a debtor) to the company had also been embezzled. Connie called Jason as she was blackmailing him.

Finance manager Justin Breen and financing officer Nancy Jeffreys were not quite fond of Connie either. Connie was disrespectful towards Justin and was making threats against him while Connie bullied Nancy in having a relationship with stock manager Edward Devlin. Connie was even in a hostile dispute with her loyal maintenance man Chen Li when she accused him of stealing her jewelries.

Connie was found dead the next morning in her house in the kitchen area. Edwin Goodman and Justin smelled propane gas from her outside porch, they burst in to discover Connie's dead body. Connie died out of blunt force trauma on her head and a smear of blood on the counter. Lt. Nguyen ruled her death as accidental until Edwin discovered instant noodles heated in the microwave, Connie did not switch on the stove, the propane gas line was rigged.

The detectives suspected Chen Li due to his expertise in maintaing Connie's house, both Nancy and Edward were bullied, Justin was disrespected and Jason hid the drug smuggling scheme. At first, Lt. Nguyen concluded that Justin was the murderer when a bloody spanner in his apartment. Then, when Edwin uncovered Jason's drug smuggling operation, Lt. Nguyen arrested him for the trafficking and suspicion for Connie's murder. Edwin determined that the lieutenant was wrong twice.

## Solution

It was revealed that Connie was investigating the embezzlement (that led her to Jason's drug trafficking) and Edwin incriminated Nancy as the embezzler through her recent promotion and her advanced knowledge on the financial system. Edwin was also determined that there were two people involved in the embezzlement and one of them, being Nancy's accomplice, was responsible in killing Connie.

The killer was Edward. It turned out that Connie was right about Edward's romantic relationship with Nancy, which led her to conclude that they were behind the embezzlement scam. Connie, being an arrogant blackmailer, threatened to reveal their entire operation to the police. Edward decided to kill Connie to silence her.

Edward contacted Connie to meet him in a park for a payment as a distraction while Edward tampered with Connie's propane tank. The entire house was filled with poisonous propane, as part of the trap set by Edward. Once Connie arrived home and headed to the kitchen due to smelling the gas, Edward bludgeoned Connie to unconsciousness with a spanner and allowed the propane to poison her

What gave away Edward as Connie's killer was the gas mask he wore while waiting for Connie. It was missing from Chen's store. Edward could have only worn the mask when he filled the house with poisonous gases. Edwin stated that the mask was too tight, the strands of hair would prove Edward's guilt in killing Connie. For Nancy's sake, Edward confessed and arrested for killing Connie.