where the crawdads sing who was the killer. Even though Where the Crawdads Sing is one of the most famous book titles of all time and one of the most anticipated films of 2022, many questions and mysteries remain. Will Kya be found to be guilty? The murder of Chase Andrews: who did it? Where does it all lead, exactly?
The lead role of Kya Clark, or “Marsh Girl,” a reclusive woman living in the marshes of North Carolina’s Barkley Cove in the 1960s, is played by Normal People’ Daisy Edgar-Jones in the film adaptation of the 2018 Delia Owens novel of the same name.
Kya’s parents left her and her siblings in the swamp when she was a young child, and she spent most of her life there alone until she was a teenager, when she fell in love with her neighbor, the good-hearted Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith), and then with the town playboy, Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson).
Kya becomes the prime suspect in a murder trial after Andrews’s mysterious death. Who committed the crime, though, and does the jury find her guilty?
Get ready to have your questions answered because here they are…
SPOILER ALERT: The following contains major plot points.
In Where the Crawdads Sing, does Kya end up being found guilty?
Kya is found to be innocent in both the movie and the book adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing.
In 1969, two young boys in Barkley Cove discover the body of Chase Andrews under the fire tower. The local sheriff thinks that Andrews was pushed, and that the mysterious and wild “Marsh Girl” is responsible. Kya is arrested by police despite the absence of fingerprints or footprints and a verifiable alibi (she was in Greenville meeting with a book publisher).
Defense attorney Tom Milton (David Strathairn) successfully argues that the prosecutor’s case against the recluse is based less on concrete evidence and more on the town’s prejudice against the recluse, despite testimony from Chase’s mother claiming that the shell necklace Chase wore every dayone that Kya personally gave himwas missing when his body was discovered and other clues such as red wool fibers found on Chase’s jacket that police linked to one of Kya’s hats.
