Diksha Sundriyal
In 2021’s ‘The Girl Who Got Away,’ the past comes back to haunt Christina Bowden twenty years after she survived a terrible ordeal. She is the only survivor of the serial killer, Elizabeth Caulfield, who killed four other girls over the course of five years. Christina survived out of sheer luck and built a life for herself. But now, Elizabeth has escaped from prison, and it seems that the girl who got away from her all those years will now have to fight for her survival again. What makes it even worse is that people around Christina start dying, which comes off as suspicious since none of them seem to have a connection with the serial killer. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Christina Becomes a Major Suspect in the Murders
When Elizabeth escapes, the town’s former sheriff, Gerry Bailey, assigns the current sheriff, Jamie Nwosu, to keep an eye on Christina, fearing that the killer might come back to finish off what she started. They think that Christina is the obvious target, which is why they are shocked when it turns out that the killer seems to have targeted other people. The first person to die is Tom, Christina’s ex-boyfriend, with whom she broke up because he was cheating on her. It’s not just him, but also the girl with whom he was sleeping at the time of his murder. Christina finds out about it when she visits Tom after getting a call from his concerned mother, who points out that her son has never missed a day without calling her. She worries something bad has happened to him, and turns out to be right.
The next couple to die is also related to Christina. It’s her foster parents, particularly her foster father, Terry, who used to beat her up after getting drunk. He and his wife rely on the money that comes from fostering children, which means that they want to keep the kids around even if they are not particularly good at raising them. The only child they are currently fostering is Lisa, whom Christina intends to adopt. They are killed brutally while Lisa is still in the house. When she sees them getting killed, she runs away. The next morning, there is no trace of her, which worries everyone, because it seems that the killer has taken her. However, she is eventually found dead. Evidence suggests she fell from the top of the ravine. Her death is considered an accident, believing that while running away from the killer in the dark, she wouldn’t have been able to see the drop ahead of her and fell to her death.
Christina is convinced that all these murders have been committed by Elizabeth. But Jamie wonders why Elizabeth would target people she doesn’t seem to have any connection with. It’s not that she is killing them randomly. They are all connected to Christina in one way or another, and because Elizabeth had been in prison all this time, there is no way she could have known about any of them. On top of that, Jamie also knows that Christina sleepwalks out of her house in the night, and there is no way to know where she goes. She has dirt and blood on her hands, which suggests that she may indulge in violent things. Considering that all the people who die, including the boy who was caught in the church with Lisa, are the ones with whom Christina has had some form of beef over the course of her life, it doesn’t take much to think that she might be the killer. What if sleepwalking is just an excuse for her to sneak away and kill these people, especially when she knows that a serial killer is on the loose?
Christina’s Involvement in the Murders Comes to Light
What increases the suspicion around Christina is the scene where the social worker handling Lisa’s adoption comes to Christina’s house. He confronts her about her violent past, which she tried to hide from them during the background check. At the end of the conversation, she gets up, tells the man that her name is not Christina, and then picks up the axe she’d used to vandalise her own house. The scene cuts to her digging a grave, which makes it look like she has killed the social worker and is burying his body. However, it turns out that she is digging up the real Christina’s grave, which was never found because she took Christina’s identity and never told them her real name.
It turns out that the girl everyone believed to be Christina is actually Katie, Elizabeth’s daughter. This is the piece of the puzzle that has been missing all along, and it puts everything into perspective. Before Lisa is found dead, Katie confesses to Jamie that she is the one who told Elizabeth about Tom, Terry, and Lisa. It turns out that she had been in touch with Elizabeth, visiting her in prison and writing letters to her all this time. Jamie is confused as to why she would do that, and she tries to explain it by saying that she wanted to be a good person. The truth is that, despite everything, Elizabeth was still her mother, and Katie felt like she was the one person she could turn to in times of need.
Katie didn’t think Elizabeth would actually kill anyone, especially since she was in prison. But when the bodies started to drop, she immediately regretted telling her mother about her life, especially Lisa. It turns out that Elizabeth holds Katie’s grudges and brings them to a violent end, even if Katie doesn’t really want it. This is what happened twenty years ago as well, when Katie said she wanted sisters, and her mother abducted girls and then killed them when they tried to run away. This is why Katie feels immense guilt for sharing the details of her life with Elizabeth and becoming responsible for all of their deaths, especially Lisa’s. If she’d stayed away from Elizabeth, things would never have gone this far.
Read More: Is The Little Girl Who Lived a True Story? Is The Strigoi a Real Serial Killer?
