Who killed Keene Milton?

[RockstarRaccoon]

SO!
I'd've made this thread sooner, but I just haven't had time to keep up. It looks like Keene just (almost) survived an assassination attempt, in which his own driver was clearly involved. Let's look at that again...

Last thing that happened, he had just gotten out of a court proceeding with him attempting to do some sort of Human-Animal Reconciliation thing. He got in his limo and fell asleep in the back.

Obviously, he wasn't expecting anything, so we can assume he either doesn't realize how many toes he's stepped on (unlinkely) or whoever's infiltrated his organization has people he doesn't suspect of trying to murder him, because next thing we know...

He wakes up in the limo filling with water: the driver has exited, closed the door, and pushed it off a dock and into the Pacific ocean. He manages to escape, but loses his jacket (thus his wallet and cell phone) in his escape. Last we see him, he's clinging to the side of a California pier in a rainstorm. I guess they either assumed he was a dead ferret or they didn't mind if he escaped, because there was no one there to catch him as far as I can tell.

SO....
Who near Keene is trying to kill him, and what's he going to do now?

My guess is that Mr Steward is involved (Keene suspects him of being a mole) and the next we hear of Keene, he'll be presumed dead, and perpetuating the lie until he can ferret out the infiltrator, no pun intended. The question is, what will happen in his absence? King, the Wolves, the other Milton Ferrets, and possibly things reaching beyond Babylon Gardens depend on him. My guess is that Lana and Miles will step forward as major characters in that.

...Or the comic could just go back to being zany and I'm overthinking it.

What about you guys?

[HellishK9]

Plot Twist-- His siblings betray him so they can inherit the Milton Estate for themselves. DUN DUN DUN!

or maybe Celia and Thomas are back at it again.

[tsMKG]

The water!

[AnimeNerd88]

O...k. To be the serious one in this situation, I will say the idea that commenters from that specific strip convinced me on who the culprit is. The most likely choice is that PETA is screwing up everything again! The human Milton siblings, or at the very least Thomas, are out for the fact that the most of a motive you could get for them would be revenge on the ferrets for 'stealing' their inheritance, and even then they probably would have gone for them all. Thomas specifically is out because of the fact that, when he does crime, he always does it himself. He prefers there to be no middle man. So he gets excluded because, from what little we can see of the driver, the skin tone is completely different. Thomas has an orange-ish skin color while the driver's skin is kinda grey-ish. I personally exclude Celia because, last time we saw her, it seemed that both she and Thomas were having financial problems, nothing horrible but certainly bad enough to not even considering murdering the ferrets for revenge. Then there's Mr. Steward and Jeeves. I put them together because they both have the same reason why they couldn't of done this: The lack of a motive. While the motive for the human Milton siblings was flimsy, a motive for Jeeves or Mr. Steward is practically nonexistent. The only one that I can think of is off screen annoyance, and 1. I don't think Rick would give us a motive that bad and 2. They can always quit their jobs if the ferrets became too much for them. The only other motive I can think of for either of them is the incident of Keene being left at the zoo and then threatening to fire Mr. Steward, with Mr. Steward trying to kill him to keep his job, but by now the chances of that being the motive are so little that it's microscopic. So, the only people left that have been seen in the comic before and have a motive for this attempted murder is PETA, the motive being the fact that Keene is fighting for animals to be free, AKA being equal to humans, in a way that goes against how they want animals to be free, AKA feral. So, does that sound like a good theory?

[Welsh Halfwit]

It won't be PETA. They wouldn't try to harm an animal like that. They're extreme, sure, but drowning a Ferret isn't their way. They'd either keep him prisoner or release him, sans clothes and human stuff, in the deep, dark, wilds where he can live or be killed as nature desires.

And I don't think you should overlook the possibility that no-one tried to kill Keene. Some have said that we don't see the driver in the car but we don't see the front section AT ALL really (it's all covered in foam). There's nothing to say the driver wasn't still in there, having passed away at the wheel as they came towards a wharf. At the moment we have an accident.

[Sleet]

Oh, that's easy. I did.

[AnimeNerd88]

It won't be PETA. They wouldn't try to harm an animal like that. They're extreme, sure, but drowning a Ferret isn't their way. They'd either keep him prisoner or release him, sans clothes and human stuff, in the deep, dark, wilds where he can live or be killed as nature desires.

