Genta trips and falls into the snow and comments how it was hard and salty. Conan realizes how the murder was done and gathers the suspects along with inspector Misao Yamamura. Conan tranquilizes Yamamura and impersonates him using his voice changing bow tie to reveal that the murderer is the graduate student Kazuya Itabashi. Conan reveals that during the snow storm, Kazuya used salt to harden the snowman he was working on. He then called Sakuko to his room where he drowned him in his sink which contained the water from the lake. Afterwords, he attached Sakuko's snow shoes on and placed her in the body of the hardened snowman and rolled her into the lake. He then used the Detective Boy's snowman to rebuild a new body for the snowman. As evidence, Conan reveals that the Detective Boy's snowman had their detective badges in their snowman which is now found in Kazuya's snowman. He also reveals that the forensic team should find traces of lake water or Sakuko's DNA in Kazuya's sink. Kazuya confesses to the crime revealing that Sakuko purposely disabled Asaka Onoue, one of the graduate students, out of envy; This sparked Kazuya's murder in the name of vengeance.