"Do you feel any kind of closure? I don’t," Roland West tells Wayne Hays halfway through the finale of True Detective Season Three.
This comes right after West and Hays visit Junius Watts in 2015. The two former cops have spent most of their lives looking for a one-eyed man they believe to be intimately connected to the murder of Will Purcell and the disappearance of Julie Purcell. This man has alluded them throughout the different phases of this 35-year investigation.
When they finally track him down in 2015, here's the story they learn:
Isabel Hoyt—the daughter of the powerful local businessman—fell into a deep depression after the death of her family. One day, Isabel saw Julie Purcell at a Hoyt company picnic and thought the girl reminded her of her dead daughter. Watts decided it might be good for Isabel to spend some time with the girl since it seemed to cheer her up. Lucy Purcell wanted money if Isabel was going to play with Julie. So, for a time, the Hoyt family paid Lucy Purcell to let Isabel play with both Julie and her brother Will. One day, during one of those play dates in the woods, Isabel pushed Will and accidentally killed him. Watts worked to cover it up—telling Julie her brother was fine and taking Will's body into the woods where he placed him in a peaceful pose. Watts and Isabel took Julie back to the Hoyt estate, where she appeared to be happy living under lock and key with a new family. Meanwhile, Watts called upon a police officer named Harris James to place evidence at Brett Woodard's house explosion to frame him as the murderer.
Julie lived with Isabel for the next ten years—and appeared to be happy until Watts realised that Isabel had been drugging the girl with lithium to keep her docile and at ease. So, he helped her escape. He left the door open and gave her a map to meet him at a safe house. But she never made it to where she was supposed to meet him and ended up on the streets for the next decade. Eventually, she went to live at a local convent, where she was happy for a time until she eventually died of AIDS in 1995, which she had picked up while on the streets. After the escape, Isabel killed herself by overdosing on her medication.
It's a tragic story. And this is what Watts tells Hays and West when they visit him in 2015.
But the story wasn't over yet. And if we've learned anything from True Detective Season Three, it's that there are multiple versions of the truth.
Back at home, Hays finds a page in Amelia's book describing a boy in Julie's class named Mike Ardoin, who was deeply affected by her disappearance. Reading this, Hays remembers a man they ran into back at the convent and puts it all together. What if the nuns knew people were after Julie so they concocted the story of her death in case anyone came looking for her? What really happened, we find out, was that Mike recognised her when he was working at the convent. The two fell in love and lived happily ever after.
So, 2015 Hays finds Ardoin's address and drives to a house where a blonde mother and her daughter are working in the garden. Unfortunately, when Hays arrives, he forgets why he's there and has a casual conversation with the mother, and her daughter Lucy, until his son comes to pick him up.
That scene—bathed in light surrounded by light and happiness—is the closest the Purcell story gets to a happy ending. But we still don't have confirmation that this woman is in fact Julie Purcell. At the end, we see Hays's son take the address for this woman and put it in his pocket—a hint that he might continue the search for truth.
And while that is the satisfying ending that we can choose to believe, there are still a number of questions remaining in this story. Who killed Lucy Purcell and her cousin Dan? Was Hoyt or Harris behind these murders? If Harris didn't kill Lucy Purcell, does that mean West and Hays killed an innocent man (or at least a man who participated in covering up a murder but who was not actually a murderer himself)?
And what did Hoyt know? After Hays takes a ride with him in the beginning of the episode, Hoyt claims to not know what happened in that part of his estate. One would imagine that Hoyt would be aware that his money and power was being used to cover up decades of crime.
What is clear is how many people failed Julie Purcell: Her parents, the Hoyts, West, Hays, Watts, the justice system, etc., etc. Decades of people trying to hide the truth nearly ruined this woman's life and tragically cut short the life of her brother.
In the end, this was a story about the meaning and power of the truth. Hoyt's power and money spent 35 years hiding the truth. West and Hays sacrificed decades of their lives—and even became killers—to hide the truth. The truth is what tore apart Wayne and Amelia's marriage. But if we're to believe the narrative of Julie's happy ending, a lie is what kept the woman safe to live her life in peace.
Matt Miller is a Brooklyn-based culture/lifestyle writer and music critic whose work has appeared in Esquire, Forbes, The Denver Post, and documentaries.