And I don't think you should overlook the possibility that no-one tried to kill Keene. Some have said that we don't see the driver in the car but we don't see the front section AT ALL really (it's all covered in foam). There's nothing to say the driver wasn't still in there, having passed away at the wheel as they came towards a wharf. At the moment we have an accident.

The problem with the second part is that Keene is not cold hearted enough to just immediately abandon his driver to death after a car accident. Also, as for the 'They wouldn't try to harm an animal like that' part, I refer you to this strip, where it is implied that a PETA member tried to kill Fox, only because he thought Fox was better off dead than being a pet.

[Bullet]

My first guess would be: Herman Steward.

Since the Ferrets are not officialy allowed to do money transactions of this size, they had to hire him as a middleman (or steward) who does the official transactions. And, let's face it, Keene is one of the smarter ones of the ferrets. Herman could easily trick the others and steal the money from them.

Even Keenee doesn't trust him.Evidence A

That's my thoughts to this case.

[RockstarRaccoon]

Ok, so far, I'm hearing 3 sets of theories:

Mr Steward, because Keene believes him to be a mole or an embezzler. Once again, I think this is the most likely, especially since he's been trying to keep Keene from delving too deep into stuff like the temple. I think he's working with some larger outside organization, which was fighting Henry Milton that Keene hasn't found out about yet: there's bound to be some conspiracy trying to enforce the status quo.

Thomas and/or Celia Milton, because Keene is the most competent, and is thus, standing between them and the inheritance. The problem that's been put forth is that they don't have much money, but I'm not willing to write this off: they're resourceful and determined, and there's even the possibility of them being in league with Steward or the previously mentioned conspiracy.

PETA, because his idea of "Animal Liberation" is incompatible with theirs. The problem with this one is that we haven't really seen them since the Sinister Shadow arc, and (as far as we know) they haven't really been involved with Keene. I suppose they might have the resources to botch an assassination, but so far, they were a different sort of antagonist than that.

[FancyHat]

It might not be PETA but another even MORE extremist group known exactly as it's goal "Animal Liberation Front"..Look 'em up..They are literally legally considered a Terrorist Organization..

[AnimeNerd88]

Ok, so far, I'm hearing 3 sets of theories:

Mr Steward, because Keene believes him to be a mole or an embezzler. Once again, I think this is the most likely, especially since he's been trying to keep Keene from delving too deep into stuff like the temple. I think he's working with some larger outside organization, which was fighting Henry Milton that Keene hasn't found out about yet: there's bound to be some conspiracy trying to enforce the status quo.

Thomas and/or Celia Milton, because Keene is the most competent, and is thus, standing between them and the inheritance. The problem that's been put forth is that they don't have much money, but I'm not willing to write this off: they're resourceful and determined, and there's even the possibility of them being in league with Steward or the previously mentioned conspiracy.

PETA, because his idea of "Animal Liberation" is incompatible with theirs. The problem with this one is that we haven't really seen them since the Sinister Shadow arc, and (as far as we know) they haven't really been involved with Keene. I suppose they might have the resources to botch an assassination, but so far, they were a different sort of antagonist than that.

Ok, I admit that I didn't consider that motive for Mr. Steward, so I will say he is a possibility now. But the problem for Thomas and Celia's motive is that, thanks to clever Mr. Milton, they probably aren't getting a cent if the ferrets die, and it'll more likely go to charity or something. And the problem with PETA trying to kill Keene is kinda the same with Thomas and Celia, too. The last time we even saw one of them was the beginning of Temple Crashers, which was posted on September third, 2012. So, time is not an issue, or it was definitely Mr. Steward. And one last thing, it couldn't be Thomas because, again, he prefers there to be no middle man, so if he tried to kill Keene, then the hand that we know is the driver's would've been more of an orange color than a little gray-ish. That does not rule out Celia though.

[RockstarRaccoon]

It might not be PETA but another even MORE extremist group known exactly as it's goal "Animal Liberation Front"..Look 'em up..They are literally legally considered a Terrorist Organization..

I'm going to hit this from the external perspective: the ALF hasn't shown up in Housepets, so I'll assume it's not them. This is for 2 reasons:
1) Rick is very unlikely to pull this sort of mystery on us with a villain we haven't seen prior evidence of, because then, how would we "solve" it?
2) If we try and guess for that, the possibilities are endless.

