Based on the books written by Charlaine Harris, Aurora Teagarden Mysteries is a Hallmark film series that centers around the titular character, Aurora, who is a true crime aficionado. She is a teaching assistant at a local university, works part-time as a waitress, and as a civilian, she indulges in solving murders even though the local police do not appreciate her involvement.
Spoilers Ahead
Who asked questions about poisoning in the class?
A Lesson in Murder began with a receptionist at Dr. Carpenter’s dental clinic being attacked by a thief. The scene moved to a classroom at a college, where Aurora, a teaching assistant, was taking a class on true crime fiction. The head of the department was Professor Lindo, and Aurora was good friends with her. Tanner Carpenter, one of the students in the class, asked Aurora about how early or late the police would know if someone was poisoned or not, to which Aurora did not give any proper response.
Aurora also learned that Professor Lindo had hired her after firing her previous teaching assistant, Cal, who was known to be too liberal with giving good grades to baseball players. These grades were required for them to remain eligible for the team till the final year. Kevin, one of Aurora and Professor Lindo’s students in the true crime fiction class, was the one who had outed Cal and his scam. Aurora knew a journalism student named Sally at the same university. She pushed her to go after crime stories in her bid to make Sally take an interest in the subject.
Why was Jenny afraid?
Jennifer, aka Jenny, one of the students on the campus, was Aurora’s student. She was afraid to talk to Owen. Jenny and Kevin were in a relationship, but before dating him, she was in a relationship with Owen. Since Owen was friends with Kevin as well, the situation between all three of them was slightly awkward. Kevin, though, was trying to pacify the situation, but Owenhad not stopped pursuing Jenny.
Did Kevin and Tanner get into a fight?
Kevin and Tanner got into a serious fight on the college campus, which Professor Lindo and Aida Teagarden were witnesses to. On being confronted, Tanner revealed he was livid at Kevin for taking his spot on the baseball team. Tanner let Aurora know Kevin was responsible for his injury that had kept him out of the team for a long while, and as a result, Tanner’s hatred for Kevin was well-known across the campus.
Who was found dead?
Kevin needed good grades for him to retain his spot in the baseball team. Aurora offered to tutor him and asked him to come by the diner she worked at as a part-time waitress. When Kevin did not show up, she and Professor Lindo found him in his Mustang outside the diner. They were shocked to find Kevin dead, and Aurora found Kevin’s hands were blue. She had a strong belief that Kevin had been poisoned, but the local detective Alistair Cook and his subordinate Officer Arthur Smith did not want to entertain any of the conclusions made by a civilian. They wanted to find out if the death was a murder, suicide, or a result of natural causes.
Who were the prime suspects?
Detective Cook and Officer Smith had to reveal that the case was now a murder investigation, as the autopsy and the toxicology report revealed that sodium nitrate was found in Kevin’s body. This also led to Aurora and Professor Lindo going into investigation mode to help the police find out who could be the killer. The CCTV footage at the pizza place showed Kevin was last seen drinking a chocolate shake with Jenny and Owen. The prime suspect is Owen, who seemed to have been jealous of his best friend Kevin. He had the proximity and the motive to carry out the murder.
Tanner was also a suspect, as his animosity towards Kevin was a well-known fact. In the CCTV footage, Tanner was seen confronting Kevin again at the pizza place and throwing out the chocolate shake he was drinking. This gave him the chance to poison the drink and give it back to him. Cal was known to have added protein powder to the chocolate shake, which was a normal process, especially for the baseball players that frequented the pizza place. Since Kevin had outed Cal, the latter had reason and motive to kill the young baseball player.
Was Professor Lindo’s office robbed?
On the night of Kevin’s wake, Aurora was sent back to get Professor Lindo’s note for the speech she was about to make. On reaching the office, she was a witness to a robber escaping the building, who hurt Aurora on his way out. Professor Lindo, on cleaning up the room, found out that the paper submitted on sodium nitrate by one of the students was missing. Professor Lindo initially could not remember who wrote the paper but later came to know it was written by Jenny, making her a suspect as well. In a bid to find out more about Cal, who worked at the pizza restaurant and was considered one of the suspects, she asked Sally to get a job there. Sally was given the task of getting to the bottom of the case and unearthing details that would help Aurora and the cops.
Who was arrested first?
