The evil Zoe Maurice
Zoe Maurice is the main villainess from "Dead-y Player One," the 14th episode of the crime-solving puzzle game, Small Town Murders: Match 3 (release date November 24, 2020). She is the owner of Vroom, Thornton Grove's newly opened video game arcade.
Zoe is also the daughter of Graham "Gygax" Maurice, and was actually born Xelda Magazoid Maurice, with Gygax taking her first and middle names from video games. She legally changed her name to Zoe prior to opening Vroom, with the episode seeing Zoe giving a tour of the arcade to Nora Mistry and deputy Mike Shanahan, leading to the pair finding the body of Rick Wade--a noted gamer. The investigation revealed that Wade was murdered; struck in the back of the head with a blunt object, and regarding suspects, the main one was Greg "Orcslayer" Kowalski, as he was Wade's main rival.
Zoe distributed security camera footage of the night the murder took place, only for the video to show that an apparent power outage occurred during the actual murder. Later on, Zoe and Greg were shown participating in the dismantling of the Lazer Lair, and that plus another inspection of the video led to Zoe being suspected as well. Sheriff Harris' statement about the blackout not affecting other areas surrounding the store led both Nora and Shanahan to realize that Zoe was the killer, and to prove it, Nora arranged a meeting with Zoe regarding the video footage.
After Zoe stated that she was the only one who has access to the laptop playing the video, Nora used that statement as evidence that she killed Wade, with the reveal cemented when Shanahan found a blood covered staff (which belonged to her father). After Zoe was arrested, she admitted everything, first revealing her hatred of video games as a partial motive. In addition, Zoe revealed that Vroom was struggling financially, and regarding the night in question, she stated that Greg and Wade were in a heated competition, and had actually switched games during the contest, which ended with Wade beating Greg's high score. Not wanting the attention caused by a broken video game record, Zoe turned heel by bludgeoning Wade to death with the staff, and doctored the security video to hide her murderous act.
During her confession, the evil Zoe lashed out at both gamers, voicing her disgust at them and accusing them of ruining her business. The villainess added that it didn't matter to her who held the record, but someone beating it would bring the entire "circus" back to the store, and she couldn't let it happen. Nora and Shanahan pinpointed another reason for Zoe's actions; a feeling that Wade--among other gamers (even her own father)--was beneath her, with the villainess agreeing and callously asking them to "wrap it up" so she could get her forty winks. Shanahan informed Zoe that she would be looking at forty years in response, before she wass officially charged with murder.
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