But the problem for Thomas and Celia's motive is that, thanks to clever Mr. Milton, they probably aren't getting a cent if the ferrets die, and it'll more likely go to charity or something.

This has occured to me as one of the holes, but I didn't think it'd be as straightforward as that: Keene is a real obstacle for any scheme they make because he's a high-level player who does things like hire wolves as guards, while the others are just sort of comic relief.

And the problem with PETA trying to kill Keene is kinda the same with Thomas and Celia, too. The last time we even saw one of them was the beginning of Temple Crashers, which was posted on September third, 2012.

Another good point: that's a while to dredge something up, even for the timing of this comic. The longest I feel he's had between a character's last appearance and them being a major plot mover was the timespan between "The Grove" and "Oops I Arced", which was only a year. I'd still say though that Thomas and Cellia must still exist within this world, even if we haven't seen them.

it couldn't be Thomas because, again, he prefers there to be no middle man, so if he tried to kill Keene, then the hand that we know is the driver's would've been more of an orange color than a little gray-ish. That does not rule out Celia though.

This is also a good point. However,
1) Where does Thomas expressly say this?
2) How do we know that's not an art change or makeup?

[Hlaoroo]

The problem with the second part is that Keene is not cold hearted enough to just immediately abandon his driver to death after a car accident.

Well, I would argue that it's not about being cold-hearted. Keene has just woken up under water in a car that's sinking fast. His first and probably only thought would have been getting himself out. It probably didn't even occur to him that his driver might still have been in the car and even if it did what could he have done? He's a fraction of the size and weight of the driver and he has no breathing apparatus. He'd likely have died trying to rescue the guy and even if he had tried there's really nothing he could have done anyway. If the driver hadn't gotten out before Keene then he'd have been under water already when Keene woke up which would mean that he was probably dead anyway.

So I think that in this situation Keene did the only thing he could which was to save himself. Now he can alert the authorities to what happened and recover the driver's body if it's still there.

I also agree with all of Raccoon's arguments.

If it weren't for the fact that the car has gone off the pier I'd say this was most likely just a car accident. Given that it has gone off the pier though, I'm interested to see where this goes.

[FancyHat]

Again I say it, it might be The Animal Liberation Front instead of PETA. The ALF is already a crazy organization to the point where they are legally terroists..And for what cause, we'll the exact same cause as PETA, though to an even more extreme extent, where as PETA kidnaps animals, and makes fun of victims of things like Shark attack, ALF goes and molotov cocktails a people's cars and does raids..even planting incidinary devices in public places throughout Europe, and the Americas..they even have planted fake bombs at places and destroyed people's homes over just owning products of people they hate...I mean these people firebombed (as in Molotov) a (unoccupied)police cruiser in Vancouver over protecting a person that co owned a fur shop..Soo yeah, if anyone would be willing to try and kill Keene over something no matter how small it'd be the ALF...

Total list of actions that support why they might be involved here..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timelin ... nt_actions

[AnimeNerd88]

Okay, first, FancyHat. I'm sorry, but I really don't think it's going to be ALF. For a good mystery, the culprit would have to be someone that was seen before, not some random person that only very few people could even think of. We know Rick is a good storyteller, so he would never bring in a villain that we've never seen before for something as important as Keene's attempted murder.
Okay, Hlaoroo. The problem for it to be an accident is that, if it was an accident, Rick wouldn't purposely show us no evidence of the driver being in there (I think). He would probably show some evidence that he's still in there, like maybe seeing his hand through a window while Keene was swimming away, or seeing a bit of blood in the water, or something, I'm pretty sure.
Finally, RockstarRaccoon. First, though Keene is the one that's most focused on keeping their money, Lana and Rock have proven that they care somewhat, with Lana being a spokeswoman of sorts for their company and Rock actually caring about the canine cibble commercial's success. So if Thomas or Celia wanted to get their hands on the fortune, they would have to get rid of the three ferrets that aren't complete comic relief. Next, of course Thomas and Celia are still there, I'm just saying that the issue of time should not matter for PETA if it doesn't matter for Thomas and Celia. Next, it's never said that Thomas doesn't like there to be a middleman, but it's heavily implied, with him scoping out the Milton mansion himself, him going in and stealing the map himself, and him going out to the dessert to try and find the temple himself. Everything that someone could've hired someone to do, Thomas did himself. So it's safe to assume that he prefers to do things himself rather than get someone else involved. Finally, it can't be an art change or make-up because I doubt Rick change Thomas' skin color that much and, if he did use make-up, why would he use it now? He's seen that the most he needs to fool the ferrets is a wig and a fake mustache, so why would he use it now?

