While investigating trails of evidence that may lead to proving Larry Hall’s guilt in Black Bird, FBI agent Lauren McCauley and Inspector Brian Miller come across some interesting pieces of information.
Lauren earlier doubted Larry’s guilt in the initial episodes, owing to him planting evidence against himself for a crime he didn’t commit. However, certain developments mixed with a series of heart-wrenching memory flashbacks say otherwise.
What did the duo learn?
Gas station
As they go over a map of the area where the police drove around searching for a body, they decide to visit the location themselves.
Larry mentioned the area in his confession, but nothing was ever found. On their excursion, Lauren and Brian come across a gas station in the middle of nowhere and decide to check it out.
They ask the employee about the history of the place. He provides them with the phone number of the manager who’s been there since the beginning, and Lauren calls him.
They learn that the place opened up in the spring of 1994, but they started construction around mid-summer of 1993 — the time when Larry supposedly committed the murders.
Both of them are shocked and come to the bitter realisation that there might be someone buried beneath the gas station.
Old tales
While Lauren converses with the manager, Brian asks the employee about vehicle repairs and constructions nearby.
He replies that there isn’t any such shop in the area but a man named John Dickey, who runs a bait shop up the road, often repairs stuff for people.
The duo heads to the bait shop and shows John a picture of Larry. He recognises the serial killer and says that he sold him parts for a vehicle once and remembered him because of his unique beard and personality.
Larry kept hanging around at his shop, but John would send him away because he would make the girls uncomfortable.
This remark attracts the officers’ attention, and on further probing, John says that Larry was infatuated with his daughter, Audrey, and he didn’t like that.
They wait for Audrey to come back from town to question her, and she confirms Larry’s creepy behaviour. She mentions that he would act weirdly in front of the girls and often want them to come to his van, which nobody did.
Finally, she adds that everything became even more creepy when he started gifting her used things like earrings, ballet flats etc.
Brian asks if she kept any of the stuff, but Audrey says that she gave it away in a lost and found sale. However, she shows them one thing she kept, and it is a mountain bike.
Correlation
Throughout the penultimate episode of Black Bird, we see memories of a mysterious girl in flashbacks. Her childhood days, visiting the beach, her initial conversations with boys and time spent with her sister.
There isn’t much context given but a conversation between Larry and Jimmy inside the jail provides a lot of information.
Jimmy finds the serial killer in the wood shop and starts talking to him. The exchange leads to Larry describing in detail how he met Jessica Roach — one of his victims.
He explains that she had a mountain bike which had a flat tire and he offered her a ride. Eventually, he ragged her with starter fluid, raped her, took her into the fields and killed her.
Jimmy is stunned at what he’s heard, and Larry makes it worse by saying that she was crying for her mommy the entire time which annoyed him.
Lastly, we get to the conclusion of the memories, and the girl is confirmed to be Jessica Roach, who receives the same bicycle as a present from her parents.
Lauren and Brian head to a lawyer, who explains to them that discovering a bike isn’t enough evidence as there is no licence plate or finger prints on it (since its been sitting there for four years).
Even though it is obvious now that Larry is guilty, it is still impossible to keep him locked up without the discovery Jessica’s body.
Also Read: What hints at Larry’s guilt in ‘Black Bird’?