Aurora wanted to let Arthur know about Jenny, but she learned the cops had arrested Owen because they found a bottle of sodium nitrate under his car seat. Owen claimed he was innocent but the police were not willing to believe Owen, who kept blaming Tanner. The cops, on checking up on Tanner, came across another packet of sodium nitrate from his bag. His mother’s dental clinic was also robbed a while back, and some quantity of the sodium nitrate had disappeared as per the complaint filed. Since sodium nitrate was usually found in dental clinics for surgery devices, Tanner had easy accessibility because of his mother. Tanner claimed his bag had gone missing from the batting cage and was found two days later. This could be the reason the sodium nitrate was found in his bag, and he blamed Cal for it.
The cops were unable to find conclusive evidence against either of the men, because they had strong alibis to prove they were not around Kevin during his time of death. Even though some powdered sodium nitrate was found beneath the coffee machine at the pizza place, there was no evidence to prove Cal may have brought in the sodium nitrate for Kevin to consume. The cops were confused, but so were Aurora and Professor Lindo. The cops came back to question Jenny, who soon revealed her paper on sodium nitrate was written by her then-boyfriend Owen. This was the lead they were looking for regarding the robbery that happened at Professor Lindo’s office. This could be connected to Kevin’s death, which happened due to the presence of sodium nitrate in his shake.
How did Aurora conclude about a book being used?
Aurora was used to reading many true crime novels, and one of them was a book that had a similar plot to the Kevin murder investigation. Aurora had a eureka moment when she decided to confront Tanner about having read a particular book as part of the curriculum, but he refused to admit to it. She reached the pizza place where Sally was working as well. Since Aurora was obsessed with true crime fiction stories, it was not hard for her to conclude who could be the culprit in any case. She tried to help Det. Cook and Officer Smith, but since she was a civilian, she was kept at bay. That did not stop her from going after the killer. She was aware one of three boys had murdered Kevin.
Who killed Kevin?
Sally was given the responsibility of closing the restaurant when she was taken away by someone from inside the establishment. It had to be one of the suspects who may have caught on to Aurora’s tricks. Since Aurora was at the pizza place as well, she was asked to check the CCTV footage in the absence of Sally’s boss. Sally was fully into the study of the Kevin murder case, and she trusted Aurora, who would not take advantage of Sally or anybody else. Both women were eager to find out who could have been the killer.
Aurora was scanning through old CCTV footage when she found discrepancies while comparing current and old footage. On seeing the footage of the day Kevin was murdered, Aurora noted Cal was the one who moved the CCTV camera and pointed it toward where Kevin, Owen, and Jenny were sitting. This revelation helped her join the dots about who might have killed Kevin. This was the second eureka moment for her in a day, not a rarity in crime dramas such as this one. The moment to find out who killed Kevin was so quick that the story only sped up till the end instead of explaining the plot in a sequence of events to the audience.
Cal threatened to kill Sally, which was when Aurora theorized all three of them killed Kevin, as they had motives, and to confuse the police, they messed with the evidence and the fingerprints. This was based on the book she read, and she believed one of them had read the book as well. The boys used a smart tactic; however, if Aurora was able to crack how they killed Kevin, the police would not find it hard either. It was obvious the boys were hell-bent on blaming each other and knew this would delay and derail the investigation. This blame game and lack of concrete evidence will eventually lead to its closure, and the boys will be scot-free.
Sally was being chased by Tanner while Cal tried to stall Aurora in order to kill her. Owen wanted a way out. His withdrawal proved that he was forced into agreeing to kill Kevin. The deceased was Owen’s best friend, and he probably was jealous but wouldn’t have wanted Kevin to die. Cal and Tanner were far more triggered, and they forced Owen to join them. Sally injured Tanner, while Cal and Owen were arrested only moments before they could harm Aurora. The makers of the film did not reveal who added the sodium nitrate to Kevin’s drink, which was the whole point of the investigation. It was most likely forgotten as the movie tried to finish things off in a rush.
A Lesson in Murder ended with Professor Lindo planning to end her course on true crime fiction because of the murder and the investigation that happened on the campus. She felt responsible for giving the murderers access to books and other details that helped the boys commit a murder. However, Aurora and her mother advised her to not abandon the subject as it would help others to become more like Aurora Teagarden, who could easily sniff out what must have happened on the day of the crime. Aurora Teagarden again saves the day.
