Killing It

Ryan Hogan and Derrick Smith are cashing in on the pandemic’s deadly combination of boredom and screen fatigue by selling immersive murder mysteries packaged in monthly subscription boxes.

- Elisabeth Brier

It’s Saturday night in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, and Heather Nicoll, a 31-year-old graphic designer, is investigating a murder. Along with a close friend, she rummages through a box of old newspaper clippings, financial records and police reports as she attempts to solve the grisly death of Jake Morgan, the lead singer of Just4fun, a fictitious boy band. Every month Nicoll, along with 100,000 others, pays around $30 to Baltimore-based startup Hunt A Killer to receive a new installment of the game. It will take a full “season” of six boxes, costing $180, to get to the bottom of Morgan’s death. “I don’t mess around when it comes to cracking these cases,” says Nicoll, who tracks her results with a pencil in a binder. “I’m fully addicted to investigating things now.”