[FancyHat]

To be honest, the reason I brought up AFL is because of the close relation between PETA and the Group...Basically one's the boss, the other is the mook.. Not all the time is a good mystery the best mystery.. Not all the time does the reader need a list of perpetrators when the most likely is the one you don't suspect..One you don't know, One you outright would never even consider part of the list..Suspicions are going from Thomas and Celia to PETA. I brought up a group that is extremely supported by PETA, and both have done work for the other in many cases, yet one is more on the "Legal" side than the other. The AFL can and have easily jumped back and forth across the Moral Horizon and continue doing it. They are basically what would be PETA's Dragon or Hired Muscle.. Atleast the AFL fit the bill since their sects go from flippin' China to Mexico. They are way more widespread than PETA, and basically are close allies with them so if PETA says "Hey go make this person's life a living incarnation of eternal suffering because reason." they'd just nod and do that while at the same time firebombing some Outdoors store over selling Hunting and Fishing equipment..

[RockstarRaccoon]

Guys, I'm going to state this outright, because we need to stop arguing about it.
THE DRIVER WAS NOT IN THE CAR.
Go back and look at the second panel: Keene looks at the driver's seat and immediately notes that the driver's seat is EMPTY. The whole point of that panel is to show us that there is no driver for him to wake / save, and therefore, the driver got out of the car BEFORE it was dumped in the ocean and was probably in on it.

[FancyHat]

I agree with Racoon on that, driver was not in the car, coulen't have been..Even with a seat belt on, that guy would've been floating like a puffed up beach ball if he was in there.. He either got out before hand, or someone outright committed armed GTA to get the limo, cause no way the driver is still in there. He'd have to have his entire body tied to multiple pieces of concrete as to not float, that or he kacked it and got dumped before the limo went under. Driver is in cahoots with whoever it is be it a single person or an entire extremist group.

Also like above rocket, Limo driver might've been capped as a "No witnesses" situation also, that or as stated above armed grand theft of the vehicular persuasion. He may or may not be resting deeper in the water or in a shadow grave as a precaution..

[RockstarRaccoon]

Fancy Hat and all the other people saying the driver was killed or something: Rick is trying to keep the comic at a PG rating. The kind of violence you're suggesting is above what he's likely to write here. Also, if there was a struggle Keene would've woken up.

Assume the driver was the assassin for simplicity's sake, because even in the unlikely scenario it wasn't him, it still doesn't affect the question of who was behind this.

[Obbl]

It's getting a little toasty in here.

So to sum up what we know:
The driver was not in the car.
Occam's Razor suggests he was in on it.
There are some characters who have motive or are suspicious.
Any organized group or individuals strongly disliking Keene's goals are also suspect.
End list.

With no real leads to go on, arguing about who your favorite suspect is achieves very little. So let's all remember that everyone here (including you) knows essentially zilch about what's going on, and there's no need to get salty about it.

[FancyHat]

True..Seems we're gonna have to stake out and wait for the first lead to come up and pull out Detective Holmes on it until it's either a red harring or we figure out the culprit.

[GameCobra]

Never thought that in the second panel that the shock marks could've been interpreted that the driver was missing. I thought it was just Keene panicking that the seat was breaking the window and it was going to flood the rest of the car.

That being said, I only have two guesses: my main theory is that the driver was alone on this, but whether it was malicious or not is the important question. I suspect the plot will come up as a case of "He's just a pet. It's my life or his" when the details of the accident return. The second one is one of Mr. Milton's business rivals is involved. If he had any business rivals.

[VoidGaming404]

All I have to say is, remember, Keene was trying to get animals liberated. All we have to do is think, who might not want that?

[AnimeNerd88]

Since no one else is bringing it up, I will; if Sasha is involved in Keene's situation, and knowingly, then I think we can all agree that all of our previous guesses were wrong.

[FancyHat]

Most likely.

