In the end, Presumed Innocent did not land on the murder suspect with the most evidence against them, or the perpetrator from the original source material, or any of its tricksy red herrings, or even Tommy Molto’s cat. Yet in a feat of storytelling, the murderer revealed in the show’s final moments did not come entirely out of the blue. There were hints throughout the Apple TV+ legal drama that pointed in this direction, but they weren’t obvious bits of plot development or startling new pieces of evidence.
The bread crumbs left a careful system of emotional clues sitting right there on the surface, waiting for the moment their meaning would become clear. In both of the original Presumed Innocent texts, the book from 1987 and the film from 1990 , Rusty Sabich’s wife, Barbara, is revealed as the killer near the end of the story. Jealous over his affair with his colleague Carolyn, Barbara commits the murder and leaves just enough evidence at the crime scene to suggest that Rusty may have done it, although the book and film have differing interpretations of her intentions for Rusty.
But in the TV adaptation, the reveal that Barbara is the murderer is actually the show’s final misdirection. Rusty confronts his wife in the garage where she’s working out, explaining that he’s suspected her from the beginning and now has the evidence to prove it. (He tracked her car to Tommy Molto’s apartment, where the murder weapon had been planted the night before closing arguments.
