| abstract | - Max Heller was a student at Redding Prep and a friend of murder victim Donny Kendall, one of a group of friends who occasionally played a mock 'Russian Roulette' with each other. When they were playing this game one night in Central Park, Max shot Donny with a bullet which was still in the gun (presumed to have been from a recent occasion where Spencer, another of the group, provided them with real bullets so that they could shoot cans), causing Donny to die of his injuries. Despite the group's attempt to pin the crime on a drug dealer who'd seen them in the part earlier, Richard Castle realised the truth after a conversation with his daughter, Alexis, prompted him to consider the anomaly in the case. Max was subsequently presumed to have committed suicide out of guilt over his role in the accidental death of his friend, but his high blood-alcohol level at the time of death - to the point that he may not have even been conscious - coupled with a strange abrasion on his trigger finger, led Lanie Parish to deduce that somebody else had made him actually pull the trigger. The subsequent investigation confirmed that Brandon, another member of the group, had been responsible for the whole thing, proving his presence at Max's death after checking their phones - all linked via BlueTooth provided by the father of one of the girls - revealed that his and Max's phones had synced up at the time of death, meaning that Brandon had to be within twenty feet of Max when the murder occurred.
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