The Best 'True Detective' Theory So Far Details Two Massive Cover Ups in Season Three
In the third episode of True Detective, we watched as the investigation into the Purcell case began to turn on Hays. It's an episode that shifts the tone of the case across all three timelines. In 2015, the documentarian implies that key details of the investigation were either left out intentionally or because of incompetence. Meanwhile, in 1990, federal investigators are trying to get the “full account" and are conducting interviews to see what the prosecution or detectives left out of their initial case.
According to a new theory on Reddit, these concerns about the investigation being compromised are because of two massive cover ups and a huge conspiracy. It begins with the Purcell children wanting to run away from an abusive home life and end up being abducted by a powerful local business owner.
There are two cover ups at play, one in 1980, and another in 1990.
Will and Julie planned to run away the day they went missing. They went to meet an older person who was grooming Julie for abduction. Will was secondary, Julie was their main target. My main suspect is the wife of the chicken plant owner, who lost her daughter. The portrait in the office shows a woman holding a blonde child. She may have used surrogates. I believe she is the white woman seen in a brown sedan with a black man the day the kids went missing.
Why run away? The creepy-cousin-uncle molested Julie. Will found out. The parents either acted like it didn't happen, or didn't believe her, or didn't know. In any case, Julie doesn't feel safe and loved in her own home. Will and Julie plan to run away. At some point they begin meeting with a stranger in the woods. Stranger buys them toys, plays games with them, and promises Julie someday she'll get married and she'll be taken away from all the pain at home. She starts drawing wedding pictures. I suspect the notes are from Will, passed through the peephole, promising to always protect his sister.
Chicken magnate goes on extended safari right before halloween. Julie receives the dolls on halloween. Julie talks with her abductors on halloween. A week later she is missing. Julie, on the day she goes missing, asks her dad when mom will be home. She most likely feels bad that she wont be able to say goodbye.
This is when the initial cover-up of the crime takes place in 1980:
The chicken magnates aren't part of a pedo ring, they only abducted the one child, Julie. The dolls are red herrings planted by the perps to make it seem like a cult thing. Purple remarks that the dolls seemed like they were staged, so he could find Will's body. Maybe Will fought back when they tried taking his sister. Maybe he tried running away and telling someone and accidentally died. Maybe they killed him to cover their ass.
The charity from the chicken plant puts a reward out. Hays and West are blindsided by it. One of their higher ups was contacted by the charity, gave it the go ahead, and didn't tell their lead detectives. Locals claim to never be interviewed by police. A single detective/prosecutor talks to the old man in the farmhouse, doesn't file reports, and possibly takes evidence from the house to cover his tracks. All signs point to the head prosecutor bungling the case intentionally. He does so to rise through the ranks and become state prosecutor, due to his chicken magnate benefactors that he is covering for. The other prosecutor deposing Hayes and West is suspect as well.
While a lot of this is pretty vague, it does make sense that this case alluded investigators for so long because it was being compromised by someone on the inside. Although, it would be surprising that an investigator as competent as Hays wouldn't notice that some foul play was afoot.
This brings us to the second cover-up in 1990:
Amelia and Purple track down Julie through her prints at the walgreens. She is still alive. She didn't rob the store, she was there as a regular customer. She somehow escaped or was let go by her captors. Purple finds her and she tells him everything. How the people who took her are very powerful, and she just wants to live her life and be left alone. She is probably married with kids and doesn't want to drag them into her horrible past. Purple starts covering up all the clues that led him to her, and sabotaging the reopened investigation.
Now, this would be an interesting twist-that Hays intentionally sabotaged the second investigation to protect Julie. However, it wouldn't really track with Hays's personality that he wouldn't want to see this big conspiracy pedophile ring be taken down.
Finally we get back to 2015:
2015 Hayes does the interview with the journalist to see if they are close to finding Julie, to "see what they know". He's protecting Julie by trying to throw them off the trail. He keeps his gun in order to commit suicide in case he messes up, or feels like he cant trust himself anymore. He claims he will kill himself if put in a home, because he might lose his faculties and reveal info that leads to Julie. He makes recordings of his own voice so he can keep his story straight, and to make sure he doesn't reveal to much info. (Side theory: Hayes fakes memory problems in 1990, but they become real in old age. Reminded me of Junior Soprano.)
I think Amelia wanted to out the powerful people through her book, and Purple was against it. He knew how the system worked and that they were outgunned. This is what leads to the breakdown of their marriage. Possibly also leading to his fallout with his daughter. She may remember her parents fighting constantly about the case, the drinking, the sullen absent father, the mother who seems to delight in working on such a morbid book, possibly running around on her dad. Amelia shows alot of signs of sociopathy, using Hayes and other detectives for her own pleasure. She seems to love the case more than she loves her husband.
I think Purple may have stalked and hunted the chicken magnate, while the chicken man was hunting. He goes into the woods and comes back out with scalps. Purple kills him and destroys the evidence. Purple does so to protect Amelia, his kids, and Julie. He covers it all up.
Now this is an interesting theory-one that resolves my issues with the 1990 cover-up. As we've already seen in this season, Hays and his partner are known to take the law into their own hands. If Hays does indeed kill the kidnapper on his own, it would explain why he's still trying to throw investigators off even in 2015.
('You Might Also Like',)