[RockstarRaccoon]

My Theories:
- Sasha's father is involved and is bringing her into it, in which case, this may be the arc where she turns him in as some sort of criminal.
- Sasha is a witness.
- Sasha did it on accident. (unlikely, seeing as they were all cut, unless she was taking out her anger on a random object)

I reject the idea that she did it on purpose as it makes no sense with her established character.

[tsMKG]

Since no one else is bringing it up, I will; if Sasha is involved in Keene's situation, and knowingly, then I think we can all agree that all of our previous guesses were wrong.

Specially since Keene isn't dead

[valerio]

I'll put big money on Jeeves -if not the mastermind behind the act, an accomplice.
I mean, he deliberatedly left Keene as prisoner at the zoo. This does show some heavy disdain. Plus, he was the only one who could have Keene drugged without the ferret suspecting.
Perhaps Mr. Steward is involved as well, but as an executor, Jeeves is my prime suspect.

I don't know what Sasha's position is, perhaps she *was* just an innocent bystander, and quite probably interrogation will lead to more confusion than answers.

[Obbl]

Keene says "if you are only pretending to not hear me," and I always assumed that indicated Jeeves actually didn't hear him. Plus later Keene confides in Jeeves about his distrust for Mr. Steward, indicating that (at the very least) Keene believes that Jeeves truly did not hear him.
It's be an interesting plot twist if Rick decided that Jeeves had actually left him behind on purpose as part of his master plan or something, but I'm not ready to jump on that yet

[Hlaoroo]

What if it was deliberate on Sasha's part because she thought Bino was in the car and she was told he'd regifted her again?

[GameCobra]

I came up with a very interesting theory last night:

I think it's Sasha's owner, but I'm starting to suspect that Sasha's owner has his roots in not just Sasha, but other pets. Keene's legal system would complicate how he gets away with this with pets. I thought about it, and it occurred to me this whole thing could be setting up a major pitfall for him in the end. And my gut feeling is starting to tell me that Maxwell got a bite mark over this as a sign of his abusiveness in the past.

[AlyxVixen]

Hai! First time post and new forum member.

I think Duchess and Boris are involved in the assassination.

One: We know Duchess is all about power, and Keene being richer and having more media exposure and in charge of a multi-billion multinational company would be seen as a serious threat to her power.

Two: Someone stated earlier in the thread that the driver's "skin" colour was greyish... like Boris' fur. Who works for Duchess, and seems to like hurting people.

Three: Duchess is trying to impede the investigation by preventing Fox from interviewing the Old Dogs Club members. Might just be trying to annoy and upset Fox, but she's still impeding an attempted murder investigation (which is a crime in itself, so Fox could arrest her and Boris for that alone).

Four: Duchess is one of Sasha's trusted friends. It wouldn't take much from Duchess to have Sasha show up at the docks at the time of the assassination. From the look of Sasha on the video, she was looking around for someone she expected to meet.

[FancyHat]

Pretty sure Duchess, despite how in depth that is, isn't THAT crazy for attention. I mean that's literally sending a hitman out to kill someone, not only does the hitman get charged, but so does the person who hires the hitman, both face the same penalty which is usually gettin' scrambled by the Electric Chair..In this case, it would be the syringe since ya know, dogs.. I mean Boris lacks enough intelligence to probably go through with it, but Duchess would be rather idiotic trying to do that, I mean you said the reason why it would be stupid to do such in your first sentence as evidence. He's richer, more famous, and runs a company most likely the size of China. Thinking you could get away with that would be suicidal even more suicidal than when Gavrilo Princip ran up to Franz Ferdinand's car with a pistol drawn.

It's a good theory, not denying that, but you do have to admit that's a bit far fetched.

[Saturn381]

Maybe it was Bino.

[AnimeNerd88]

I admit, I did say that the drivers skin seems to be a little gray, but if you look at it again, you can see that it's clearly a human hand, and definitely not the same shade of gray as Boris' paw. Also, I have to agree that that isn't really a great motive for Duchess to do something like that. I admit, it is very suspicious that she just did something that is completely against the law, AKA obstructing a police investigation along with attempted assault on an officer (Or assault on an officer, considering Boris did punch Mungo, however ineffective it was). I feel like that may have to do with something else, though, specifically whatever Duchess was talking about when she called Fox a traitor. Either that or she tried to sick Boris on them because they might've been doing something illegal in the club, but I highly doubt that.